HEYER SAGA:

LIVE AND LEARN Volume II Robin S. Heyer 2013

DEDICATION

To those who have cleared the way; To those who have shared the journey; To those embarked or now embarking on the way; and To those yet to trod the path.

Heyer Saga
VOLUME II: LIVE AND LEARN

ROBIN S. HEYER 2013

CONTENTS
PROLOGUE: LIVE AND LEARN ........................................................ i CHAPTER 1: EARLY AND MIDDLE CHILDHOOD ............................ 1 CHAPTER 2: LATE CHILDHOOD ................................................... 17 CHAPTER 3: MAN AND BOY .......................................................... 43 CHAPTER 4: COLLEGE .................................................................. 93 CHAPTER 5: CUPID'S ARROW ...................................................... 99 CHAPTER 6: TEACHING .............................................................. 105 CHAPTER 7: MILITARY SERVICE ................................................ 111 CHAPTER 8: BACK TO FONTANA ............................................... 128 CHAPTER 9: PRACTICE OF LAW ................................................ 137 CHAPTER 10: END OF THE DREAM ........................................... 148 CHAPTER 11: RIDING CIRCUIT 1 ................................................ 151 CHAPTER 12: RIDING CIRCUIT 2 ................................................ 153 CHAPTER 13: RIDING CIRCUIT 3 ................................................ 167 CHAPTER 14: RIDING CIRCUIT 4 ................................................ 183 CHAPTER 15: RIDING CIRCUIT 5 ................................................ 195 CHAPTER 16: INVESTING ........................................................... 197 CHAPTER 17: OTHER WHIMSIES ............................................... 204 CHAPTER 18: CONTINUING THE SEARCH ................................ 212 CHAPTER 19: HOW BIOLOGY AROSE ON EARTH .................... 221 CHAPTER 20: CALIFORNIA AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION................................................. 225 CHAPTER 21: TRULY GREAT U.S. PRESIDENTS ...................... 231 CHAPTER 22: NEAR GREAT U.S. PRESIDENTS ........................ 261 CHAPTER 23: THREE STATE GOVERNORS AND A U.S. SENATOR............................................................... 270 CHAPTER 24: SHAKESPEARE AND THE LAWYERS ................. 275

CHAPTER 25: WORLD PEACE THROUGH LAW ......................... 279 CHAPTER 26: WISDOM? ........................................................... 287 CHAPTER 27: MISCELLANEOUS ................................................ 295 CHAPTER 28: FAMILY .................................................................. 301 ROSES MEMORIES ................................................................. 323 DIANAS MEMORIES ................................................................ 339 CINDYS MEMORIES ................................................................ 361 JEFFS MEMORIES ................................................................... 377 JULES MEMORIES................................................................... 427 NONAS MEMORIES ................................................................. 455 THELMA'S MEMORIES ............................................................. 489 EPILOGUE: A SUMMARY ............................................................. 519 APPENDIX A. EARLY INCOME DATA .......................................... 531 APPENDIX B. GERMAN SONGS OF THE FAMILY ...................... 533 APPENDIX C. PLACES IVE LIVED .............................................. 537 APPENDIX D. TO A MOUSE ......................................................... 539 APPENDIX E. LADLE RAT ROTTEN HUT .................................... 541 APPENDIX F. MOTHER, MAY I GO OUT TO SWIM? ................... 545 APPENDIX G. A VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS.............................. 549 APPENDIX H. JEFFS ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY RESUME . 551 APPENDIX I. DADS CARTOONS ................................................. 553 APPENDIX J. DADS ARTWORK .................................................. 557

Heyer Saga

PROLOGUE: LIVE AND LEARN

Life is largely a journey of discovery. Of course, it is also an adventure, and involves risks and trials, relationships, sometimes romance, multiple emotions, attractions, beauty, joy, struggle, and other aspects. But here let us examine the journey of discovery. We are born knowing nothing and having few abilities. Unconsciously we can usually digest food, produce and use energy, remove waste from inside the body, and grow. At the edge of consciousness we can suckle, raise our heads when on the stomach, move our muscles (mostly in an uncoordinated way), and communicate through at least four distinct kinds of cry, built into us. We can only experience what we sense, without understanding. The rest is all yet to come. We start our separate (post-birth) lives with senses to detect sound, light, pain, pressure, hunger, gravity, heat, cold, and probably tastes and odors of various kinds, but initially are unaware of the meaning or relevance of any of these. We learn early to track with our eyes, to feel roughness or smoothness, later to reach, still later to manipulate, and go on to learn to sit, stand, balance, walk, and finally talk. But normally we cannot later recall this part of life, as growth, increasing maturity of parts of the body, and practice enable us gradually to master a rising number of skills. Of this time, we can only recall what we have been told about it. At first, everything is new and surprising, but as we begin to form some preliminary ideas about reality, then only those discoveries which reach outside those ideas are any surprise, and we become accustomed to constantly making new discoveries, as mobility, language, curiosity, and experience constantly bring new information and sensations. Later, as we begin to form a reasonable picture of reality, the surprises become less frequent, because we can begin to foresee, so that new discoveries fit neatly with what we have already experienced. Yet reality is too complex to be fully comprehended. A mind cannot i

Heyer Saga comprehend a reality greater than itself; it hasnt enough parts. We therefore always continue to discover surprises, especially if we look for them. Reality has a range of surprises beyond our ability to exhaust. New discoveries are always occurring, and almost always a source of satisfaction to come. So it has been with me, and I presume most others. So I choose to tell of it, for whatever interest it may have. Writing about oneself seems rather self-centered and presumptuous; everyone has a life story, so why foist one persons story on another? Also, I find it harder to settle down and write this than other subjects of more general interest. Yet each period of time has its own features, some of which continue into the next period, but others of which change or pass away altogether. Knowing of anothers time may sometimes help to gain perspective on ones own. Benjamin Franklin wrote an autobiography ostensibly as an example to his son, but my project is not meant as an example to anyone. Each person must choose a path best for that person. No one, regardless of opinions held, can know, as much about what is needed for another than that other, if that other has normal intelligence and is fully-grown. We each must choose; mistakes occurI have certainly made more than my share of thembut mistakes are a universal part of human life. As time passes, we slowly pick up experiences and correlate them to yield recognition and familiarities. Later, sitting, standing, walking, and language come, and memories. My mother told me that I spoke my first word at seven months of age, but after watching three generations begin their lives and progress to adulthood, I do not believe that. Fourteen to twenty months seem more likely for the earliest stages of language, such as babbling, first use of typical sentence intonation and rhythm, then early words and phrases, before fully formed, grammatical sentences. Diana tells me that at birth the structure of human babies throats is such that they could not speak even if they knew how. The abilities to suckle and breathe simultaneously are apparently more important at that ii

Heyer Saga stage. Only a bit later does the structure change enough to permit speech to begin. In other respects, too, continuous physical maturation also plays a role along with learning. I should also mention that, while I have many fond, cute, or poignant memories of my siblings, wife, children, cousins, and grandchildren, about whom I am tempted to brag, a younger person might differently perceive what is cute or poignant to an old man. Therefore, it seems best to leave the stories of the survivors to their own telling, and limit my part of the history to my ancestors and my own environment and experiences.

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Heyer Saga

CHAPTER 1: EARLY AND MIDDLE CHILDHOOD

A. Earliest Memories: 1929-1933 a. Hearsay I was born at a hospital in Los Angeles on November 10, 1929, just thirteen days after the great stock market Crash in October, which was by far the most severe market crash in US history to that time, and was followed by the three worst years economically in American history, as well as for much of the world, because the United States already then had had the leading economy of the world for a generation. (The Dow Industrial Average fell from over 150 points nearly down to 40 points by July 1930!) According to a story my mother told me, my father had lent Uncle Don, his employer and older brother, $100 to help in the struggling Johnson Tool Works, resulting in inability of my parents to pay immediately the full hospital and medical expenses of birth care. She said that the hospital resisted letting her take me with her when leaving the hospital at the end of the usual ten days of hospitalization after childbirth in those days in that community. I do not recall anything further. This sounds like unlawful detention (hostage-taking) to me, and may be an exaggeration, since the story did not include a description of the resolution of the dispute. Still, it seems clear that she was unhappy about the loan, and always handled the family money after that. She also told me that I first spoke at seven months of age and that my first word was "heiss", German for "hot", because of warnings she had given me about touching the stove. After observing a cousin, my siblings, my own children, and my grandchildren as infants, I do not believe that I could have spoken that early. Parents are tuned in to any sound that an infant makes that might resemble a real word, and rejoice when they think they hear it. This tendency is useful, because it provides encouragement to the infant to repeat the sound that produced such a favorable response, whether or not Chapter 1, page 1

Heyer Saga the original version was really intended to represent that word. Hence an accidental sound, perhaps misconstrued, may seem like a word months before any real word mastery occurs. The 1930 census shows my parents and me living in an "apartment" in Los Angeles, but is inaccurate by a few months as to my age. The nearby neighbors mentioned in that census report imply that they were mostly Armenians or Turks. Perhaps that is why mother frequently insisted that I eat all my supper or she would give the food to the starving Armenians. (On the other hand, a recent book about the Caucasus reports that many American mothers in the 1920s and 1930s used this technique.) (When I was a small child, my appetite was small, so I would have gladly said OK to giving the food away, but I did not believe she really had that in mind.) I was then not aware of whom the starving Armenians were, but the reference arose from the suffering of Armenians living within the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire during World War I. (The English in that war had worked to stir up the Christian Armenians in that empire to rebel against the Muslim Ottomans; with the result that the Ottomans drove most of the Armenians out of what is now Turkey into the deserts of northern Syria, then another part of the Ottoman Empire. These events did lead to starvation and heavy loss of life. Some Armenians survived in an adjacent corner of Russia, where others were invited to come. That area is the Armenia of today.) My surname Heyer is of course inherited in accordance with West European custom of the last millennium. My middle name, Sheldon, is the male version of the first or given name of my godmother, whose name, as far as I can recall, was Selda Anthony, but I am not sure whether that was her birth name or her married name. My first name, Robin, is a name seen in British history, but I know neither whether it was originally English or from an earlier ethnic group on the Island, nor the specific reason for its choice. I had no nickname that I recall until after half of my grandchildren were born.

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Heyer Saga b. Earliest Recollections The first home I remember was in what was then southwest Los Angeles, east of Inglewood, but I do not remember the address. Expansion of Los Angeles later moved the western border of that city much farther west, around Inglewood on three sides. The outside walls of that first residence were covered with dusty, yellowish clapboard (horizontal, overlapping, shaped boards, painted, and about 1.5-2 inches wide). It was divided into two parts (perhaps half had been added some time after the original construction), each occupied by a different family. It had an offset of one or two inches between the two sections of the long sidewall (which I once discovered walking by the side of the house), probably where the two sections of the house met, and had a roofed, wooden front porch with a wooden railing. Such a dwelling would later be known as a duplex, but I did not hear that word until after 1945. Hence I infer that our portion of that building was the apartment to which the census report referred. I think I recall sitting on my mother's lap, at the age of two or three, with her in a smooth-surfaced (silk or satin?), dark blue dress with white polka dots about a quarter of an inch in diameter. Because we have a picture of this arrangement with that dress, perhaps my "memory" is only based on seeing the picture, but of course the picture had no such texture, and was not in color. I do not recall sitting on a lap on any other occasion. Presumably this was in a photographers studio. I do recall a few events when I was just three years old, mostly learning things by surprise. On these occasions the age at the time was part of the memory. In one event I was on the front porch of that Los Angeles clapboard house, playing quietly by myself. The weather was pleasant but unremarkable. The children of the other family living in the building were also playing on the porch, without interacting with me. They were older than I, and seemed to me huge and nearly grown: Leonard, age eight, and Judith, five years old! They were playing with Leonard's small snake. It bit Chapter 1, page 3

Heyer Saga Judith's finger, which made her cry. I still remember my astonishment that such a "big" person would cry, when I, a three-year-old, had been taught not to do so! On another occasion, I was introduced to a man whom I had not seen before. As is common in such conversations, he asked me how old I was. My father had earlier told me (probably on my third birthday) that I was now "three". I recalled that information, at the time of the question, and could count, but somehow the concept of what units this number was counting was not yet clear, and I did not have a concept of months or years. Thinking, for whatever reason, that it must be counting days, which I did understand, and knowing that quite a number of uncounted days had passed since my information about being "three" had been imparted, my answer was that the number was so many that I couldn't recall how many. My father then said, "He's three." I was chagrined! After that, I was aware that age is measured in longer periods, distinguished by birthdays. The precise length was still unknown. That year our household moved, but I do not remember the move itself. Thus, still at the age of three years, I found myself in a smaller, single-family frame house, which my parents rented on a side street (Fir Avenue) in southwest Inglewood. My recollections on its location conflict slightly with each other, so there is some error there. My grandmother, Llewellyn Heyer, lived in a larger house with a good-sized yard, on Arbor Vitae Street a larger, more heavily trafficked, east-west street, almost like a highway, except for its relative shortness. Oak Street intersected Arbor Vitae not too far from her property. The back yard of our home faced her back yard. Whatever may have been the precise geographic relationship, the properties touched, so she and I could see each other at times from our respective yards, where we both spent considerable time, she gardening and I playing. She was always warm to me, and occasionally offered me cookies, which of course I accepted. My mother objected to this, and on one occasion made some unkind comment on the unhealthiness of the Chapter 1, page 4

Heyer Saga cookies, but I was (and remain) unconvinced. I suffered from allergic asthma, which in those days was assumed to arise from foods, but I never had an allergic reaction to those snacks. (My allergies were later more accurately linked to air-borne pollens, animal dandruff, and other non-food sources.) Early in our residence there, my father brought home a small, black and white puppy one evening after work. It was identified as a wire-haired terrier, but did not look like any terrier I've ever seen in a book. It was a mutt, as were all pet dogs I knew of before the 1970's. Father placed the puppy in a corner of the kitchen floor, fixed a bed for it, put down food and water for it, and, when it seemed to go immediately to sleep, said, in a loud voice, "SLEEPY". Ever after, that was the dog's name. I enjoyed playing with that little dog (it never did grow very large, perhaps Fluffy's size), but I never taught it any tricks. (Fluffy, as my children know, was a puppy given to Diana years later by a friend.) At a later time, my parents decided we should not have a dog, whether because of expense, inconvenience, or allergy I do not know. They told me it had to go, and took the dog away. I said nothing, but a day or two later they brought it back, saying they could not bear my look when they had taken it away. I had not been aware that I had shown any detectible expression. Probably at around the same age or a little earlier, I remember sitting in a room alone at night, on a small child chair, when I heard a strange, unrecognized, deep-toned whistle, which seemed a ghostly sound, making me uneasy. I looked around, satisfied myself that no one and nothing visible was there, and then realized that the sound was coming from me! Feeling no physical distress, I therefore decided there was no danger, and relaxed. It is my earliest recalled asthmatic wheeze. (I have no specific recollection of the age at that time, only what can be inferred from use of the small child chair.) On other occasions, my mother enclosed me in a little, temporary, artificial space set off by cloth, to keep in the fumes of a heated, smelly Chapter 1, page 5

Heyer Saga substance (menthol), and at times she used to smear my chest with Vicks Vapo-Rub. Presumably that also was meant to relieve asthmatic distress, but I did not like the smell or the sense of enclosure. I do not have independent memory of other wheezing or chest constriction associated with those procedures in early childhood, but on later occasions there were bouts of labored breathing, and for those I never wanted blankets or anything over my head or hands. Having hands or face covered produced a sense of panic. Perhaps that reaction arose from the occasional breathing problems, which probably also contributed to a later recognized degree of claustrophobia, even felt on rare occasions in adulthood. The only toys I recall from early childhood included plain, cubic wooden blocks with faintly printed letters, numbers, and pictures in faded red lines; a faded red, wooden car cut from a block of wood about an inch or two thick, shaped only by two saw cuts, making the hood portion lower than the roof (with wooden wheels about like a plain red checker); and a small tricycle suitable for a small child to ride in a cramped kitchen). B. Middle Childhood: 1933-1936 a. Inglewood (Part I)

A neighbor child in the new Inglewood location mentioned above was Bobby Lanessa, who was older and more experienced than I (he was six years old when I was five). He frequently visited and played with me from when I was about five years old and until we moved away from that house. We often played "Jim and Bill", a fantasy adventure team (I was Jim, he was Bill) which I made up, as we explored, battled imaginary monsters, visited strange places, etc., rather like the radio adventurers whose exploits began about the time that children came home from elementary school (such as Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy; Jack, Doc, and Reggy; King of the Royal Mounties; and, in the evening, the Lone Ranger, the Green Hornet (a masked hero who protected the downtrodden), and others).

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Heyer Saga Bobby introduced me to the edible qualities of "sour grass" (Oxalis), which grew in both our yards. I did not partake, considering the practice of eating plants directly from the ground without washing as unsanitary. He warned me not to throw sticks or shoot toy arrows (with rubber suction-cup tips), lest they "stick in God's eye." I did not comment, but I was not convinced that he had that right. We continued best friends while I lived in that house, and got together once, a year after the next move, but somehow it was not quite the same anymore. Either there or at our next house, I frequently wore hats. Aviator hats with goggles were common apparel on the way to kindergarten. There was also a navy blue cap with a bill, probably representing a naval officer's cap, which I wore frequently. Once I forgot to bring it in the house at the end of a day, leaving it outside overnight. Seeing it the next morning, I popped it on my head, only to feel a strange sensation on my head. Removal of the cap revealed a "Jerusalem cricket", which looks like a giant ant, a half-inch thick and 1.5 inches long. I don't think I wore that hat again. With certain exceptions (in Scouting and the Army), I did not wear hats after that until after I retired. b. Environment

In those days, most women stayed at home during weekdays, especially if they had children. Despite President Hoover's promise of a chicken in every pot and two cars in every garage, most people in the country did not have even one car, and many lived on beans and potatoes, with no meat at all. Military-draft medical examinations later revealed that a large part of the population was inadequately nourished, especially in the southeastern part of the country. Los Angeles County already had more automobiles than any whole state in the country (outside California), even though only about a million or so people lived in L. A. city, out of 130 million people in the nation. Yet I never met or heard of anyone with more than one car in a household during my childhood.

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Heyer Saga With women at home, many salesmen and service people went the rounds of residential neighborhoods like ours. The milkman came every morning, to bring milk, cream, and other dairy products, usually with a standard order, so many quarts, etc. (no half-gallon bottles in those days.) He came early, before most people were up, and delivered in a little, square vehicle that might now be called a small van, but in those days it was called a "delivery truck". The milk was delivered in a distinctively shaped, round glass quart bottle with a neck narrow enough with a stiff, one-inch cardboard stopper, which was waxed to prevent soaking or evaporation. The cardboard was made by lamination, and the top layer had a curved tab cut in it, which could be pried up and used as a handle to remove the stopper for pouring the milk. A small metal staple at the base of the tab usually kept the tab from tearing off in use, but the tab was thin, so it sometimes did tear off. We also had an icebox to retard food spoilage. It was a vertical, shellacked but unpainted wood-and-metal box with rubber closing fixtures for insulation on the door. Storage space may have been about the size of the ice block mentioned below, so not much could be kept in it but milk, mixed margarine (see below), meat for that evening, cheese, and some carrots and lettuce. Shopping for perishables had to be frequent. The only commercially preserved foods that I recall, except jams and jellies, were canned. Commercially canned vegetables were common (and necessary in winter), but their taste was unimpressive. Many people still did their own preserving of food, in bottles with lids rather than cans, but often with disastrous results if the food was an ordinary vegetable instead of acidic fruit. Inexact heating and closure of home-preserved vegetables resulted in periodic reports of deaths from botulism, a serious disease caused by a bacterial toxin. Cooling of the ice-box was accomplished simply by placing a large block of ice, say 12"x12"x16", in an upper compartment (which I believe consisted of a metal box inside the upper compartment of the wooden whole). The air cooled by the ice would fall, cooling the food below. The

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Heyer Saga block would melt in a few days, and need replacement. There was a drain to a pan for the melt water, which had to be removed by hand as it accumulated. The iceman came regularly to replace the ice, in a large, squarish truck, much larger than the milk truck, and with the driver's cab separated by a partition from the closed truck bed full of ice, in contrast to the milk truck, which had no inner partition. The iceman could also deliver other items, such as butter, margarine, and similar things requiring refrigeration, which were kept with the ice. Because ice melts at different speeds in different weather, the customer was provided with a stiff yellow card, about 10 inches on a side, which would be placed in the window if a delivery was desired. Different orientations of the card signaled orders for different things. The iceman usually wore no shirt, but instead wore a thick leather (or rubber?) pad over one shoulder. He was usually large and muscular, and would pick up a block of ice with his tongs, throw it on the protected shoulder, and trudge to the house. While he was away from the truck, or as he started to drive off, small boys would rush out and pilfer (or glean) from the truck bed small chips of ice that had broken off during handling. These were considered great treats to suck. To save money, we used oleomargarine as a spread. The dairy industry of course tried to hamper margarine sales. One tactic was based on the argument that the public would be fooled by margarine colored to look like butter (despite prominent and clear labels). The dominant rural counties of California in the state senate (and in most states) helped the dairy industry lobbyists, and state law therefore forbade the sale of yellow margarine, even if so labeled. Margarine was therefore sold as white blocks, about four inches long, and one inch thick and wide, four to a waxed-cardboard box (about a pound in weight). Included in the box was a little paper packet, a bit thinner than a tea bag, containing what looked like red powder.

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Heyer Saga Mother would unwrap the blocks (they were wrapped in paper within the box), put the blocks in a large bowl, kneaded them to soften them, tear open the packet of coloring material, dump it onto the mass of oleomargarine, and then mix the reddish-looking powder with the margarine, kneading it in until the color was a smooth yellow. I do not recall when the law changed and this chore could be skipped, but it went on for at least a number of years, throughout my childhood. The scissors man also came around, less frequently, to sharpen any household tool blade, whether knife, lawnmower blades, saw teeth, sickle, scythe, hoe, etc., as well as scissors. Frequently occasional salesmen came, house to house, to sell magazine subscriptions, life insurance, encyclopedias, kitchen utensils, Fuller brushes, vacuum cleaners, etc. The Avon lady (cosmetics and skin care) had her origin in this milieu. Rarely, a farmer would come with a full-sized truckload of fresh vegetables to the neighborhood. At that time we had a Bissell "carpet sweeper", a flat, wheeled box, with a long, broom-like handle, open to the bottom, so that cylindrical brushes, turned by the turning of the wheeled axles when the carpet sweeper was pushed, would collect loose dust. It was not very efficient at cleaning, but it used only human, not electrical, power. (It was used mostly on wood or linoleum, useless on rugs.) The only plastic I saw was celluloid, used mainly for dials, which were clear when new, but soon turned a brownish yellow on radios and other devices that heat up. Rayon existed, a product of Du Pont Chemical Co., and a little later nylon fibers and fabrics for stockings, sails, and parachutes. Although the idea of plastic was a generation old, it was otherwise not in evidence in my milieu. Rubber, imported from what is now Malaysia (then a British colony, was used in many products that today would be plastic, such as telephone housings, automobile steering wheels, etc. This was a very hard rubber, firm to the touch, thick, and strong.

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Heyer Saga Auto bodies were then still made of steel (not plastic), and dents were easily reparable by any adult male of common sense with due care by a few well-placed strokes of a ball-peen hammer. Auto prices were perhaps a few percent of the cost of todays low-cost vehicles, less than $1,000 new, stronger and far less expensive to maintain proportionately, but they were heavy and hence achieved only low gasoline mileage. I do not recall the cost of gasoline in my childhood, but I do recall that in my early adulthood the price of crude oil was $3 per barrel (later, in the year 2008, it rose above $100 per barrel, and obviously will again.). My fathers car throughout that part of my childhood that I recall was a 1931 Chevrolet sedan. He made various repairs on it from time to time, changed and repaired tires as needed, and had to replace at least two back axles (that broke). He kept that vehicle until 1948, when automobiles could again be made after World War II. Most vehicles on the road were used, repaired, and driven for many years (as in many countries today). Our radio was small, a bit over a foot high and a little less wide and deep. We could receive only a few stations, as the communication sources were called then (channel was not then used for that idea), including KNX, KFI, KHJ, and KFWB reasonably well, two or three others only at times and poorly. There were three nationwide radio networks. All US radio stations used either K or W as the first letter of their call signal, by international agreement. Other nations used other call letters. That system is still standard worldwide. Television was a subject of experiment, but not yet a commercial product, at least in most of the nation. On our radio, change of station was accomplished with one dial, volume with another, and pitch with a third. Voices could only be understood if the pitch was at the extreme treble setting. Radio programs sometimes had live audiences, and used simple mechanical means for making sound effects, such as shaking an inflated balloon with some sand in it for thunder, explosions, etc., striking inside a flat wooden box for the sound of footsteps or horses hooves, etc. The

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Heyer Saga sounds made by these devices were collectively called Foley effects; giving rise to a character in a more recent TV series (Remember WENN) named Foley because his role was that of an old radio sound-effects man). Radio programs (not shows because they could not be seen over the radio) usually lacked music, except for an organ giving them theme music unique to each program series, singing commercials, and rare programs that actually featured music, generally on weekend evenings. Most daytime radio programs had only two or three actors, lasted fifteen minutes, and had theme music briefly at the beginning, a brief commercial (as a short slogan or song, mostly), and might be a soap opera (a romance drama sponsored by a soap company), a comedy featuring two or three actors, often doing more than one voice-character each, or a childs program after school hours. Much of the afternoon time was devoted to interminable male monologues, supposedly informative but actually aimed at presenting commercials for newer products and seeming to keep the housewife from feeling alone while preparing supper and other late-afternoon chores. Shopping malls and supermarkets were unknown in Inglewood, although a few large grocery markets and department stores existed in Los Angeles. We went to one weekly a little later. Mostly people relied on small neighborhood markets, such as one two blocks from us. It had a butcher with a meat counter, limited canned vegetables, a few loaves of bread, and a small and limited range of other small products. Almost no stores, other business outlets for public use, or offices of government of any size were allowed to be open on Sundays, except emergency services such as police and fire departments and hospitals. Because husbands in Los Angeles County normally drove to work in the family automobile, if any, major or specialty shopping could only occur on Saturdays. Father worked full shifts Monday through Friday each week, and half or full day (depending on need at the shop) on Saturdays during my childhood. Thus weekly shopping, including major groceries, clothing,

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Heyer Saga and household objects, occurred later on Saturday afternoons or early Saturday evenings. Later that also included my spending my weekly dime allowance on childrens books, bags of used postage stamps for collections, model-making kits (usually balsa wood), punch-out leaflets (perforated pictures on stiff paper or cardboard, that could be removed without use of scissors in theory, though in practice, these had to be cut with scissors to avoid tearing), and small toys available for a nickel or a dime. Occasionally, mother did go to stores during the week, taking me along (we never had babysitters). Since the car was at fathers work during the day, we went by bus, foot, or streetcar (a light rail system powered by electricity carried through overhead electric wires). This usually was a case of mothers wanting to get clothing or some household objects. She also subscribed to several magazines. At infrequent times, our family went to movie theaters. The presentation for an evening show would typically include a double feature, consisting of two full-length films, with a few short films sandwiched between the two main films. These short items might include a newsreel (a sort of short magazine-style-article narration of the scene of some showy event, such as a royal coronation or other procession, a public celebration somewhere, the christening of a great ship, etc.), an animated cartoon by Disney, Hanna Berra, etc., a brief skit by some aging and well-known comedy actor like Ed Wynn (father of Keenan Wynn), Bert Lahr (later the Cowardly Lion in the Land of Oz), Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, etc., or some other simple, quick, light comedy bit. For example, in one an artist drops and scatters paint from a ladder top onto a huge sheet of plywood, saws the sheet into multiple sections of suitable display size with a power saw along straight lines, piles them in a small motor boat, buzzes across a small lake or good-sized river, and sells them to a dealer in the city as modern art. (The actors were all real people, not cartoons, but I do not recall any actual lines or words being said in that episode.)

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Heyer Saga A patron could buy popcorn, candy, or soft drinks from a counter in the lobby before, after, or during any part of show time, but would be expelled for any raucous or other annoying noise or misbehavior, even the enthusiastic response of a toddler to the show. c. Brother Terry is born - 1935

While we lived in that Fir Avenue house, my brother Terry was born on January 14, 1935, at the local hospital in or near Inglewood, California. At the age of five years, I did not yet understand how to interact with a newborn. d. Household Adaptations for the new child

Father, on his own initiative and at his own expense, added a service porch for the clothes-washing machine onto the back of the tiny house where we lived. Disposable diapers were not widely used in those days, and discarding was not feasible for most people in that economic time. Rectangular diapers were folded into a simple triangular shape. The mother or other caretaker with the aid of the ubiquitous safety pins, a copy of the ancient Roman fibula, did further shaping. The washing machine had a wringer on top, consisting of two rubber cylinders mounted horizontally. The clothes were put through the wringer by inserting them, one by one, between the cylinders. A crank originally turned the wringer, though later by an electric motor which was easier to use but more dangerous--a hand could easily get caught by the cylinders. The turning of the crank drew the clothing between the cylinders, squeezing out the water. The clothes were then hung in the sun to dry on a cotton "clothesline" rope, a quarter-inch thick, from crossbars on the tops of two poles.) After the extra room was completed, the landlord raised the rent, on the basis that the extra room increased the value of the house. My parents then decided to move.

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Heyer Saga I recall Father showing me how a few wooden blocks could cover more space and allow building larger projects by separating the blocks in the bottom row and placing the next tier over the empty spaces, and so on until the blocks were all used. e. Motor Vehicles

In the 1930s automobiles were built so that the chassis was all above the axles, and thus far enough from the ground to clear the irregular surfaces over which autos often had to go, and this helped prevent any water flooding in the streets during heavy rains from stalling out the engines. Many cars still had a crank instead of the automatic electric starter motor. The driver would set the spark (electric current) and choke (fuel-air mixture) with a pull-knob on the dashboard, go out in front of the vehicle, insert a steel crank shaped rather like a Z with its angles made into right angles, and turned the crank forcefully. If all went well, the engine started, the driver removed and stored the crank, returned to the cab, readjusted the choke, and set off. If not, he tried again. (Women did not generally drive; this ritual would have been difficult for most, because of the force required, and danger mentioned next.) On occasion, the engine would rebound forcefully, thrusting the crank back against the operator, breaking arm or rib bones. This happened to a neighbor. I can remember seeing my father crank the old Chevy. Because of the high base, getting into a car required climbing, even for an adult. A flat plate called a "running board, extended horizontally out a foot or so from the side of the auto body and extended from the front fender to the back fender. It was simply a step on which to stand on the way into or out of the car. A spare tire was typically attached to a rack on the outside back end of "coach" or "sedan" (four-door vehicle with a front and a back seat), or later in wells on the two front fenders. A few cars had a "rumble seat", hidden under a door on the back of the vehicle, especially if it had only one seat inside. On the sedan, the back end of the vehicle was essentially vertical, but on the little roadsters with a rumble seat, the back was curved Chapter 1, page 15

Heyer Saga like the front of the later old Volkswagen Bug. When the back door was raised, it revealed a seat below, and formed the back of the seat, which was fairly narrow. Only later were trunks (what the British call "boots") added at the back. There were convertibles, with a fabric, removable top, but I never saw any in the 1930s and 1940s except in motion pictures.

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Heyer Saga

CHAPTER 2: LATE CHILDHOOD

a. The Nectarine Street house My parents arranged in mid-1936 to buy a house at 631 West Nectarine Street in Inglewood, about a mile north of the First Avenue house. They rented the new house out for several months for financial reasons, as I understood it, continuing to pay rent at the old place. They finally moved into the new home early in January 1937. I was just seven years old and Terry about to be two. I was advised that dogs were not allowed in the new neighborhood, so again I had to give up Sleepy. The new house cost about $2,800, though it had cost more to build (about 1928), and was much larger than the little Fir Avenue house. The Nectarine house then had two bedrooms along the back of the house, separated from each other by a bathroom. All three of these rooms had doors leading to a common hallway (with the proverbial hallway closet at one end and the kitchen at the other). This hallway separated the two bedrooms from a "living room," where stuffed furniture was placed, and a formal dining room, both at the front of the house and separated from each other by only a symbolic "wall" forming a framing arch around the passageway between these two rooms. This "wall" only extended about a foot or so from the main walls actually enclosing the space. Similarly connected to the other side of the dining room was a breakfast room, for more informal dining, with windows around a small bay window for extra sunlight. This is where we had our meals. We kept the little radio in that room. Adjacent to the breakfast room (where we actually did almost all our eating) was the kitchen, which originally had a swinging door to separate it from the breakfast room, but I cannot remember ever seeing it closed, and I believe it was later removed. The kitchen also had access to the hall mentioned above, at the opposite end from the closet, and to the service porch behind the kitchen where the wringer-washer was located. Chapter 2, page 17

Heyer Saga The bathroom contained a toilet, single sink, and bathtub, but no shower. The lot was 50 feet wide and 150 deep, with a single-car detached garage and driveway. Three adjacent vacant lots of similar size separated our property from the large white stucco house on the Oak Street corner (east of our house), surrounded by a six- or seven-foot stucco wall enclosing a lot several times the size of ours. The wealthier family in this house on the corner were named Sterne, and owned a business called the St. Erne Sanitarium, named for them. (I presume there never was a real St. Erne). I never met them in 14 years of living there, although I knew most of the people on both sides of the street within our block and across the street. I recognized the Sterne children, though, on the way to school. I did enjoy the vacant lots. They provided a jungle of high grass in which to adventure, and contained a huge, old, pepper tree ideal for climbing and pretending to be Tarzan or developing acrobatic skills. A fall would be to earth, not asphalt or other paving, and produced no broken bones that I ever heard about. At that time, no other children my age lived in the neighborhood, but I did become acquainted with an older boy who lived next door on the other side of our house (Sonny Engleman). I believe it was from a door-to-door salesman that we then bought a real vacuum cleaner (Electrolux, which I later learned was a Swedish brand). b. Father's Building Projects When we moved there, a playhouse was present behind the house, across our lot from the garage. At that time, I thought it was part of the lot purchase, but later realized that Father must have built it. It had that solid nature typical of woodwork that he did. It was a single, small room, with a few windows and a door, painted yellow with brown trim, and covered by a wooden roof topped with a tar-and-sand roofing material. It was built of boards, but it also had linoleum on the floor.

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Heyer Saga After we moved in, my Father immediately set to work with various improvements. He built a fence in the back yard to keep Terry from wandering away or onto the driveway, and to keep dogs out (they did exist in the neighborhood). He removed a portion of the wall between the kitchen and the boys' bedroom, replacing it with a tall alcove to hold a kitchen cupboard, thus shrinking a portion of the bedroom, at the head of a set of bunk beds shared by Terry and me. Father built that bed to be strong, to last, and added a strong ladder with metal hooks at the top for access to the upper bunk. That strong ladder had disappeared and been replaced by a smaller, rather flimsy one by the time I acquired the bed in later life after the demise of Mother. In 2012, when the bunk beds were no longer used in our household, they were passed on to my niece, Celeste Heyer Peterson. The space between the back of the new kitchen alcove at the head of the bunk bed and the door of the bedroom closet was exactly the length of the bed. Space also remained above the protruding alcove on top of which some of my toys and other possessions could be stored. At the bottom of the bed were two large, heavy drawers, also used for storing toys, one for me and one for Terry, who henceforth slept in the lower bunk, while I climbed to and slept in the upper bunk. Terry had previously slept in a crib in our parents room. The family acquired a goat for milk and tethered her near the back fence, but she died, apparently of poisoning. We always suspected the neighbor Wycup (or Weikup?), who lived behind us and was constantly quarreling with every neighbor in the neighborhood, but there was no proof except character. After that my Father raised chickens for eggs and meat, and rabbits for meat. He also sold the dried rabbit hides, which were used for making clothing. Wycup objected to the chickens as too close to his yard (calling the police, who were unimpressed with his complaint, perhaps because the back of the chicken house was 10 feet from his back fence; the rest of the chicken-house and its fenced yard was farther from Wycups yard), but

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Heyer Saga later, during World War II, he built a shed at the very back fence of his property and rented it as a home to a young war wife. It was pitiful and likely illegal, but no consequences followed. Father also built various toys, including a wooden fire engine, complete with removable ladders and extendable hose, large enough for the rider to pedal it; a rocking horse with eccentric wheels to cause it to move forward; and other things of the like. (He tried to have the horse patented, but was advised by the patent attorney that the principle was not sufficiently unique.) Besides building the playhouse that we used for many years, he planted and cultivated vegetables and fruit trees, made lead nipple protectors for the comfort of the our nursing mother when my sister Kathy was born, did most repairs on his own car, acquired and operated a lathe, jigsaw, band saw, drill press, and many hand tools, and generally spent so much time creating handcrafts that even the neighbor boy remembered him, when officiating at father's funeral, as always building something impressive in the garage. He was very precise in his measurements, and always strove for the greatest strength and finest finish. He taught me about the use of both hand tools and power tools. Although he worked on metals, mostly steel, in his employment, he had mainly woodworking tools at home. On the lathe he made some table-leg-style legs for a wooden model honeybee that I made as a biology project in my high school sophomore year, and many other things. But I am getting ahead of myself. c. Other Early Changes in Late Childhood

After my seventh birthday and our move to the Nectarine Street house, my life began to change with the introduction of regular chores and responsibilities in caring for my siblings. This was also the beginning of the dime weekly allowance mentioned earlier. It was interesting to discover later that early modern English law provided that the mother had the right to custody of children up to the age of seven years, after which the Father had the right to custody and to apprentice boys to learn a trade, thus choosing Chapter 2, page 20

Heyer Saga the same age as my parents did for a division between early and later childhood. One of my new chores was to vacuum the rug in the living room each Saturday after breakfast. Another was to keep watch over Terry when he went out into the back yard. Mother normally put him down for an afternoon nap, and perhaps also napped herself at that time. At any rate when he was still small, frequently he awoke and left the house to explore, so evidently she did not see him go. He did not usually go out back where I was, however, but out the front door, usually disappearing entirely from our street. I was normally required to stay out back, so I did not initially know of these departures. As soon as mother discovered that Terry had left, she would send me to go find him. He often went around the block on the concrete sidewalk at first. To prevent these departures, she began tying his suspender straps to the bed. This method of restraint was not effective for long. Being very young (two years old), he simply slipped out of the trousers and set off on his way, without benefit of a lower garment. Because we lived only two streets from Manchester Boulevard, a heavily trafficked street, that practice produced a high-risk situation. On one occasion, a stranger close to or on the sidewalk found Terry adjacent to Manchester. On another occasion, when he was older, he climbed over a tall wooden fence at the side of the back of our yard, into a neighboring yard, where he got caught on brambles, so I needed to rescue him. On that occasion, however, it was at the back yard, so I was nearby and heard him call for help. On still another occasion, when I was in school, he walked all the way to school (six or eight blocks away), where mother found him sitting on the steps waiting for me to come out. He certainly learned his way around better than I, met and became friends with a boy who lived on the other side of our block and several houses farther east, and always retained this inclination to explore new places.

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Heyer Saga d. Livestock Chickens: Soon after arriving at the Nectarine house it also became my chore each morning before going to school to feed and water the chickens (usually 25-30) and the rabbits (two does and a buck), then let the chickens out of the hen house, and bring in the eggs. We used these eggs, and sold extras during the summer when the chickens laid prolifically. I fed the rabbits little green alfalfa pellets in a heavy earthen bowl (they would spill anything lighter), which needed to be washed periodically, and also filled a similar bowl with fresh water. The chickens received "mash" (fine-ground wheat) in a large, homemade wooden trough, and "scratch" (broken kernels of hard Indian corn), scattered on the ground. All of these foods came in large, white cotton bags (which Mother sometimes made into shirts). We kept the three foods segregated into a big metal can for mash (large enough for a small child to hide inside) and a subdivided steamer trunk (large enough for three children to hide inside, if it were otherwise empty) for the scratch, alfalfa pellets, and perhaps a spare mash can. The lidded can was necessary to keep mice from invading the chicken feed mash. Although the description above of the size of the steamer truck and the mash can above refers to children-hiding capacity, this was only an indication of size as perceived by a child. I do not recall any occasion when any children actually did so.) The Mouse in the Mash: On one occasion the mash in the can was essentially exhausted, except for traces inside around the bottom, so I did not bother to fasten the overlapping lid. On the next morning I noticed that a mouse had fallen in, doubtless trying to glean the leavings, and was unable to get out. I was impressed and surprised at how high it could leap in comparison to its tiny size, straight up the smooth, steep side of the can, from a standing start, repeatedly and without resting. Still, the poor thing could not get to within six inches of the top, so I tipped the can far enough to let it escape. I told no one then; probably

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Heyer Saga letting it escape would not have been approved, but it felt like the right thing to do. Chickens can peck rather forcefully, and will peck at visible defects on their fellows, with sad consequences. Nevertheless, though chickens look able to outfight mice, rabbits, and newspapers, actually they panic at movement of any of these, and flee with a great uproar. The scurrying of this tiny mouse, not over three inches long, threw the whole chicken yard into a frenzy, as would the blowing of any piece of paper that might drift into the yard on the wind. Rabbits: The rabbits gnawed the lath slats at the bottoms of their cages, requiring periodic replacement of the slats. On one occasion one of them got ahead of the repair process and fell through. This too created consternation among the chickens. Roosters: If more than one rooster is in a yard, it usually fights the other roosters and tries to pull out their flashy tail feathers. I do not know whether that made them less attractive to the hens, or simply bullied the defeated roosters into submission. After a while, one rooster is accepted by all as the "cock of the walk," or dominant rooster. Nesting: When a hen is ready to hatch baby chicks, she stays on the nest (in our case, a straw padding in a shallow wooden apple crate) to keep the eggs warm, and objects when anyone tries to take the eggs. If a human hand strays directly by her face, she will peck it, but her principal defensive behavior is to fluff out her feathers so that she looks bigger and make a high-pitched sound, which can only be described as a soft-to-moderate scream. This sound is totally different from any other sound a chicken ever makes: nothing like the proud crow, the contented cluck, or the raucous squawk of anger or fear. Even pain will not produce it. It remains easy to get the eggs none-the-less, despite the obvious warning, when a hen behaves this way. One simply reaches around and gets the eggs from a position farther from her face! We would usually

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Heyer Saga encourage such a hen and let her nest. She was not particular whose eggs she warmed. When the eggs had been warmed long enough (nearly three weeks), my Father would place the hen alone with them in a small "house" (about the size of a small dog house) in a separate, smaller enclosure with smaller spaces in the enclosing chicken wire. The adult chicken yard was enclosed with chicken wire with about an inch across an aperture, while the wire for raising chicks had about quarter-inch apertures. There the setting hen could brood (keep the eggs warm). That is the original use of this word; she is not, presumably, brooding in the resentful or discouraged emotional sense) until the chicks hatch and grow to adolescent size. Special feed is provided to them, different from what the adults eat, with smaller, richer bits. It seems to me that in later years, Father sometimes substituted purchased eggs and an incubator for the natural way, perhaps to get new strains, or to avoid inbreeding. We mostly had Rhode Island and New Hampshire Reds, as these large, meaty chickens were called. They laid fewer eggs than the White Leghorns, but the chickens were much superior cooked than the scrawny Leghorns that produced eggs so prolifically at commercial establishments. (Of course, "red" chickens are really brown, and lay light-brown-shelled eggs.) Old Baldy: On one occasion a cockerel (immature male) escaped from his enclosure and went foraging on his own, visiting our garden and even a neighbor's yard, where he found other chicks just past his age. Able to eat the wider variety of food available in two gardens, he grew somewhat larger than his former coop-mates, but not as large as the older neighbor chicks. He was therefore distinguishable from both. I counted our chicks and knew one was missing; the neighbor counted his, and knew he had too many. So he allowed me to retrieve the Marco Polo of the chicken world and return him to his proper home. Whether as discipline for running away, or merely because the hen no longer recognized him as her own (anyone could see that he was bigger

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Heyer Saga than her others), she gave him a single peck on the head when I returned him to his proper home base. After that, they seemed to live happily and without fuss, but he always had a bald spot on top of his head (a bright pink circle perhaps 3/16 inch in diameter, without feathers or down). I therefore named him Baldy, although I did not normally name or treat as pets these "practical" animals. When Baldy became full grown, he became "cock of the walk" (dominant male) in the main chicken yard. Back to Rabbits and Chickens again: Rabbits were bred by placing the buck briefly with a doe. It usually did not take long. A box of straw was provided in which to deliver the babies. The pregnant doe would grow a beard, pull it out, and use the fur to line the "nursery". Usually she had 6-8 babies in a litter, and took care of them as needed. In one case of a doe that had not borne before, she did not seem to know what to do. My father had to pull the fur from her beard for her and spread it. When the babies were born, she did not bother to get in the padded box. Consequently, several of the babies were dropped through the spaces between the slats of the floor to their deaths. She even stepped on one, killing it. Still, she originally had over a dozen, so actually near the usual number survived in spite of it all. In the next pregnancy she knew what to do. Father butchered young roosters, aging and low-producing hens, and older rabbits when it was time to eat them, and skinned the rabbits, a process much neater than it sounds, or perhaps I should only say less messy than it sounds. He would turn the skins inside out in the skinning process, mount them on boards specially cut for that purpose, hang them up, and let them dry for sale. My mother plucked the chickens' feathers, removed inedible internal organs of both types of animal, and cooked the rest. Young ones were fried; older ones, such as a hen too old to lay eggs, were roasted. e. Parental Advice In this new home mother told me always to tell the truth, and took a while to discuss the distinction between truth and imagination. I was Chapter 2, page 25

Heyer Saga impatient with that, since I felt that the difference had always been clear and obvious, but did not say so. On another occasion she advised always to treat girls especially gently and considerately. Those ideas seemed reasonable. She also attempted on that occasion to indicate that there is a difference between boys and girls, but the attempt to identify it was too vague, incomplete, and imprecise to convey any information. At the age of seven, that issue did not retain my attention beyond a few days. Of course all children know that there is a difference, but may be unclear on its precise nature and function, at least for a while. Father also gave advice at times, but rarely sat me down to discuss such items. On one occasion when the subject of my future employment came up, he emphasized, Every honest job is an honorable job. That idea seemed to me sound, basic, cogent, and well stated. On another occasion, when I entered the playhouse in the morning, a lizard appeared inside at the back of that structure. Though small, for some reason it frightened me, so I tossed a dirt clod toward it, to frighten it away. To my surprise, the clod seemed to strike it or near it. Instead of trying to flee, it stayed where it was and opened its mouth wide. Since lizards in my experience emitted no vocal sounds, I interpreted its response as an equivalent of a sort of silent scream, filling me with remorse. (The open mouth may well have been a threat gesture.) It still troubled me that evening when Father returned home from work. To relieve the discomfort and convey the remorse, I recounted the story, but without explanation. His reply was advice never to harm lizards, because they are useful (to humans) in eating insects. That struck me as too narrow. The better rule seemed to be to harm no form of life except in defense of self or another. Following that rule, I fell some time not long afterward, in trying to avoid a sow bug while I was skating on the sidewalk. f. Toys Some toys of those days resembled current ones: wooden and metal toy cars and trucks, jump ropes, wagons, roller skates (metal, with metal wheels and ball bearings, four wheels on each skate, a nut-and-bolt Chapter 2, page 26

Heyer Saga arrangement on the base to allow adjustment of the length as the child grew, and metal side clamps, adjusted for fit with a "key" no shoe skates for ordinary folk, no single-row roller blades existed), tricycles and bicycles, yo-yos, jacks, balls, and baseball bats, bows and suction-cup arrows, etc., but many made of different materials. (No plastic, as mentioned earlier.) Wagons were usually wooden or metal, yo-yos were made of wood and string, and baseball bats were always made of wood. I once had a riding vehicle called an "Irish mail" (see appendix for how it acquired such a name), which consisted of a framework of steel bars, each bar square in cross-section, and only about 3/8 of an inch thick. The vehicle had a wooden seat and four wheels. Steering was with the feet on the bar supporting the front axle. The arms provided power by pushing and pulling on a T-shaped bar like a lawnmower handle. I did not see one of these again from the mid-1930s until 1999, when I saw adult males riding down Highway 1 using similar, but more efficient-looking, vehicles one sunny day. g. Reading and Projects As I was learning to read, Mother subscribed to a childs magazine, with puzzles, stories, instructions for projects, and practical suggestions, like detecting differences (reportedly once used by someone else in a crisis to enable a small child to recognize that one handle on a gas stove was positioned differently from the others, and thus to be able to turn off escaping methane gas). From that magazine I learned how to make a paper figure of a person able to stand or sit without human support (Mr. Sitwell), a wooden boat propelled across water by a twisted rubber-band motor driving a paddle (a wooden domino in my application). The magazine also included find the hidden whatever, usually in a drawing of a tree, in which the leaves also could be seen as pictures of animals, people, or other objects. I drew pictures with pencils and later used crayons, as well as adventuring in the field, composed of the three adjacent vacant lots and the pepper tree, and Father set up a swing for us.

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Heyer Saga I also had responsibility for watching over my younger brother Terry when he was out back (so I was not allowed to leave our yard, except to attend school, to track him down when he wandered off as described above, and to get minor groceries at the nearby store as directed). Of course I also attended elementary school, learning the possibilities of clay in kindergarten, along with the varying abilities and perceptions of classmates, reading in the first and second grades, etc. During this period I used my weekly dime allowance to buy a small paperback booklet that explained a few simple techniques of drawing, such as shading to show three-dimensional shape, size of face in comparison to head, etc., and tried out these techniques. Drawing was appealing and practiced, including Mickey Mouse, a favorite weekly comics page character. My free time also allowed for opening the garage, using Father's hand tools (hammer, nails, saws, plane) for various personal projects under his supervision at first. I learned from watching him use them and from experimenting on the results of various tools and methods of use on my own. h. The Outer World Beyond Neighborhood and School Up to that time, I was aware only of my family, neighbors, my school, teachers, and schoolmates. The first year at school was in a temporary wooden building (which had been there for years), but after a few years, the temporary buildings were finally replaced by a second more substantial and safer building. There I saw a geographical globe for the first time, from which I saw that the North Pole, where Santa Claus was supposed to be, lay in the middle of the pale blue Arctic Ocean. I asked my Father about that, and he explained that, despite the location, that was frozen over, so Santa was at no risk. Further examination of the globe revealed that South America and Africa seemed to be able to fit together, making me wonder how that could be. My first hypothesis was that a river had once separated them, and gradually grew wider. A test with a garden hose in our back yard showed Chapter 2, page 28

Heyer Saga this to be unlikely; the large puddle remaining after making a single line of water and adding water slowly did not result in similar sides, but sides that bore no re-semblance to each other in shape. This bothered me until the theory of tectonic-plate movement was revived in the 1960s. With my new dime allowance, I was able to buy various Big Little Books (3x4 inches horizontally and vertically and over an inch thick, with thick rough paper pages and cardboard covers, at 5 each), cardboard punch-out books, etc. Thus my reading began to expand to longer stories, including Tarzan and other such types, Disney books, books on drawing, etc., a dime each later on. When Disney first created a slightly longer film feature than the short animated cartoons that were inserted between the two main films of the typical motion-picture theater double feature, I saw that first film: Ferdinand the Bull. This appealed to me (I already knew Mickey Mouse, etc., from the Sunday newspaper comics, and liked to draw Mickey Mouse especially). (Some teachers at my school, knowing of this drawing interest and that my Father worked in Hollywood, drew the erroneous inference that he worked for Disney Studios which was based there.) Then when a Ferdinand hand puppet became available, that appealed to me, so I proposed a time-plan purchase of it to my father. It cost 29 cents, plus a penny sales tax, so I proposed that I be allowed to buy it that Saturday (the normal shopping day in those years), and skip the next three weekly allowances to cover the whole amount. He discussed it with me seriously, to be sure I understood the implications, and then agreed. Hand puppets were always a joy to me from then on. Father actually softened the terms from my proposal, allowing me to receive a nickel a week for the next six weeks instead of nothing for the next three, as I had suggested. That was my first experience with time payment plans (though I knew of them from advertising), and with taxes (nickel and dime items did not require any sales taxes, but an item sold for a quarter required a penny

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Heyer Saga sales tax). Later I also made string puppets (with wooden bodies), including Mickey Mouse, of course. i. Sister Kathy is born July 24, 1940 On July 24, 1940, my sister, Linda Kathleen Heyer, was born. Apparently my parents agreed on this name. Father originally called her by her first name, Linda, as might be expected, but Mother insisted that the new babys hair was too dark for a tow-headed Linda, and thus had to be called Kathleen. (Linda is actually Spanish for pretty, so in North America would more often be dark-haired.) Unwilling to take sides in this difference, I simply called her Sister or Sis for a number of years, until she declared her own preference. Kathys arrival occasioned the addition of a fireplace to the living room and a new, master bedroom to the back of the house, connected by doors to the bathroom and the back of our parents former bedroom, which then became Kathys room. By this time I was old enough to understand and learn how to care for a baby, change diapers, warm and test baby bottles, and later tell her stories, understand her baby talk before other members of the family, braid her hair, etc. I also taught her to read before she went to school. Much later she told me that this learning had seemed difficult at first, but she had picked it up rapidly, so I had never realized until then how it had seemed to her. She became an avid reader, at first especially about horses, a favorite subject for her. She always remained a lover and keeper of furry animals. She later attended college at U.C. Davis, the state university site devoted largely to teaching veterinary medicine and other studies related to agriculture and animal husbandry. j. More on Outer World Around the turn of the century (from the nineteenth to the twentieth), Lord Baden-Powell, in Britain, had formed an organization called the Boy Scouts. The name seemed to refer to adventuresome individuals, familiar with surviving in the wild, advancing alone or in small groups forward of a

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Heyer Saga larger military unit to scout out terrain for suitable routes and strategic positions, resources, and dangers. In fact, its purpose was to train boys in social obligations, skills useful in the wild, and to prepare them for possible military service. Many branches formed, including the Boy Scouts of America. In this organization, boys from ages 12-15 joined troops of a few dozen (comparable to army companies), divided into patrols (squads of 612 members). The same organization had later added, Cub scouts, aged 9-11, and formed into packs. Around the time of my tenth birthday, such a pack was formed at my school, and I joined it. This Pack 294, as I recall it, was divided into a few dens, each with 8-12 cubs (the members). We wore dark blue uniforms with yellow scarves and learned various limited skills, slogans, etc., and engaged in group activities. I worked my way (by learning things) through the ranks of wolf, bear, and lion under the supervision of the den mother, who was also my mother. In the meantime, in 1938, Father told me a little about the Spanish Civil War (then occurring), and the German and Italian role in establishing this Fascist dictatorial take-over of a previously democratic country, and in 1939 of the Nazi invasion of Poland. At first these just seemed to me like any other story told to a child, and unreal, but I began to realize that they were real, and might well matter to my country. I also began listening to President Roosevelts periodic radio broadcasts, called fireside chats. These were short, simple, serious, and direct, giving an increasing sense of nation, appropriate national policy determination, and measured confidence. I began reading the newspaper, including stories about wars in Europe, Asia, Africa, and sometimes in Latin America. The outside world was impinging on me, so far in a very indirect way, but with increasing pertinence. As German troops swept through most of Western Europe, I was following these problems closely and recognized what it could mean to my world.

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Heyer Saga The fascists had succeeded in Italy and Spain, the Nazis in Germany, and the Russians joined Germany in dividing Poland in 1940 and expanded further into the Baltic (swallowing Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, half of Finland, and the province of Bessarabia in Rumania [to Russia]. Nazi Germany also swallowed up Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, effectively the rest of Rumania, Bulgaria, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Norway, and France. Between the German-Russian attack on Poland and the German attack on Western Europe, most newspapers called the war (declared but not prosecuted effectively by Britain and France against Germany) the phony war, and the conventional wisdom was that the Germans could not effectively invade France because of a series of fortifications called the Maginot Line. The fighting in that interim period was a Nazi invasion of Norway, repelling a much larger but pitifully ineffective invasion force that Britain had landed at Stavanger and Trondheim. The British effort was swiftly crushed. In the following spring France and the rest fell, leaving Britain as the only surviving obstacle to the Nazis, who then set about to neutralize the British with bombing attacks. Italy, the original Fascist country, seized a bit of defeated France and invaded Greece from Albania (which Mussolini had seized soon after he became essentially the life-time tyrant of Italy in 1921) and sent a tank army into Libya to attack the British forces in Egypt. Italy had just invaded and conquered Ethiopia (before the German attacks started) for no legitimate reason. Italy now joined Germany in the war as its ally, but its invasion of Greece proved an embarrassmenttiny Greece fought the invading Italian army to a standstill, and even drove it back into Albania. I followed all these events closely, gained a sense of the total strategic picture, of the relevant armed forces strengths, of the danger to the U.S., and of the pertinent diplomatic relationships and efforts, particularly the tendency of powerful, aggressive governments to excuse their invasions of small, neutral, and peaceful nations on the grounds that these small victims constituted threats to the great powers (which obviously could not be). Chapter 2, page 32

Heyer Saga Normally I read the Los Angeles Daily News, an unusually responsible source, which kept editorials, advertising, and other propaganda off the front page, supported Roosevelt, refrained from drawing attention to the race of individuals mentioned in articles, and was later driven out of business by bigger, more powerful, oligarchic-minded national press networks. One of its articles described a little about US Army parachute training. Occasional reading in the Sunday paper, published by a different company, which I mainly used for its colored cartoon section, quickly revealed a much less balanced and obviously often blatantly untruthful practice, typical of the big chains. It contained references to giant carnivorous plants that ate people, and other fantasies. Even for a child, it did not take much reading in that paper to recognize its totally irresponsible approach to supposed news. It was in this period that I read about the training of potential paratroopers, and learned that even a good parachute still lands its user with the force of a fall from a second-story window, requiring training in how to land safely. Viewing the article the other way around, I thought that I might sometime find myself on a second floor where fire, earthquake, or other emergency might make such a fall or leap necessary, and so practiced those techniques, out of sight of the house, by leaning our wooden ladder against the far side of the garage and practicing jumping from each ladder step in sequence until I had the technique down well. I was not planning to be a paratrooper. After a day or two, I could (and did) regularly jump from the garage top to the ground each day, until construction of four rows of three apartments each next door, the removal of the pepper tree, and the paving of a new driveway made my landing ground unsatisfactory. Landing on concrete stings the feet even through shoes, so I gave up that practice. As our nation geared up to rearm in 1940, and the first peacetime draft since colonial times was instituted, I read about the army and navy sizes (the US then had no air force, as many nations did; the only US

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Heyer Saga aircraft units were within the army and navy). The US regarded its navy as the second largest in the world, after the British navy, on the basis of its battleships and destroyers, although it was in third place (after Japan) in aircraft carriers, which turned out to be the most crucial in the big naval battles of the Pacific Ocean. Today, battleships are no longer built or used, and the US has a dozen aircraft carriers (only Russian, French, and Brazilian naval forces are generally known to have one aircraft carrier each today). (During the American Civil War, a new law required a specified number of recruits to be provided from each locality, but it was not a general requirement for all adult males to register for military service, as in the 1940 draft, but only a specified number to be supplied by the community in its own way, usually meaning that the wealthy did not need to serve, being able to hire someone else to take their places). The United States Regular Army in 1940, according to the newspaper, had about 260,000 men, smaller even than the Belgian army (which lasted 18 days in combat). The activation of the small reserve and the National Guard (the state militias) brought the total to about half a million mobilized soldiers. These men (no women yet) provided the sergeants to train about a million draftees that first year of the draft (1940). Equipment was quite limited, so the first maneuvers included using trucks with painted labels like tank, etc., to represent labeled types of actually unavailable equipment. Because of concern about both German and Japanese aggression in a world with potentially no surviving allies, the government set about to build a "two-ocean" navy, and newspapers reported this. k. Toy Soldiers Reading about all this, and how the army was organized, I became interested in toy soldiers and ships, as well as learning the sizes of various armed forces and of the various units within the armed forces. I also bought some flat cardboard soldiers with wooden stands, from which I learned the rankings, uniform styles, unit sizes, insignia, etc. For my tenth birthday, I Chapter 2, page 34

Heyer Saga received a toy fort about a foot long, made of composition walls and solidwooden towers, with a drawbridge and several toy soldiers. These soldiers were hollow, made of lead in a mold, and realistically painted rather precisely. The uniforms were khaki (light brown), an attractive but reasonably practical color, with silvery helmets often separately attached. They wore World War I puttees (in real life, a strip of cloth about an inch wide, wound around the calf between the shoe and the knee, but of course on the toy, a series of ridges on the calf. They were finely made, and wore the bowl-shaped helmets of World War I (1914-18), with a small, flaring brim. Some of the helmets were part of the molded shape of the toy soldier, but many were separate, steel parts, held onto the head by a hook reaching into a hole in the top of the head. Over time, these hooks broke off the helmets (defective soldering), helmets got lost, and the hole in the head was an embarrassment to me. In some cases I filled the heads with rubble and painted over them. For a year or so further I often spent my weekly dime allowance all or partly on acquiring additional soldiers (for a nickel each), and organized them into permanent squads, sections, platoons, and a company, designating the corporals who commanded squads, the section sergeants, the platoon first sergeants and lieutenants, and the company captain, as well as a major (armed with a sword (although the U.S. Army no longer actually used swords except for show), a colonel, and a small medical corps, according to the activities that the pose or equipment or uniform of each suggested, but these toys did not actually have any rank insignia. These were the units and organization of the US Army at that time, according to what I read. The play was usually arranging them and organizing them. Their enemy was always imaginary, and I had no combats or casualties, except for the two soldiers with bandages that represented casualties. One of them could be carried by two stretcher-bearers with hands able to hold the ends of a small stretcher.)

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Heyer Saga There were also sailors, nurses, a stretcher, tanks, an armored car, ships of various classes, airplanes, cannon, and some small, solid lead soldiers that my Father and I molded together in a little set that we bought through a catalogue, probably Sears Roebuck. These were only an inch high, so they were never mixed with the larger ones, some of which still exist, though many are broken now. One of my friends preferred to pelt them with clods, which I did not approve. As the years went by, materials shortages caused by the war began to affect the manufacture of toy soldiers. Lead gave way to cast iron, which was solid and stronger, but had a far poorer quality surface and painting quality, and the colors chosen were less attractive. Not much detail could be detected in these, and they became more expensive (rose to a dime). Not long afterward, the cast iron type was replaced by paper mach, of still poorer quality. I did acquire a few of these, but they were not as appealing. [Partly because of research on artificial rubber to replace the supplies which had formerly come from Malaysia and Indonesia, which had been seized by Japan during World War II, American scientists developed artificial plastics, which came into widespread use in the 1960s. After that, toy soldiers and other toy people of comparable size (3-4 inches high) have been mostly made of plastic, but that is another generation.] l. Later Toys Of course, I had other toys, including a stuffed Mickey Mouse that my mother made for me for Christmas, a wood and composition adjustable Pinocchio figure that I received for a later Christmas (and kept until I passed it on to my first-born daughter, Cindy, when she was small), and the 29-cent Ferdinand the Bull hand puppet that I had bought on the time plan with my allowance. This was my first experience of buying on time, but I was aware that it occurred (we made house payments and insurance payments.) Many of my friends spent their allowances on candy, but that never appealed to me, since it would not last. Play or learning was more important to me than sweets. I was not a big eater in those days. In fact, Chapter 2, page 36

Heyer Saga many adults commented on that fact, and I was thin. As far as I know, that was not really a sign of ill health, but in those days, children with some signs of fat were thought of as healthier, even though adult models then were thin, as more recently. Of course, balls, marbles, and wheeled toys were common then as always, and girls played with dolls, jump ropes (made of real rope in those days, with wooden handles), and jacks. Hula-hoops had not been invented, and of course there were no electronic toys, but at one point in older childhood, we did receive an electric train and tracks for Christmas). We had board games, but no television, no home computers (but there were mechanical adding machines, which you operated by pulling down a crank handle after typing in each number.) I do not remember any battery powered toys, nor any momentum vehicles like some toys of the 60s and 70s. There were spring-motor cars and other toys, which one wound up with a big key or propeller. They did not operate very long before needing rewinding. Balsa-wood airplanes sometimes had rubber-band motors; turning the propeller backward wound it up. Electric trains with tracks and other paraphernalia were available (to plug into a wall socket), and a very popular toy (especially with fathers), but expensive, so one household would not be likely to have more than one. We used balsa wood gliders; built various kinds of models with balsa wood, tissue paper, and glue; played board games like checkers, chess, and monopoly; played card games like rummy (but I played mainly with adults; these card games did not appeal that much to younger children); and various books, assembly kits, and more specialized toys. (Later generations had card games for children, but I do not recall any in my home from my childhood.) One specialized toy was a wooden person with dangling, loosely attached legs and flat feet, several inches tall, which, if tipped a little sideways on a smooth incline, would "walk" down the incline. Any thin board was adequate for the incline, but the proper degree of incline was crucial. This toy had no motorthe power was supplied by gravity. The

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Heyer Saga initial tilt (to the side), if done just right, would let one leg fall forward from gravity. The tilt would also provide enough momentum when the second leg struck the surface to create a small, opposite tilt, letting the other leg fall forward, to repeat the process. Of course, on a level surface, each tilt is less, and the walker will only take a step or two, but on a slanted surface gravity makes up the difference and maintains the process (but usually not for very many steps). I also had a microscope, given to me by Uncle Don (Carl Donald Heyer), with 100, 200, and 300-power lenses, as I understood it, and spent many hours using that to examine hairs, onion skins, grains, ants, the fine texture of a pencil line, the teeming microbial life of grass left a few days in a jar of water), and other objects. I later learned that those microbes were Protista, a kingdom of complex, single-celled ancestors of the kinds of life visible without the microscope. There was also a gyroscope, which could balance (illustrating the principle of the space craft gyroscopes, but there were no space crafts then, except in fiction). From a child's magazine I learned to make a number of toys, such as a walnut-shell "mouse" with a string tail and a marble inside to let it roll like a wheeled toy (the ancestor of the computer mouse, with roughly similar structure, but the toy of course did not have the electronic aspects of the computer mouse); the paddle-wheel boat with a rubber-band motor; and various similar simple but satisfying items. With my father's guidance, I once built a kite of newspaper and a lightweight wood frame, with a knotted cloth tail. Shooting arrows for target practice was not extremely effective, because the suction cups did not really work at any interesting distance, but as an adjunct to an imaginary adventure they were very enjoyable. I had a tricycle as a very small child (though I only remember riding it in the kitchen, yet not its appearance), but outgrew it; the bicycle did not come until I was 12, and I even used it for a while in high school, until malicious damage to it in the parking racks made it impractical. Of course, Chapter 2, page 38

Heyer Saga in those days fenders, whether of bicycles or of cars, were of high enough quality steel that a dent would not occur easily and could be easily banged back out to an adequate shape with a ball-peen hammer, but in this case the same damage happened repeatedly, so it was evidently the result of a vendetta, and would continue to be repeated, so it was not worth the bother to bring it to school. It was not a long walk to high school. m. Other Play Besides the imaginary adventures, which constituted a major part of my childhood play, and various games, construction such as blocks, tinker toys (wooden rods and discs with holes in the discs into which the rods could be inserted), erector set (with metal girders, nuts, bolts, and screws, together with paper, cardboard, and woodno Legos in those days), riding wheeled toys, roller-skating, and climbing, stamp collecting, and insect collection and observation. I also tried some experiments. At some point, I began collecting postage stamps, putting them in a stamp album. I could occasionally buy bags of used stamps for small sums, and carefully classified them by country. Little by little I figured out what countries had issued them, where the native language differed from English. This was my first acquaintance with actual words in a foreign language. In those days, stage, screen, and radio presentations of lines supposedly in a foreign language were often simple gibberish, on the assumption that most in the audience would not know the difference. Except for non-Earth-dwelling characters, that is rare at the present time. Visiting friends was not something I was encouraged or even allowed to do, nor any other play away from home outside of school. Some friends, though, told me of crawdad catching and rafting over the bean fields west of Inglewood (during the winter rainy season) which spread essentially from there about 10 miles to the ocean-front towns. Many of these bean fields were owned or worked by Japanese Americans, who were interned during WWII. During the winter rains, these fields became swamps, because of poor drainage, apparently making rafting feasible. Not until later did I learn Chapter 2, page 39

Heyer Saga that "crawdads" were the little, fresh-water, lobster-like "crayfish" described in our high school sophomore biology text. Once my Father took me fishing before Terry was born, but this did not happen again. He did take Terry and me to Crater Camp, near Tarzana, California, a few summers during my adolescence, where we caught, cooked, and ate "crawdads", rowed a boat, swam in an artificial lake, climbed on the "Tarzan tree", supposedly used in some motion pictures, hiked, and observed and enjoyed nature. n. School My elementary school, Oak Street School, contained half-day kindergarten and six numbered grades, with two or three class-rooms of each, probably 600 children altogether, and was located between the Fir Avenue house (a market driveway the last time I saw it) and the Nectarine Street house, so it was within easy walking distance of either. It consisted of at least one stucco building, which housed the principal's office and several of the older grades, a clapboard wooden "temporary" building or two, and a large, dirt lot. I recall no vegetation of any sort on any part of the school grounds, and no asphalt to aggravate skin scrapes. The somewhat scary idea of a blacktop playground had not yet occurred to anyone, and there were no jungle gyms, climbing structures, or similar play or exercise structures. An area was designated for playing baseball (softball). There may have been swings, but I do not specifically recall thatI think not. (At home, at the Nectarine house, we did at one time have a metal slide, a swing, and a teeter-totter, as we called it (Margery Daw, or whatever her name was in the nursery rhyme, called it a seesaw), made of heavy wood, with a pipe axle, made by my father. I can see it still; I never saw another like it. The so-called temporary buildings were essentially makeshift buildings necessary to cope with expanding school population until the community felt able to float a bond issue to build something more substantial. These had no plumbing. There were, I think, restrooms in the

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Heyer Saga permanent building, but I do not recall ever using a restroom in a public school. I do not know how long the "temporary" buildings had been there, but they clearly were not new when I arrived. When I was in the sixth grade, the second permanent building was finally in use, because I remember going to my brother Terry's class, which was in that building. I think that was the first time I had entered it, but Terry may remember better whether it was there when he started. Also in Oak Street School, I recall being taught several things in the middle grades (3 and 4) that struck me as nonsense as soon as I heard them. One teacher, for example, explained the lower population density per square mile in the United States than in the major western European countries, as shown in our geography books, as the result of so many US citizens being located in large cities. I do not recall whether we had learned about averaging yet, but intuitively it was obvious that, even if her comparison had been correct (which I knew it was not; a far larger proportion of western Europeans lived in cities then than did Americans), it would not produce a different average population density than some other distribution. It must be a perverse quirk of mine that I learned and remembered the single statement that seemed so absurd far better than all of the correct things she taught during that year. While there I had my first two "crushes", edited a little school "newspaper", and, as president of the student council, suggested a federation of school student councils with a sort of senate of representatives of each school, which I named a "Schonate". This idea arose out of my thoughts about the need for an effective, democratic, and just international organization patterned somewhat along the line of the US Constitution, as a step toward a peaceful world. The Schonate was to be a practice run for that idea, but I did not say so. I also recall being fascinated in the sixth grade to learn about the solar system and bees, developing a lifelong interest in astronomy and, Chapter 2, page 41

Heyer Saga even more, in entomology, starting with the hymenoptera order of insects including wasps, bees, and ants. I collected and classified numerous insects that gathered around the huge bush that grew in front of the Nectarine Street house, read about their habits and about collecting methods, and was never stung. Neighbor children (by this time several were in the neighborhood), watching me, would come and try, not always with equally satisfying results. o. A Revelation At about age seven, another child gave a different view of Santa Claus than I had understood which I recognized to be true, with some embarrassment at having been so gullible so long.

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Heyer Saga

CHAPTER 3: MAN AND BOY

This phrase was common in earlier centuries to refer to behavior or experience continued from childhood well into adulthood, but it also can refer to the transitional period now commonly called adolescence, because in that period, childhood habits and obligations remain, but adulthood is creeping in and crowding out the child in one. The latter is my meaning here. (In either sense, the order of these words is backward, but the expression has evidently persisted in that form for euphonic reasons.) War and Peace On the day when I learned of the attack on Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941), I already knew the numbers of each class of warships in each major and medium-sized navy in the world, and laid out with toy ships what I had heard on the radio about the ships at Pearl Harbor. That is the last act of childhood play that I recall. The news was too stark to be ignored. Our nation was now fully at war, and it was time to think of my role in it, and to prepare for it. On the day after the Pearl Harbor attack, a class discussion set me to thinking, and then to writing an essay on what it means to be an American, turning it in to my teacher. It was evidently sent to the local Inglewood Daily News, which printed it in its next weekly issue. As suggested earlier, Pearl Harbor also set me to thinking about what was needed after the war to minimize future wars. The primary answer seemed to be the creation of an international organization so structured as to reduce the temptation, the inclination, and the ability to start wars, and to provide means and influences to work out problems peacefully. To do so, clearly the organization needed to start with a group of nations in agreement on the formation of (and participation in) such an organization. The name of such an organization would not be crucial, but my favorite

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Heyer Saga choice was the Pacific Union, referring to its goal, not to any particular portion of the globe. It seemed to me then (and still does) that the structure of such an organization should have a five-way separation of powers (such as Taiwan later adopted for its government) among different branches of the organization, as follows: 1) A Council of representatives of all the member nations. This branch would authorize and specify the collection and borrowing of money and appropriate such money for specified uses by each of the branches. The Council would also have authority to adopt, repeal, and modify standards of international behavior binding on the member nations. In these ways, it would be like legislatures and the U.S. Congress. It would consist of just one house. Its member representatives would serve for limited terms, perhaps three years per term. Each member nation could decide for itself how to select its representative or representatives, and what their qualifications would be, except as provided below. Every member nation would be entitled to send at least one such representative. After the first election of representatives to the Council, the Council should define the term free and fair election, and authorize nations providing such free and fair elections to send a number of representatives after each future election of Council members at a standard, specified ratio in proportion to the total number of persons voting in that nation at the most recent past free and fair election of such representatives. The proportion would be set by the Council, but at the same ratio for all member nations satisfying these conditions. In this way, all member nations would be represented, but large nations providing free and fair elections, as so defined, might have more than one, so that voting strength among genuine democracies would be proportionate to their populations. Each candidate representative would seek office in one electoral district, and each district would have only one representative.

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Heyer Saga Such an arrangement would thus admit undemocratic nationmembers, but would encourage large undemocratic nations to become more democratic, in order to have more representatives. The Council would also have the power to accept new member nations into the organization. Generally, no nation would be forced to join the organization, but once a nation joined, it could not withdraw without permission of the Council. One exception to the rule would be recognized that nations could not be compelled to join. If any non-member should initiate violent war against a member nation, whether to seize territory or for any other reason where the nation attacked has not first initiated such violence against the nonmember, then the Council could authorize the Director to take appropriate action against the aggressor as would (a) end the attack, (b) reduce the risk of future repetition of such aggression, and (c) compel the attacker to compensate the member nation so attacked. These corrective actions could include acquiring territory, imposing standards of governance in the offending nation, and even incorporating such nation into the International Organization if the offense were sufficiently severe or repeated. 2) At least at first, the Council would also elect a Director, to serve a term of five years. Representatives to the Council could serve multiple terms, so that voters would truly know which were better, but the Director could not serve as such for more than two complete terms. Perhaps, after a specified time, the Directors should be elected by a vote of all citizens of the international organization. The Council could also authorize the Director to assist individuals and nations within the International Organization. The duties of the director would be to enforce the standards set by the Council, to handle the money of the organization, to appoint subordinate officers to carry out the necessary functions, and to command, or appoint a commander, for the armed forces of the international organization, to make recommendations to the Council, to report at least annually to the Council on the activities and problems of the Director, and, as needed, to call on military forces of member nations to assist the

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Heyer Saga International Force in times of need. In short, the Director would be the Chief Executive of the organizations enforcement branch. 3) The organization should include a judicial branch, including at least an International Court of Justice, with the authority to adjudicate disputes among member nations and other nations willing to submit to its authority. These might include disputes over the application of standards established by the Council as well as under traditional International Law standards. The Council might also create subordinate courts to perform regional duties in the same fields, and other needed courts, such as an international criminal court for adjudications relating to international crimes of individuals. 4) The new international organization should also have an inspection branch, under the direction of an Inspector General and such subordinates as the Inspector General might appoint. The duties of these officers would be to examine the procedures and proceedings of all other branches, assure that they are in accordance with the Charter of the International Organization, the standards and goals of the Council, proper management, fair treatment of all persons, and other duties of such agencies. In addition, this branch should make available the services of ombudsmen as needed. 5) The fifth branch would be the Education and Public Information Department. It would have a distinct Chief Executive of its own, create and maintain a World University, with branches if so decided, assist research and dissemination of information, collect and maintain the archives, or copies thereof, of all branches of the International Organization, and provide information to the general population of the member nations of the organization. Both the Inspection and the Education and Information branches would also have the function and duty of collecting and maintaining a convenient current list of all portions of the International Union organization and of all its administrative, judicial, and other parts, their locations, their public accessibility schedules, their telephone, internet, or other means of contact, etc., so that any citizen of the Union, seeking action or cessation of action, could easily learn, by such means, to which agency or office to

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Heyer Saga address his or her request or response to action already happening or being threatened. Too often private citizens in todays world go where they think they should, only to be given a run-around with a reference to another wrong entity or even worse, to a mere not here response. There is no excuse for this sort of thing, ever. There should be provisions for amendments to the Charter of the organization, specifications of the authorities appointing the heads of the main branches and departments of the international organization, and other details. Among the standards of international behavior, the Council would require member nations to refrain from violence against each other or against non-member nations except when attacked by them, impose limitations on size, nature, and extent of national military, naval, air, or other armed organizations, stockpiles pertinent to such forces, authorize and specify collection of taxes and expenditure of funds by the various branches of the International Organization, and relations among the member nations. The Council would also be required to authorize and specify the formation of truly international armed forces of balanced size and power such that this international force would be stronger than any two member nations combined, but weaker than those of all the member nations combined, so that neither a few strong members nor the Organization itself would be strong enough to be a danger to the others. This could be achieved in stages if found to be appropriate, but completed (subject to future adjustments) within a specified and limited time. In addition, the Council might segregate and specify certain types of weaponry to distinguish among the effective military roles of the international organization on one side and the member states on the other. For example, possession of nuclear or other especially dangerous weapons might be limited to the international organization, together with long-distance, rapid-deployment forces such as paratroops, while large

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Heyer Saga infantry and tank forces might be limited to the member states, limiting the ability of either to act dangerously without the other. This basic idea came to me, as stated above, soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor (but the references to nuclear weapons could only arise after such weapons became known, in the last month of the war), and led to my pushing for establishment of the inter-school Schonate (mentioned earlier), as well as a later, more precisely drawn plan submitted as a school project in my high-school junior year. It seemed necessary to avoid the defects of the old League of Nations, and even of the existing International Court of Justice, such as individual national veto power, ignoring population sizes, etc. It seemed that such an organization would likely attract increasing numbers of nations, would have actual enforcement powers, could cure or ameliorate some of the causes of wars, and make any contemplated attacks on members more dangerous to the would-be attackers. The later UN still suffers from some of the same old defects as the League. Of course, the basic inspiration and model was the U.S. Constitution, with some modifications, which appeared needed as suggested by experience. Although I did not know it then, actually a number of people got similar ideas around that time, including the movement for Atlantic Union Now, soon after World War II, but none of those actually went anywhere. To move toward this goal, various preparatory steps came to mind, such as learning a wide-enough scope of understandings. Early steps included: 1) Continuing to follow the current war closely

2) Learning world geography from widespread battle reports, atlases, and maps throughout intermediate school (grades seven and eight); 3) Trying to become introduced to current offbeat political ideas (the current isms of the aggressors, the homegrown Townsend Plan,

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Heyer Saga and the widely advertised Technocracy, none of which seemed to offer much in a sound direction) 4) world); Taking note of political views at home and elsewhere in the

5) Majoring in history (as an undergraduate at the University of California in Los Angeles, partly in response to a filler blurb in the newspaper citing President Franklin Roosevelt as recommending knowledge of history as necessary for a statesman) 6) Setting about to learn the major world languages: Chinese, Spanish, Russian, German, and later Hindi, Arabic, and Persian; 7) Editing the intermediate school and high school newspapers

8) Trying to master the fundamental cultural foundations of our national culture (setting out to read the words of the classic Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, as well as the Bible, mainly during the summer after intermediate school (1944), and later the basic religious and philosophic ideas of other major cultural regions; 9) Attempting to join the Navy early in 1944 (the recruiting officer sent me away); 10) Taking a course in ancient classical history, as well as the required American history, in high school 11) Joining the World Friendship Club in high school, persisting in it when a fellow member withdrew from the club in fear of a state legislator who attacked the club as subversive during one of those reversions toward tyranny through which our country has periodically been dragged. I pursued this goal for 20 years, from age 12 to age 32, worked in CDC (California Democratic Council) and its local club, sought and was elected to the County Democratic Central Committee and the Chaffee Junior College District board, and campaigned for election to the California State Assembly. This campaign proved too expensive and that my personality was not suitable for this role. I did however support Alan Chapter 3, page 49

Heyer Saga Cranston, founder of the CDC in his campaign for state controllership, because he had earlier formed a movement for a similar international organization under the slogan Atlantic Union Now, shortly after the end of World War II. He was elected, but did not later attempt to get any closer to my vision. Unable to achieve these goals, much later I joined the World Peace through Law organization, attending their international meetings for a number of years, sometimes presenting talks and papers to them. Failure to achieve more in this direction has been unfortunate. I still hope someone better succeeds, before we all blow each other up or otherwise destroy our world. b. Back to Pearl Harbor

Meanwhile, back to the attack on Pearl Harbor. The early radio and newspaper reports on the attack did not immediately reveal the full scope of the disaster, but they did reveal some telling and shocking aspects of it. The newspaper had previously reported occasional encounters between German submarines and American destroyers in the western Atlantic, Japanese placement of troops in French Indo-China to cut off the surviving part of China from outside help, and occasional damage to American gunboats (stationed in China for many years) wrought by Japanese mistakes, followed by Japanese apologies (as American generals and Washington officials have in more recent years reported collateral damage. Americans did not believe it then, as most of the world has not believed it more recently.) President Roosevelt in the summer of 1941 had notified the Japanese government that the United States would discontinue sale of petroleum to Japan and protect the British and Dutch oilfields from Japanese attack, if the Japanese did not promptly withdraw their army from China, which they had been invading continuously since 1937. (Before 1937, Japan had attacked China in 1894, seizing Korea and Taiwan, and in 1931, seizing the former Manchu home-land in what is now northeast China.)

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Heyer Saga Clearly, this was a major turning point in world affairs, although no one in the U.S. press seemed to recognize that fact. To me, only two possibilities seemed open: either Japan would comply, which did not seem at all likely in light of its persistent aggressive practice, or war would follow. Because this news was published in the newspapers, the high-ranking U.S. admirals and generals in the Pacific Ocean area should clearly have foreseen the likelihood of conflict in that area. Some months later, the news was that the Japanese fleet, normally stationed at Tokyo, had suddenly disappeared. Obviously they had left homeport on some enterprise, and they remained un-located, showing that they were standing out to sea, away from where they would be seen. This turn of events, in these circumstances, should surely have warned Kimmel and Short, the U.S. Navy and Army commanders in charge at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, and General MacArthur, the American general in charge in the Philippines. One would expect them to have been on alert and taking proper steps. The largest single group of new B-17 flying fortress long- distance bombers was sent to the Philippines, presumably in response, and MacArthur assured some colleagues a few days before the Pearl Harbor attack that he was now totally secure in air power. The top Army and Navy commanders in Washington, D.C. nevertheless also sent warnings to these three Pacific officers to be on alert, and repeated the directive both one week and two weeks later. Yet, despite all this (and more, that I then did not know), all three failed to put their commands on alert, failed to take obvious, preparatory steps, failed even to have their new radar station in Hawaii operate more than eight hours out of each 24! General Short, in control of the Pearl Harbor radar station, provided only one crew to operate it on a part-time basis, and, instead of having patrol aircraft out and his fighter aircraft ready for any actual enemy attack, put all these aircraft out of protection, bunched together in the center of the air-field, too close together to permit prompt takeoff, and not ready for

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Heyer Saga action. Why? He feared sabotage from the peaceful Japanese-American residents of the island! In short, most West-Point officers since the founding of that institution were from the U.S. Southeast, highly racist, and therefore largely incompetent. His racism made Short concerned about peaceful citizens, because they did not look Caucasian, but he had only contempt for the Japanese armed forces, which clearly (even to this child) was the real threat. As a result, the U.S. aircraft were destroyed on the ground in the first hour of the attack, no air defense could be mounted, and the large squadron based in Hawaii was wasted. I have never seen or heard anyone admit this, but it was obvious to me then, and became so even more later on when I learned more. The general was quietly relieved of his command, and I believe court martialed. He tried, and his family is still trying, to have this blot on his record expunged, but it has not happened, and should not be. (Incidentally, the radar crew did detect the attacking aircraft before the attackers were in view, but the crews supervisor disregarded their report, and did not rep ort it to anyone able to respond accordingly.) Admiral Kimmel, likewise, failed to put his crews on alert or take seriously the possibility of a Japanese attack, presumably for the same reasons. He left his fleet bottled up in a harbor with a narrow entrance, disregarded the report from a U.S. patrolling destroyer a day before the attack that it had located and depth-charged an unidentified submarine trying to enter the harbor unlawfully under water. As a result, all eight battleships and some cruisers in the harbor were damaged, destroyed, or sunk in one brief attack! The supposed strength of the whole U.S. Pacific Fleet was put out of action in the first hour of the war. Kimmel also lost his position. (No significant sabotage or danger ever surfaced in Hawaii from Japanese-Americans in Hawaii. There was a reason why those people, or their ancestors, had moved from Japan to U.S. territory.)

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Heyer Saga Luckily, one officer at that port was better than the rest Bull Halsey, then commander of the small U.S. aircraft carrier fleet in the Pacific Ocean, had taken his force out of the harbor to try to find any approaching naval forces, so these crucial carriers were not destroyed in the attack, and proved to be the foundation of victory in the Pacific. They did not find the enemy on the crucial day, but at that point it was probably best for us that they did not; their force would have been too small and inexperienced. In later years, political oligarchists persisted in trying to excuse these worthless officers and attack Roosevelt (who was dead by then) with two outright lies. The first was that the lax officers had not been warned, but of course they had, as the whole world at the time knew. The warnings were common knowledge at the time and well attested in the records afterward. The second was that Roosevelt had known the time and place of the attack in advance, but had not passed the information along. Actually, of course, he did not know exactly when or where an attack might occur, and normally did not interfere with the actions of military and naval officers. The heads of the two services (General Marshal and Admiral Knox) also did not know, but they inferred from what has been mentioned above that an attack was altogether likely and would be quite soon, since the Japanese Navy had obviously gone somewhere. They accordingly warned these three field officers in adequate time, but were ignored. More recently, since Winston Churchills death, British records have been revealed showing that Churchill, the darling of the oligarchists, did know the time and place from intercepted and decoded German messages, but withheld the information from Roosevelt. Since all these events, I have read about the Russo-Japanese war, which had occurred in 1905. In that conflict, the only previous Japanese war with a Caucasian power, the Japanese started the war by making a surprise, all-out attack on the main Russian naval port at Vladivostok (Lord or Prince of the East), destroying the entire Russian Far East fleet before any declaration of war. General Eisenhower (then with a considerably lower rank) accompanied them and was very familiar with that

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Heyer Saga tactic. Actually, all high ranking generals and admirals who had graduated from U.S. Army and Navy academies must surely have known of that from school, and thus should have been prepared for it in 1941. General MacArthur in the Philippines was also a darling of the oligarchists, the only American ever to call himself a field marshal (a European rank above a four-star general, suitable for an officer in charge of a number of armies, in the sense of groups of multiple corps), but MacArthur of course was never in charge of such a large force; his forces in the Philippines did not really amount to one corps, much less several armies. The attack on Pearl Harbor occurred 10 hours before the attack on and invasion of the Philippines, and immediately was reported by radio. MacArthur certainly should have been prepared, but he, too, was not. Instead of using his long-range bombers immediately to destroy the army of invasion at sea, he left the crucial aircraft on the ground until they, too, were destroyed by Japanese aircraft. His entire air command, large for the time, was destroyed without even getting into the air. He had less excuse than Kimmel and Short, and he had a stronger air arm. His political support was such that he could not be removed, and was moved to Australia to take command of the entire South-Western Pacific Theater of war. After destruction of his air forces, he told someone that the Japanese fliers had been unexpectedly capable, from which he inferred that they included some Caucasians. They did not, of course, but this illustrates that he, too, must have been a racist, although he was from the Midwest, not the Southeast. Although the press and the oligarchists loved him, those who fought under his command seem generally to have been unimpressed with him. He retained high command because of his political-power support and his location until he scattered his troops into North Korea in another war, where they suffered unnecessarily heavy losses and total collapse from their exposed positions, and he demanded to start a new war to repair his mismanagement of the old one. Harry Truman finally removed him from command during the Korean War.

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Heyer Saga c. Early stages of the war on the home front

At the age of 12 years I completed my time with the Cub Scouts and moved to the Boy Scouts (ages 12-15 years), as was customary. This involved learning various things, including a motto (be prepared), an oath (a single-sentence statement of principles), the scout law (a dozen behavioral standards), various generally applicable skills (including tying various kinds of practical knots for different purposes, traveling a mile in 12 minutes by alternately running 50 feet and then walking 50 feet (=the scout pace; on the first try, having no watch, I was surprised to complete the distance too fast, the pace being intended to permit long-distance, persistent footwork), camping out, cooking out for a troop safely without a stove, marching in step with a pack, climbing mountains, mapping, etc. After reaching the rank of First Class, a scout can earn merit badges for learning more specialized skills and information, such as certain athletic skills, bookbinding, insect lore, etc. Certain numbers of these merit badges, including specific ones, earned further star, life, and eagle ranks. Ultimately I reached the life rank, and even suggested a merit badge not currently authorized, but eagle rank required mastering swimming, which I was not then allowed to do because of my asthma. The Boy Scout troop to which I belonged met for a time in a simple building on particular evenings at a good-sized, grassy park, in a modest hollow on a rise a few blocks north of Manchester Avenue in Inglewood. On a particular evening in the winter of 1941-2, I arrived after dark (we did not yet have day-light savings time in California then) and walked down into the little hollow toward where I knew the small building in which the meeting would be held was, although lack of external light did not reveal anything visible more than a few feet ahead. A young male voice challenged, Who goes there? Unable to see the person and expecting the usual boy scouts, I replied simply, me. As I got closer, the young male appeared indeed to be wearing a uniform similar to mine, but lacking the neckerchief and with a different style of hat. He turned out, however, to be armed with a rifle, identified himself as a national

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Heyer Saga guardsman, and informed me that a guard unit was now stationed in the park and the boy scouts would not be meeting there further. That was the first U.S. soldier that I met in person during that war. I then walked home. Wartime changes included newspaper drives; rationing of certain foods, gasoline, rubber, etc.; blackouts and block-wardens to enforce them; recruitment of women into factories; control of resources to concentrate them on war production (ending civilian automobile manufacture and sales for private use); and ultimately barrage balloons were deployed (put up and moored to ground locations by long cables). (These were large balloons shaped rather like blimps with inflated tails. Their purpose was to interfere with low-level action by attacking bombing planes, because the multiple dangling cables would presumably present a risk to aircraft making such an attempt. My impression was that they were so sparsely placed that they would make little difference, so perhaps they were there just to assuage the worries of some panicky person or group with influence, on the assumption that no real risk existed. In fact, no air attack did reach any U.S. state.) One day I read in the local newspaper that a Japanese submarine had surfaced near the Southern California coast and lobbed a few shells from its deck gun at an oil derrick visible on shore, without doing any damage. This action obviously had no military effect, but perhaps it was meant to frighten us. A book I recently read (year 2008) claims that the west coast had been in "panic" during the first months after the Pearl Harbor attack, but that was not my impression back then. I never heard any person living there express any great fear at the time. A few days later the ringing hall telephone just outside my bedroom door awakened me from a sound sleep in my upper bunk. The view outside my window was totally black, except for frequent bright flashes of light. A heavy, deep "crump" of artillery fire followed each light flash. The article about the recent submarine hijinks mentioned above led me to suppose that the current night event was a repeat performance a little closer, but was this time being answered by coastal artillery. Since Chapter 3, page 56

Heyer Saga such a situation seemed no danger to us (submarine deck artillery was normally single and with limited range), I saw no reason to get out of my comfortable bed, so I went back to sleep. On the next day, several new aspects to the event revealed themselves. First, on thinking back, I thought it strange that it was the telephone and not the bright flashes and unmistakable sounds of artillery fire that had awakened me. Objectively, artillery is far more dangerous than a telephone. Second, the source of the call had been a nervous neighbor lady from across the street, mothers friend, who had called about the hullabaloo, apparently seeking reassurance. Third, although presumably every adult knew that a glass window should be the farthest thing from any person in an air raid or other bombardment, my parents had gotten up in the night to look out the largest (front) window in the house to see what was going on, an extremely dangerous thing to do! What they said they believed they saw was a squadron of 12-14 highflying aircraft, fully illuminated by many ground searchlights and surrounded by frequently exploding anti-aircraft shells. My inferences about the submarine had been totally wrong; the artillery was anti-aircraft artillery, not the much heavier coastal artillery or the machine guns depicted in many motion pictures. During the day, a school-mate informed me that his father was a soldier stationed nearby and had informed him that the guns could not reach the aircraftthe guns were too small, only three-inch guns (the shells would be three inches thick), and that six-inch guns would now be brought in. The next days newspaper reported that the only damage resulting from all this noise was a house roof shattered by a falling antiaircraft round (shell). No military information was released at that time on the matter. Years later the official report was denial that any aircraft, American or foreign, had been there. Father believed that aircraft were there, but too high to hit, and probably not foreign. Since no Japanese aircraft carrier was anywhere near being within flying range, they clearly were not Japanese, if

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Heyer Saga there were any aircraft at all. I did not recall the date of this one-night concern, but a recent television re-enactment sponsored by Huell Howser gives the date as February 25, 1942, the number of searchlights about 100, the number of antiaircraft guns about 500, and the area involved extended through much of nearby coastal Southern California, including Los Angeles and Orange counties. There never was an air raid by Japanese heavier-than-air craft on the then-existing states of the US. The Japanese did later seize and withdraw from three Aleutian islands and sent some small balloons eastward with some sort of load during the war, and followed it up after the war with a friendlier but similar balloon project, but neither made a significant difference. Within weeks after the curious night described above, an American aircraft destroyed a Japanese submarine off the California coast a little farther north, and none were ever reported so close again. On another occasion, a column of the U.S. Army, with a few tanks and the rest of the troops in trucks, traveled along Manchester, apparently on their way westward. It appeared to be about a division. I thought then that it might be on its way to the Pacific war, but I do not know. Evidently it was not yet thoroughly trained; although that was a wide thoroughfare and what I saw was in neat, columnar formation, next days paper reported that one of the tank drivers had made a driving error and flattened about a dozen parked cars! d. Intermediate School

In Inglewood, seventh and eighth graders attended an intermediate school, with close to 1000 students, somewhat farther from my home than the elementary school had been. I normally rode there on my bicycle. This school did not have athletic equipment, a gymnasium, showers, or anything of that sort, but all the stucco buildings were substantial. As at the elementary school, all the intermediate school buildings were single storied.

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Heyer Saga Here I seemed to learn the most from the eighth grade teacher, Mrs. Stanger, who did a better job than anyone else I've known in teaching the names and locations of places all over the world (although the war news also helped in learning world geography). I also learned the populations of most large and medium-sized countries and the biggest cities. She taught us a little about journalism, which had always interested me since I had received a toy metal typewriter as a small child. That typewriter was not overly efficient. The formed letters were arranged single file around the edge of a wheel; to type, the operator turned the wheel by hand until the appropriate letter was brought to the printing position; then the operator would press the whole type head (consisting of the wheel and the spring-mounted bar to which it was attached and on which it pivoted) onto the paper. I cannot remember how the paper was held in place and guided, or how the type was inked. This slower-than-hunt-and-peck system took a long time to complete a page, but it did produce a relatively neat and readable product, and prompted me to create a neighborhood newspaper in my fancy, but I think only one issue ever was completed. The interest had lasted from intermediate school through high school, where I edited each of those journalistic ventures in interrupted sequence. The sixth grade school paper was duplicated on "ditto" paper with a soft surface and purplish letters, the "technology" of the time. The eighth grade school paper was put out on mimeograph, in which ink in a rotatable drum (which was turned by a hand crank but electric ones later came into being) leaked through holes in the drum and on through places where a typewriter, without ribbon, had thinned a soft mimeograph film sheet, which was then wrapped over and attached to the drum. The high school paper was actually printed on the presses of a local commercial newspaper, even though the high school had its own print shop. Some of us had one elective class in the seventh grade. We had distinct "periods" in the day for different subjects, and we changed teachers for mathematics classes, but otherwise we had the same teachers all day in the seventh grade, as in elementary school. We had slightly more

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Heyer Saga changes of teachers in the eighth grade, but not the complete high school style period changes that have now crept, with usually unhappy results, into "middle", "intermediate", and "junior high" schools. Thus our transition was more gradual than now, and probably easier on everyone. Because of class assignment by age, my main seventh grade class contained no one I knew from elementary school. The obvious anxiety of that teacher, when air raid drill practice was required, was a learning and sensitization experience for me. Also in the eighth grade was the last arithmetic class, although by then we called it mathematics (arithmetic is an elementary aspect of mathematics; we began to meet algebra, geometry, and other more advanced forms of mathematics in high school and college). Having learned addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, common and decimal fractions, U.S. money, budgeting, calculation of various kinds of worded problems, powers (squaring, cubing, etc.), we learned to find square roots, at first with simple problems in which the correct root would be a whole number, and then more complex problems where the answer might have multiple decimal digits. Of course this can be done by trial and error, with adjustment for the next trial in the direction and by the amount implied by the previous error, as in finding the square root of five. We would of course know that the square root of four would be two, while the square root of nine would be three, so the answer would be more than two but less than three. If great precision is needed, though, this method is slow and difficult for teacher or student to check conveniently, so a standard procedure and notation was required. A root marker was used, similar to the long division marker, except that the left end was shaped more like a check mark than a parenthesis. The first step was (at least mentally) separating the digits of number of which the square root was to be found into groups of two digits each, starting from any decimal point. One then focuses on the first group of digits (having one or two digits), mentally judges what the first digit of the root will be, and writes that Chapter 3, page 60

Heyer Saga number above the root sign. One then goes through a process rather like long division, but with additional flourishes, such as doubling the existing answer so far, creating a trial divisor, assessing its suitability, adjusting as needed, subtracting as in long division, and so on. For more than half a century I remembered how to do this, and occasionally had occasion to do it, but after learning use of the slide rule and the rise of handy electronic calculators, using such tools was quicker than the long, multi-step, written process. Hence today I would no longer remember enough to do it efficiently on the first try. While we were learning this, the federal government, the Boy Scouts, and the school were all urging the saving, collecting, and recycling of a range of resources that were in limited supply because of the war, such as rubber, tin, gasoline, and certain foods. Rationing and limited use were imposed nationally for actual shortages and for regional shortages (use of oil for heating in the Northeast because of the sinking of tanker ships on the way there from Texas and Louisiana). Collection and reuse of newspapers was pushed by the Boy Scouts in various paper drives, and the school urged reduced use of paper. I therefore thought that, since the goal of homework assignments was familiarizing us with techniques in math, I should therefore try to do the homework without paper. The next time math class met, the math teacher called for us to turn in our assignments, so I explained my approach as the reason for no paperwork. She therefore tested me on a distinct problem that she made up on the spot, had me face the class while she noted my responses on the blackboard in chalk (such boards still were really black then) where I could not see them, and I did the problem in my head and orally, expressing each step as I went. I proved my point, and nothing more was said about it. Of course my memory was better then than now; I would not want to try that now on a complex problem. My fascination with this interesting process was such that when the algebraic basis for this method became clear the next school year in algebra class, I set out to try to reason out (with constant back-testing) how similar processes could be devised to work out cube roots, fourth roots, etc. Chapter 3, page 61

Heyer Saga I did accomplish the cube root in a short time, but the increase in complexity at that stage made clear that proceeding to comparable higherroot methods would not provide practical results. Exploring this area was an interesting process. Although I did not know it then, books were published and widely used to obviate any need for most people to use this method. To a certain degree, some slide rules could solve such problems, although I did not meet them until my junior year in high school. Today, hand calculators can do this relatively efficiently, so many schools probably no longer bother to teach that method, but it is still at the foundation of the more modern tools usually used for the process. In the eighth grade one former classmate from Oak Street Elementary School, Monte Barnes was in Mrs. Stangers class with me. On one occasion when she was discussing (at a very elementary level) the difference between democratic and autocratic national governments, Monte slipped a note to me asking, What about technocracy? as a possible alternative to both alternatives being discussed. Various signs with that word and the same symbol now used as the Yin Yang symbol were familiar, but its actual content was unfamiliar to me, so I checked out a library book on the subject. This idea was that existing political economic systems were not working well, with economic collapses, abuses of all sorts, wars, and other faults, senseless state lines within what should be a single nation, widespread waste and incompetence, etc., and that the solution would be a system of national organization by industries, rather than by states, each run by the top technician of each industry in the country. Instead of the political national Congress there would be a council of these ruler-technicians. (Incidentally, the author included the absorption of all of North and Central America, as well as the northern part of South America as part of the proposal, as implied by an included map.) Obviously, this plan was designed by one or more Americans thinking only in terms of the U.S., ignoring most of the realities of the country and the world, and seemed to offer little of value. Although pushed hard by a

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Heyer Saga small group, it was never widely popular. Reading about and discussing it, however, with Monte, led me into some new experiences in the following summer vacation. Before that, though, a few other things happened in eighth grade. While I was at the front of the classroom examining the huge world map to become more familiar with the locations of some smaller, more obscure places, another boy in the class, presumably there for the same purpose, looked at me, made a sweeping gesture with his hand and arm across the map, saying, Someday this will all be America! This proclamation astonished and distressed me. After all the blood spilled over outrageous aggression around the world that was still going on, he had learned nothing, and was willing to start it all over again! Sadly, we have recently had a president with the same kind of irresponsible view! Can we never learn? By the time I was in the eighth grade, I had nearly reached my complete adult height (58), had a fairly complete beard, though probably not much over a quarter inch long, and, like many adolescents, hated dependent status. I had not left school because I did not feel capable of earning a living yet, but I did feel able to help defend my country, which still faced Germany, Italy, and Japan, each of which still had great military and naval power. The U.S. Army no longer accepted voluntary enlistments, and instead was filled with draftees. The U.S. Navy, however, did not receive draftees and depended on enlistments. Such an enlistment office was not far from the intermediate school. So one day, after school, I walked to that recruiting office and volunteered. The recruiting officer (so-called, although in fact he was not an officer), merely smiled and dismissed me to my daddy. No friend, acquaintance, parent, or other relative then living ever found out. Named valedictorian of the intermediate school, I composed and delivered the graduation speech. Instead of the usual its been great here but now we must go on to our futures kind of theme, I tried to point up

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Heyer Saga what seemed needed next to be done in the nation and the world for a better future, but my delivery what not as effective as I had hoped. e. The summer of transition

While still in the eighth grade, I realized that (1) our national society had a basis influenced by at least two major cultures that were seldom mentioned in public media, except in a few ceremonial words, and that (2) I was largely ignorant of the real content of either. One was at least ostensibly based on the Bible, and the other was the Greco-Roman classical culture. For the first I set out to read the Bible, from beginning to end, although it actually took a little longer than one summer, because I took careful notes comparing versions of events as reported in different parts of the text. For the other, I set out to read the writings of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, but found that Socrates left no extant writing, and is known mainly from Plato. Plato gave a picture of Socrates approach, thus introducing the idea of Socratic method, a useful rhetorical device, but in practice, at least as set forth in Platos dialogues, largely dishonest trickery, in which Socrates gets where he wants to go by asking questions, but subtly changing the meanings of his terms as the questions proceed, so that he appears to prove something that he has not actually proven at all. First rate modern scientists and logicians recognize and try to avoid this trap, but of course they werent numerous in Platos time. Plato may actually have believed in this approach, though, because he also came up with the strange idea that words are some magic, unchangeable things, existing before reality and apart from human uses of them. This became known as the theory of ideas, because he equated words to ideas, thinking they existed in one-to-one correspondence. This view became so accepted that it even shows up in the New Testament, where the Gospel according to John (King James version) says, in the beginning was the Word . . . Plato also proposed a wealthy male oligarchy as the ideal state, holding all women in common as a kind of community use harem, and Chapter 3, page 64

Heyer Saga passed on an outrageously misunderstood version of the destruction of the island of San Torini (formerly Thera) near Crete as the mythologized Atlantis. All told, I concluded that neither Socrates nor Plato had much of value to offer me, but I was glad to find that out, and occasionally used a more honest application of Platonic rhetoric. Aristotle, however, proved to be more interesting and even inspiring. He became Platos pupil, as Plato had been Socrates pupil, but he also was the son of a physician, so he was able to combine the reasoning of his professional expositor masters with a practical knowledge of animals, plants, etc., used by physicians to understand the body, diagnose illnesses, and offer cures and ameliorations. His physics was far ahead of that of his famous mentors (setting for the first conservation law, that matter is neither created nor destroyed, as later proven by the master chemist Lavoisier), and his biology unmatched until Darwin and Wallace (partly because Mendels work was for a time unnoticed), although his metaphysics was woolly, as one might expect of such a topic. His biology was so far ahead of his contemporaries that the Church frowned on anyone disagreeing with any part of it for multiple centuries. Here lay part of the misfortunes of certain later times and places. In that same summer, Monte Barnes also introduced me to two other adventures. First, he proposed that we collaborate on writing a novel set in a portion of Antarctica where a (fictional) heat source made successful colonization practical. We worked together on it for a limited time, during which he modeled one of the characters after his view of me (dressed conventionally but not stylishly) and named that character Sherwood Forrest. The novel did not get finished. He also became part of a considerable group of youngsters of similar ages to us in planning and working toward performance of a stage play. A considerable number of would-be actors were assembled, the parts were assigned, numerous rehearsals held, and a date and place for performance arranged and agreed. I did not seek an acting role, but I helped in some behind-the-scenes capacities, and on occasion stood in the rear of the

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Heyer Saga performance auditorium where I could provide feedback on whether the delivery on stage was sufficiently audible that far from the stage. As the time for public performance drew nearer (still short a few weeks), the organization began to fall apart. Certain actors were withdrawing for reasons unknown to me, others were not attending their scheduled rehearsals, and abandonment of the project seemed imminent. The project had not been my idea, and I had no desire to act, but rather than see the project fail, I indicated willingness to take an acting part if needed. By then, however, the group felt it had lost too much momentum, so the play was abandoned. Also, that summer, mother arranged piano lessons for me, and maybe for TerryI cannot quite recall. The piano teacher was encouraging, perhaps in part because my experience with fractions helped in distinguishing eighth, quarter, half, and whole notes. After a number of exercises and simpler selections, she assigned the song Casey went out with the strawberry blonde. In the sense of learning the notes, sequence, fingering, etc., that was mastered in a week or two, but she kept reassigning it for refinement, and clearly I was not getting appreciably better. By the end of summer vacation, I was sick of Casey and his strawberry blonde, did not feel that my musical skill would ever be acceptable, and was concerned that the time needed for piano practice would impinge excessively on time that I expected would be needed for homework in High School. Before the end of summer vacation, therefore, I told mother that I did not think the expense of my piano lessons was justified by my musical progress. I continued being interested in learning more aspects of the piano independently, but she did not like my banging on the piano. (Also, in June of 1944, the allied invasion of northern France finally started, delayed by the initial advantage of the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan), the time required to build up U.S. military forces and get them to where they could be effective, as well as the deliberate distractions and delays engineered by Churchill, whose power politics and imperialism

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Heyer Saga interfered with the effective prosecution of the war. Italy changed sides and ousted Mussolini, the founder of Fascism, Rome fell to the Allied invasion of southern Italy, and in time a further invasion was launched from the Mediterranean Sea area into southern France, increasing the pace of the European Theater of Operations.) f. High School Inglewood High School was the same place from which my parents had graduated in 1928. (It had graduated its first eight students in 1908.) Its territory had shrunk as other high schools had been built, so that it did not even serve all of the city of Inglewood (population 30,000 in 1940 and over 40,000 in 1950, so in 1944, when I started, probably somewhere in between). The school population was about 2,700 students, in four grades. By this time the school had six large stucco buildings, all with two stories, besides separate gymnasia for boys and girls, some single story shop buildings, playing fields, a basketball playing floor and swimming pool inside, and a football field filling the old high school "farm". The agriculture department of the school was no longer in existence in this now urbanized setting. Several of my high-school teachers had taught my parents, including the Latin, public speaking, and chemistry teachers, the head of the mathematics department, one in junior English, and the biology major who taught physics. A new chemistry teacher replaced the aging one in midyear. The retiring chemistry teacher had been too easy, and the numbers appalled both the novice chemistry teacher replacement and the class when he gave his first test. He proved, however, to be an excellent teacher, inspiring a team of our students to participate (and place second) in a statewide chemistry competition. I had heard how hard the subject would be, but I found it fascinating and great fun. My favorites were the Latin, advanced algebra, and the new chemistry teachers. In all four years there we had to take physical education, and every year there I took Latin and some English and science classes. The English classes included a pitiful bit of grammar and some reading of literature in

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Heyer Saga the first two years (making me aware of how much more Mrs. Stanger in the eighth grade had taught us about parts of speech and sentence diagramming). The other two years were in journalism. In the senior year, I edited the school newspaper (which entailed being a member of the student council). I joined a number of school clubs (Latin, Chemistry, World Friendship, etc., and the Scholarship Society), but did not seek elective school office like class president, although at age 12 I had decided to seek public office as an adult to deal with the problem of international safety, order, and fairness, and stayed on this track until an unsuccessful candidacy for state assembly seemed to make any career in that direction infeasible by age 32. But this is getting ahead of the story. The science courses covered in high school included a general, introductory course with a bit of physics, astronomy, etc.; biology (a weakly taught course, but the text contained some absurd ideas that set me to thinking and ultimately to a major writing project on which I am still engaged); chemistry, and physics. The school also offered four years of mathematics, including beginning algebra through quadratic equations and their applications, plane geometry, second-year algebra, and a semester of solid geometry followed by a semester of trigonometry. I intended to take all four years, and was fortunate in the quality of the instructors. The freshman-year teacher was just back from teaching in Turkey, and followed an approach that I never met in any other mathematics class: after introducing each new topic, he told us to work enough problems (from the book) to master the topic, rather than requiring a specific number of problems. I appreciated that flexible approach, which saved time and permitted me to progress rapidly and enjoy the progress and the subject. Plane geometry was more rigid and less appealing, but well taught. In that year, the need to remember all the theorems previously proven (in order to make later proofs shorter) got me down by the following spring, producing a slump. The final, standardized test at the end of year, however,

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Heyer Saga focused on solving problems rather than remembering all the past proofs separately, so that permitted me to finish the year with a bang. Our junior advanced algebra teacher, Mr. Benson, had taught my parents. His approach was very methodical, logical, and straight- forward. Although neither the subject nor the teacher called for any emotional interaction, I think his students had unusual respect for him, we learned a lot, and besides the traditional information in the text, he taught us about the nature and use of logarithms, and how to use a slide rule. (Today, the electronic hand calculator has made the slide rule obsolete in this country and others, but it was a remarkable mechanism: with a simple oblong stick of wood or, later, block of plastic that could fit easily in a shirt pocket, together with another, thinner stick that slid into a slot on the first part, and a small, transparent plastic object marked with a hair line, one could quite quickly calculate complex multiplications, divisions, powers, roots, etc., in the field, to three significant figures, enough for almost any terrestrial application.) Because of too many demands for the senior year, I could not take solid geometry (one semester), but that I could do so by myself by just proceeding as in plane geometry, but dealing with solid objects, which had largely been introduced in plane geometry anyway. I therefore signed up to take trigonometry in the summer school after my junior year, so that I could use it to work on physics problems the next year. That summer class contained one all-purpose instructor, one other trigonometry student, a score of English and a score of U.S. history students, and a few others working on other things. The instructor probably spoke to us two trig students once during the course, but the text was sufficient to master that subject. The Latin became interesting enough that, besides four years of study in class, I bought extra paper-backed books to read one summer, signed up for additional courses by correspondence through the University of California, and went on to ancient Greek in the same way. The high school Latin textbook was the first school book I recall that had color (since

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Heyer Saga the first grade), and also contained comparable versions of a Latin passage in Spanish and perhaps another Romance language, and first introduced me to the concept of the relationships among distinct languages, a subject that has remained a life-long fascination. Seeing how close Spanish was to Latin, I decided to take a course in Spanish in the summer (high) school during the summer between my freshman and sophomore years. (Because of poor handwriting, I also decided to take a course in introductory typing that summer, and continued the typing in the following summer.) With that Spanish course behind me, I enrolled in the second-year Spanish course for my senior year, but then learned that the editor of the paper was expected to spend a full course in the Student Council, so the Spanish had to be dropped. During the regular school years, I also took courses in ancient classical (Greco-Roman) history, US history, and public speaking. g. World War II Ends

In April 1945, President Roosevelt died, succeeded by Vice President Harry Truman. Not long afterward, the Nazi leader Hitler committed suicide, and admiral Schroeder surrendered Germany. Thus, of the Western wartime leaders, only Churchill and Stalin remained. Both trusted FDR, despite disputes, but totally distrusted each other. The international conferences, however, had agreed on where the allied armies should stop, and on a united approach against the remaining enemy, Japan. The Pacific War seemed to be approaching a climax. In that phase of the conflict, MacArthur in the South Pacific and the Navy in the Central Pacific had advanced by island hopping, and were now approaching the main Japanese islands. Every tiny island captured from the Japanese by US forces had been taken at heavy cost, the Japanese soldiers always expected to fight on to the death, and most of them did so. These battles had all been on a small scale, but with thousands of casualties, increasing with the approach to Japan. The conquest of Japan itself was therefore widely expected to follow an even more desperate pattern, with estimated losses of millions more on both sides.

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Heyer Saga In the summer of 1945, I believe I had a sick spell (mumps), confining me to bed, where I continued to follow the war. Then the U.S. warned Japan of great destruction if it did not promptly surrender, introduced the use of still longer-range Boeing bombers, and were bombing Tokyo and other major industrial cities regularly and heavily. No surrender followed. Within days, the first atomic bomb in history was dropped on Hiroshima. The destruction was massive, but no quick surrender occurred. Within several days, the second such bomb fell on Nagasaki. The Russians then entered the Pacific War by invading Japanese-held Northeast China (Manchuria) with a well-equipped and experienced army recently freed from the German front. Japan then surrendered (In August), and at last World War II ended. (The second atom bomb was meant to show the Japanese government that the US had more. Actually, as we later learned, there were not any more ready yet.) For the first time in US history, the US had waged a world-wide war, and created a system that allowed as many of its warriors as wished and could qualify for to have money to pay for a college-level or vocational education to assist them in reintegrating into civilian employment after their active wartime military service. The educational level of the nation leaped massively over the years of this first G. I. Bill of Rights, raising the economic and educational level of the nation far above what it had ever before been, although the full impact was not immediately recognized. h. The Rest of High School

In my sophomore year my mother returned to school, attending classes of a newly formed community college in the high schools classrooms in evenings after the high school students left. This made me our household cook for weeknight suppers, except for the main entre, which she started before leaving for school. In the following year, I joined a night class in beginning Chinese through the University of California in Los Angeles, near a business that advertised its location on radio as Eastern Columbia, Broadway at Ninth". Each night, I walked to the (electric rail) streetcar line in central Inglewood,

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Heyer Saga took the streetcar to near the class site, worked in the class for three hours, and reversed the trip homeward. Going to this class every night for two years after a full day at school while also taking correspondence courses, I sometimes fell asleep on the streetcar before getting to my stop in Inglewood, having to return when I discovered I had passed the end of my intended journey. Still, I learned some Chinese with a patient teacher whose age is shown by his having taken the traditional Imperial Examinations required for official appointments before 1911! In my sophomore year I took Ancient History, taught by a teacher with a strong southern accent but a rapid and often careless speech pattern. Curiously, she became the school sponsor for the World Friendship Club, despite a clearly racist bent. A teacher in another school had started that group of clubs in southern California. I joined this club that year, and remained in it throughout the rest of high school. In the following year, Thelma Sims also joined it. Club meetings and outings occurred, and ultimately, the club elected me president, and Thelma club recording secretary. She was in the grade below mine, quiet but friendly, attractive, and seemed brighter and better educated than some other members, although several seemed quite capable. Every day at a certain time when all the high-school students were walking from one class to another, I would see her walking the opposite way, flashing me a big, beautiful smile. At least since the 1920s (in line with Alexander Hamiltons original practice), various oligarchists politicians and newspaper publishers had persistently accused everyone who disagreed with them on any public issue or stood in their way in any other respect of being communists (undefined) as a standard tactic to get attention, power, votes, or other advantages. Winston Churchill, though defeated for re-election after the war, was therefore invited by Congress to encourage this practice, with many imitators. One in Congress was Martin Dies, and of course there was in imitator in the state legislature, who attacked the idea of World Friendship as un-American. Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Joseph McCarthy built their careers on a similar foundation. The California bigot attacked the World Friendship Clubs, of course, and some members left it in fear. That was disappointing to me, but the bigot is forgotten and the club Chapter 3, page 72

Heyer Saga survived. Redbaiting, abuse of power, fear, and courage were, and have remained, a part our world ever since then, in one guise or another. i. Sidelights on high school

1) Also in the sophomore year (tenth grade), a decision had to be made. A third year of high school English or equivalent was necessary for admission to UCLA, the state university campus in Los Angeles County (where my parents had attended and where I expected to need to attend, private schools appearing too expensive to consider). This could be obtained by attending a literature class from a teacher from my parents time in high school, or by taking journalism. The journalism teacher had been my freshman English teacher, so I was familiar with him, and had some experience in that field. A short chat with the literature teacher therefore seemed appropriate to help in making the choice, so I arranged that and asked a few questions about her approach. Her response gave the impression that she was narrow, rigid, overly impressed with convention, and lacking in a sound, fundamental understanding of grammar, as well as uninspiring. Journalism was therefore my choice. 2) In journalism class in the following year, we worked separately on our assignments and had substantial freedom of action within our assignments, so anyone in the class might be anywhere in the classroom (or sometimes out of it) from time to time. We all knew each other in the class, and knew who was working at what assignment. On one occasion, a girl who was the (personal) gossip writer for the school paper seemed extremely discouraged by a recent social mishap that left her disillusioned, upset, and in obvious emotional pain. There even seemed a kind of loss of faith involved. We were not close friends, but she seemed to need some encouragement and no one else showed interest, so I tried to help with some words aimed at giving a different perspective and restoring balance.

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Heyer Saga I have never been impressed by metaphysics or dogmatic religious proclamations, and did not inquire into the particulars of her problem (though I had the impression that it was a romantic situation gone sour). I therefore made use of references to those occasions of inspiration, feelings of transcendence, or emotional responses to surroundings or thoughts that make people feel that, at least for a time, they have emotionally risen out of the mundane. Whether it was helpful I do not know; at least she knew someone cared. A senior girl in that class overheard the conversation, and for some reason was impressed, and mentioning it to my Latin teacher, who was quite approachable. Sometime later when I was having a hard time deciding on my future direction, torn between history and my political goal on one side, versus science on the other. I asked Mrs. Wight, the Latin teacher who taught me every year, what she advised. She referred to the foregoing incident and suggested psychiatry! That idea appalled me. I thanked her, but to me that seemed the least imaginable role for me, one at which I could not possibly be effective. 3) Later, still pondering the same choice and looking through various college catalogues, I discovered a scholarship listed at the University of Southern California, offered by the Chinese (Nationalist) government for the study of Chinese language and culture. I applied to UCLA (where I expected to go), USC, Cal Tech (California Institute of Technology), and a few other southern California colleges for admission, and to USC and Cal Tech for academic scholarships. I even asked Rowena Hodges, geometry proofs champion of our class, if I could ride with her to take an examination at a private college where she was applying (my goal was to take a test there to get a scholarship that might save my parents the expense of my college education. I do not recall ever having asked for a ride with someone before or since that time. That college and Cal Tech both granted admission and partial scholarships, but clearly that would be insufficient. They both had high tuition, so attendance would not be practical. That resolved the physical

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Heyer Saga science versus history-political-science issue for me. When I went to interview with the department head for Chinese language and culture, he asked me a question in Chinese, we chatted a bit, and he then informed me that the scholarship was intended for a college graduate doing postgraduate work. I thanked him for his time, and left, assuming that his response eliminated that possibility. With admission to UCLA established and no advantageous scholarship available, my University education seemed settled. My father, Brother Terry, and I went for the last time to Crater Camp for a week or so, swimming, boating, catching and eating craw-dads (crayfish), and enjoying nature. On my return a card from the USC Chinese-department head was waiting. In it he said that, seeing my academic grades, he had decided to split the scholarship, half to me and half to another student (I do not recall whether that other student was a graduate or undergraduate student). This half scholarship was enough to pay for full tuition at USC, all my college books, and leave me enough beyond to cover a year at UCLA. So, much to my surprise, I actually did attend USC through my first year at University, at no cost to my parents, and would end up with money for another year. Of course I was still living at home, which was an expense. At USC, one fellow student in the Chinese department suggested to me that I attend the University of Chicago, and others talked of the advantages of schooling away from home, but financially that would not be practical. 4) In my last year of high school, much to my surprise and at first not recognizing the situation, two girls that I met there seemed to take an interest in me, although no words were spoken on the subject and I took no steps to pursue either relationship. One was a member of the World Friendship club), whose interest was inferred from her taking my hand and leading me to a ride or walk through a tunnel of love at some outing of the club, and, on a different occasion, from her leaning over a seat back in a car in which we were riding. My hand Chapter 3, page 75

Heyer Saga had been resting on that seat back, and her lean precisely put one of her breasts on the back of my hand. At first I was not sure whether she was aware of this arrangement, but thought that moving the hand might be more embarrassing to both of us than leaving it there. After what seemed like a considerable time, she raised herself up, gave my hand a light spat, and returned to her seat. On another occasion, when I was driving several club members home one night after an outing, I walked each girl to her door (as I understood to be the proper behavior at such a time), and when I did so for the last girl but herself, she wordlessly seemed to express anger. She finally enlisted in the army, as I understood. A Midwestern Republican governor had raised the other because her mother could not afford to raise her at that time, according to what she volunteered to me. She was, however, living in California with her mother when I knew her. I cannot recall whether she was or was not a member of the World Friendship club. She was articulate and seemed confident and reasonably educated. She seemed in some ways more mature than some students in our grade, and approached me with serious conversation. Again, no spoken words suggested any attachment between us, but I had the impression that such a relationship might be developing. Neither of these girls, however, ever aroused in me a strong feeling of attraction. Whether that was because of anything about them or just about me I do not know, but, while many youngsters fell in love in high school and married right after graduating, I did not see how that could happen for me, nor how I could support a wife so soon, nor how I dared develop a strong attachment long before marriage, considering the strong emotions of adolescents and young adults. There was also another girl, but that story belongs elsewhere. j. Entertainment There was no television available to the public in the 1930s and 40s, nor any electronic games, toys, etc., because the silicon computer chip had not yet been invented. The nearest things to computers were the great mainframes which produced or used punched cards, invented by Hollerith, Chapter 3, page 76

Heyer Saga in imitation of the player piano rolls (which controlled or "programmed" a player piano to play a particular tune; the rolls could be changed, like different tapes now. The piano rolls were, in turn, copied from a French system for controlling pattern printing on cloth in textile manufacturing). The great machines were mostly calculators, and were controlled by manually set switches (each representing one "bit", in current language) and vacuum tubes. (There is a myth among computer enthusiasts that the term "bug" in reference to software originated from a moth being caught in one of these switches, but the story is apocryphal. I well remember that people were talking about "getting the bugs out" of a machine or process long before computers contributed anything to general speech patterns, although computer engineers shortened this expression to "debugging".) We did have books, newspapers, and magazines, including the Sunday colored comic strips (most of them were meant to be comic, although a few, like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, were adventures). The famous mayor of New York City, Fiorello ("little flower") LaGuardia, read the Sunday cartoon strips over the radio to the nation's children during a strike affecting the newspaper industry. One of my favorite comic strips was Alley Oop, a prehistoric man who rode a dinosaur named Dinny. (To my surprise, the San Mateo Times recently revived this comic strip, apparently for the 75th anniversary of the origin of that earlier version.) Of course when I was in intermediate school, as at the present and all other periods in American history, at least after the jailing by John Adams' administration of the principal newspaper editors who had supported the Democratic (then called Democratic Republican) party, the press and other media of public communication have been overwhelmingly dominated by the "oligarchist" party, but I heard there were one or two fairer magazines in my youth, and there was a responsible newspaper in Los Angeles for a little while. As usual, the dominant newspapers had all supported Herbert Hoover and the "Republican" party in the 1932 election, but one local

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Heyer Saga weekly tabloid-sized paper supported Roosevelt and the Democrats. After the election, this paper became very popular and expanded its operations to a daily paper, to which our family subscribed. It was physically smaller (tabloid size) than the two dominant papers of the area (Times and Examiner, which were parts of powerful chains), had no Sunday colored cartoons, and always operated, it is my impression, on a shoestring. The policies of this newspaper differed significantly from the usual media. It was honest and straightforward in its news, kept news and editorial commentary strictly separate, in accordance with the teachings of the journalistic ideals taught in the journalism schools in the great universities (in sharp contrast with the policies of such chains as Hearst and others), and it eschewed the sensational nonsense that appeared in the magazine section of the Sunday times, on the order of the fantasies reported in the Enquirer in our own time. The policy of this newspaper was to mention names and ages of persons involved in crimes, but not their race or address. In its editorials, it supported needed reforms and honest public servants. After World War II ended and the communist witch hunt period began, the Times was able to destroy this newspaper by publishing a second paper, the "Mirror", which matched the Daily News in size and appearance, and initially appeared to support the same causes. The local versions of Martin Dies, Joseph McCarthy, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan set about to prevent the Daily News from getting advertising, as they also set about to destroy the careers of many screen writers and actors, university professors, and other intellectual leaders. The effort was totally successful, so that ultimately virtually all voices other than their own were silenced, at least after the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. The Daily News is no more. We occasionally attended motion pictures, went on rides, and played at home, but radio had already become a staple in every home, bringing the melodramatic morning "soap operas" (from their sponsors, usually manufacturers of hand, dish, and laundry soapdetergents did not yet exist), the interminable monologues of what I called the "afternoon Chapter 3, page 78

Heyer Saga philosophers" (actually, long commercials), to provide housewives with adult "company" while preparing supper or doing other chores, the news, and the evening adventure, comedy, and variety programs for "family entertainment". Radio "news", of course, was to a considerable extent just headline reading, as it is now on television, with no depth or detail, but during the war it generally consisted of events with real importance, acquainted Americans with world geography to an unprecedented extent, and, taken together, constituted a continuing and dramatic adventure in which we were all participating. National political conventions were broadcast on all stations in their entirety, so that voters and pre-voters could follow the details and get the measure of the political parties, issues, and participants, in sharp contrast to the pre-digested pap now provided in lieu of actual coverage of the conventions. I listened when able, followed major events closely, and discussed them with my father over the dinner table, somewhat to my mother's distaste. New steps were constantly occurring in the war, so in my room, after I had a radio available, I would shift from one news program to another (some newscasts were as short as five minutes in the evenings and when I was bedbound). Radio programs were shorter than television programs now are. The daytime programs, like most others, were 15 minutes long, with a brief commercial message, usually including a slogan, at the beginning and end. The comedies usually had only two actors, who often would make voices for a few more characters. Such programs (once a week) included Lum and Abner, Amos and Andy, Fibber McGee and Molly, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Vic and Sade. Even Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy made radio "appearances", skits, and dialogues, although this involved only one person: Edgar Bergen, a ventriloquist, but several characters, including Charlie McCarthy, Mortimer Snerd, etc., which were puppets. Bergen also appeared in motion pictures, and, I suppose, in person somewhere, but not where I saw him.

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Heyer Saga Vic and Sade was a daytime program, on weekdays. They were a married couple (in the story line), having simple, household conversations. In one episode, Sade (Sadie, the wife) was trying to describe something, and Vic (Victor, the husband) asked the famous question that has been used ever since as part of the language: "Is it bigger than a bread box?" Fibber McGee told "whoppers" (untrue stories of his past exploits), and was famous for opening the door of his hall closet, causing a great crash from things falling out. We had such a closet. Another daytime comedy, providing a little break among the soaps like Ma Perkins; Just Plain Bill; Mary Trent, Backstage Wife; Mary Marlin (with a honeyed voice that made her a radio romantic star, but a face and age that relegated her to minor roles in motion pictures and television later), etc., was Lorenzo Jones and his Wife, Bell. He was an impractical and unsuccessful would-be inventor, but it was a charming and funny series. On one evening comedy, "Blondie" (the character from the comic strips), had a few extra characters, and came on in later years than some of these mentioned above. Dagwood, Blondie, and Mr. Dithers were all included; the offspring then was only a wordless "baby dumpling", as in the comic strips at that time. Only in later years did this generic baby grow into Alexander, and have a little sister named "Cookie". The trademark line in this series was Mr. Dithers' oft-repeated threat to run Dagwoods little finger into the pencil sharpener, but we always listened, and my father made a little game of it. Just before the program was to come on, he would tell me to change the station. I would make a motion as if I intended to do it, just as the announcer would say, "Don't touch that dial! It is time for Blondie!" We went through this ritual once each week. The evening adventure stories (and some late afternoon ones for school children returning home) included more actors, because they often needed a villain, but only in soaps did the number of characters ever exceed a handful. There were shows like Jack, Doc, and Reggie (adventurers in exotic places), Buck Rogers (a space traveler), the Lone

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Heyer Saga Ranger, Superman ("faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, he leaps tall buildings with a single bound! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Superman!"), the Green Hornet (a crime fighter), the Shadow ("Who knows what lies in the hearts of men? The shadow knows."), Batman, Sherlock Holmes, Steve Wilson, Editor of the Illustrated Press (played by Edward G. Robinson, who was often a gangster in motion pictures), etc. Edgar Allen Poes short stories (like The Telltale Heart), The Cask of Amontillado, and other stories, were narrated in monologues by very talented storytellers, with great vocal variety and effect, usually more powerful than the weak dialogue that prevailed in most of the plays. The later variety shows were longerwhole 30 minutes, including the breaks for commercials! Still later, a few plays were extended that long as well. The variety shows were the "big shows" of the week, usually headed by a widely known comedian such as Jack Benny, Fred Allen, and in the 40's, Bob Hope and Red Skelton, who did stand-up routines and skits. Most of them told the jokes, but Jack Benny and George Burns played the straight man to others' delivery of punch lines. These shows also often included a singer, usually an Irish tenor; a band, led by such then-wellknown names as Spike Jones and Phil Harris; and a few "side-kicks", such as Harry von Zell (Benny's announcer, who also participated in some of the routines), Mary Livingston (Benny's actual wife), and Rochester, playing Benny's African-American chauffeur, who delivered his lines in an unnatural, scratchy voice and got most of the laughs. Fake "rivalries" were created for these shows, with a pair of comedians, each with his own show, casting jocular aspersions on the supposed rival, but no one believed any of these were real, and the tone was friendly and gentle. Benny's personal emphasis was stinginess, Hopes was the "ski slope nose", etc. Skelton was a natural clown, but he had trouble sticking to a script. Hope was the first radio comedian I ever heard say anything that sounded racy or suggestive. Abbott and Costello also joined this list, and appeared in films, as did Benny, Bergen, Hope, and others. The best-known singer by far in the thirties, forties, and fifties was Chapter 3, page 81

Heyer Saga Bing Crosby, who was one of the best investors in the entertainment crowd and became the wealthiest of that time. At the motion pictures, one ticket normally garnered a "double feature" (two full-length films), with a newsreel (some "show" news feature about a recent event, such as an inauguration, coronation, a parade, military or naval display, or other showy event), a short cartoon film (such as those later shown on Saturday morning TV; in many cases, the same ones), and sometimes another "short subject", which might provide information on some process, or might simply be a one-act play on film, or a skit. These smaller items would be inserted between the two feature films, and there would, of course, be time to get popcorn, drinks, and sometimes other refreshments, but I do not recall any on-screen commercials or references to the snack bar until the days of drive-in movies in the fifties. Motion pictures in the early thirties and before did not have color. In the later thirties and in the forties of the twentieth century, they usually did not have color, but there were Technicolor processes which were used for cartoons, musicals, and a few other special films. My mother told me that when I was very small, they were asked by the usher to leave the premises when I burst out with "See the horsies" as horses appeared on screen in a western. Most films seemed to be depictions of a somewhat imaginary "old" (19th century) West (west of the Mississippi, but usually east of the Rocky Mountains) or 1920's gangsters, but there were other kinds, including adventures in foreign lands, business problems, and historical events or times, romances, comedies, and, after 1938, war films. The circus was still a big event, and circuses traveled to most major population centers, with their elephants, trapeze artists, bare-back riders (meaning riders without saddles), side-shows, "games of skill" and strength (throwing, shooting, tossing, etc. for small prizes), clowns, and other features. I attended one once. One performer balanced on his head on top of a tall pole, which looked like a flagpole and towered over our heads. I did not consider that part a thrill; I just kept wishing for him to get through and back to safety. Chapter 3, page 82

Heyer Saga While films sometimes showed street musicians, I never saw any street performers or beggars in Inglewood until after the war (World War II), and then only one legless person. Our weekly shopping trips to the Vernon (southwest Los Angeles) shopping area were also a kind of entertainment. In those days there were no freeways or shopping malls, covered or otherwise, and major stores were located in a business section. Only these sections were open on Saturday nights. No businesses except restaurants were open at night during the week. On these trips we could get larger amounts and variety of groceries, especially produce; visit the "dime stores" (formally called "5-10-15 cent stores") to spend our 10-cent allowances; and sometimes stop in at a department store to buy a tool or an item of clothing. At this same business area, on Saturday evenings when stores were open and working people were able to shop together, there was a small park. Invariably at the times of these outings one or another speaker, literally standing on a soap box or comparable impromptu dais, would always be haranguing the crowd of passers-by with orations on religion, war, economics, politics, or some similar topic. His voice was always loud enough to be heard by many, so a loudspeaker probably amplified it, but I am not sure of that. Some people still used megaphones in those days, including Rudy Vallee, a popular singer of the '20's, who could still be heard in the early '30's on radio, but was fading in popularity in face of Bing Crosby's rise and more relaxed and natural manner and voice. We also had phonograph records, large celluloid disks (maybe 12" across?), with a tight groove filling all but the very edge and the middle, where there was a hole for an axis and a space for a label. When not resting vertically in a cardboard envelope, a record disk was laid on a turntable with a fuzzy surface to keep it from slipping, with an axle rising high enough to pass through the hole. In this arrangement, the turntable spun the disc around 78 times in a minute, and could hold a song, which was played with a needle inserted into the groove. The turning of the turntable turned the disk. Variations in the groove made the needle vibrate. A tapering, hollow arm and loudspeaker amplified the needle vibrations to a convenient listening volume, which could be controlled by turning a knob. A Chapter 3, page 83

Heyer Saga collection of several records could be assembled into an album, although I do not recall that we had any whole albums, certainly not before the war. One recorded song we had was a silly one called "Horsey, keep your tail up" (to keep the sun out of the driver's eyes!). We had one turn-of-the-century disc, recorded on only one side and thicker than the then-current ones, with a comic dialogue. We played that on an old Victrola, spring-motor player, which had to be wound up with a crank. This was kept in the shed behind the house. (The electric-motor version was in the dining room.) As the spring motor unwound, its speed slowed, producing distortion in music and strange, deep, slowed voices. Therefore, a lever was included to adjust the speed manually. Doing this also allowed experimenting children to produce chipmunk voices and other interesting effects. I also discovered that I could hear the record adequately, if weakly, by inserting my little fingernail in the groove in place of the needle. Although I did not participate, "soap-box derbies" became a popular, or at least widely publicized, entertainment or sport. Unpowered vehicles were built, supposedly by children or adolescents, from such items as could be scrounged, such as soap boxes (wooden crates, not the cardboard boxes that now contain detergent) for the body, miscellaneous boards or sticks for the chassis or steering stick, and old baby buggy wheels (6-8 inches in diameter, usually with spokes and solid rubber tires). A race would be scheduled, usually by a newspaper publisher, the youngsters would appear with their homemade vehicles, push off, and roll down the chosen hill with only the power supplied by gravity. k. Other Childhood Recollections Prices were much lower then than now. As mentioned above, a child's cinema ticket was 11 cents (including one-cent luxury tax), a lead soldier or big-little book five cents, a licorice 1 cent, a child's haircut 25 cents, a punch-out book 10 cents, a wind-up toy usually 25 cents, a handpuppet 29 cents (plus 1 cent sales tax), a car around $1000 new but only hundreds used, sometimes less, a house for a few thousand. Corporate

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Heyer Saga board members usually served without pay, except for expenses, as did many local public officials in medium and smaller cities. The total mobilization of all national efforts and resources to fight the 1930 depression and World War II in the 40's increased the federal debt from around 30 billion to over 200 billion, while we now spend more than that each year to fight a war that is not going on, and debt is in trillions. When Roosevelt became president, the debt was 32 billion, about equal to the gross national product; today the gross national product is several trillions. Around 1937, we had unusual weather. In the summer, the temperature in Inglewood reached 100 Fahrenheitthe highest it ever got. That winter it reached freezing, and the water in the chickens' bucket froze over. In no other year did Inglewood ever get that hot or that cold. Rains that year caused a flood that one day filled the streets and caused swamps south of Inglewood (in Lawndale, where El Camino College now is), as well as westward in the bean fields (now Westchester and West Los Angeles). My father decided to take me to school in the car, but when he got there, the school was closed. I saw someone rowing down the street in a rowboat. As mentioned above, there were no freeways in California, or generally anywhere in the country. Then one day I read in the "Weekly Reader", a sort of national newspaper for children which we were shown in school, an article telling about a new kind of road between cities, which had no cross streets and no stopping. This was the famous "Pennsylvania Turnpike". That was probably in the third or fourth grade, so it must have been 1937-1938. But our California freeways came many years after that. We had paved streets, unpaved country roads, highways with plenty of businesses on them, busses, and "street-cars", which were light rail vehicles operated by electric motors powered by overhead wires. These vehicles, also known as trolleys, had a long, retractable metal pole or arm attached to the top, and hinged, with a small wheel at the top. The wheel rolled along against the underside of the overhead power line, thus drawing power for the electric motor. At intersections of several power lines (wires), the trolley wheels sometimes became dislodged from the line, bringing a quick halt to the vehicle. The operator would then have to get out and Chapter 3, page 85

Heyer Saga manipulate the arm, with control cables, to get it back into the proper position. These trolleys included a "yellow car" connecting Inglewood to downtown Los Angeles, and were usually for central city or inter-city travel, while busses made the shorter runs within a town or among neighboring towns. (Later, after the war, in the name of rapid mass transit, the trolleys were sold to the new Transit Authority, which removed the tracks, discontinued the trolleys, and never restored an adequate public transit system. This was the opposite of what everyone expected; we all thought that rapid, public transport in the Los Angeles basin would eliminate automobiles (as should have been done). For that reason, the University of California at Los Angeles, in 1952, although it had plenty of land and some large parking lots, did not include any parking lots in its master plan, because "in 10 years there [would] be no need." How wrong they were!) l. Awakening On one occasion, probably in October 1939, my father began to tell me a story one evening. He had told me many stories: the Three Pigs (a version in which none die), the Three Bears, the background of Spartacus' speech to the gladiators and of Antony's oration to the Romans, of the treacherous capture of Aguinaldo, the leader of the Philippine independence movement, and others. At the time, it seemed as if this was another story of the long ago and far away, although it was clear that it was history, not a fairy tale. He told of Polish cavalry charging on their horses against German tanks. Actually, it must have happened the day or a few days before. That was my first introduction to current events of historical importance in the outer world. I quickly learned that these were current happenings, and became very aware of world events in connection with a series of interrelating wars, including the Russian invasion of Finland and its embarrassing consequences, the Italian conquest of Ethiopia, the Japanese expansion into China, the German and Italian expansions in

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Heyer Saga Europe, the risks to England, in Spain and Turkey, and the place of the United States in it all. I started reading the newspaper and listening to the latest radio news assiduously, and studied geography with a new attitude. I learned about military organizations, the sizes of various armies and navies in the world, the numbers of war vessels of each class, and that the United States' army was 18th in the world, next after Belgium (but we had a large navy). I became aware for the first time of political issues, and within a year was forming my own opinions about what policy should be. National wars of conquest seemed to me then, as now, an absurd anomaly and anachronism in our world, requiring a world organization to suppress such attempts forcefully, to punish the perpetrators, and to correct the injustices, settle disputes, and otherwise address the causes which induced people to indulge in and support such ventures. At age 12 I decided to make that my function in life, but by age 32 I had to accept a lesser roll. m. War

When the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 brought the United States fully into war, the effect on America was dramatic. We learned of the attack on the radio that afternoon, and its meaning was clear. American material aid, volunteers, and naval patrolling in the Atlantic Ocean off North America were already occurring and playing a part in the European War, and American insistence on preventing the Japanese from having oil from Indonesia (then called the Dutch East Indies) unless they withdrew from China had already put us on an obvious collision course in Asia. The commanders in Hawaii had been warned to be on alert, but their racist attitudes made them fear our own citizens (2/3 of the people of Hawaii were of Japanese ancestry at that time) more than the Japanese navy, so the Army commander bunched his aircraft together so they could be protected from sabotage, making them useless for action and perfect targets for the attacking bombers on December 7. The entire Pacific Ocean

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Heyer Saga battleship fleet and the Hawaiian army aircraft were knocked out of action in an hour. The nation, which had been somewhat divided about going into war voluntarily, was immediately united by an attack occurring before a declaration of war. The effort from then on was total. Price controls effectively prevented inflation, and were generally obeyed. Civilian production of automotive vehicles, aircraft, and many other items ceased, except where it directly furthered the war effort. Roosevelt announced war production goals, which many people regarded as impossible, but most were achieved. All national resources and scarce materials were controlled and directed to the military goals. The army had already been doubled by calling the National Guard (state militias) into national service, and then tripled again by drafting young men. Immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack, 100,000 young men immediately enlisted, but then the army stopped accepting enlistments in order to guide and organize its expansion in a more orderly way through the selective service system. In all, the army (including its air force), grew to about seven million men, I believe, and the navy (including marines and temporarily attached Coast Guard) to over a million. The armed forces were well fed. To achieve this and to prevent hoarding, inflation, and shortages, several kinds of food were rationed, especially sugar (much of which had been imported), and beef. Small ration coupons and tokens were issued according to need (size of family, etc.), and no one was allowed to buy without presenting these. The retailer also had to account for his supplies to the Office of Price Administration with these coupons and tokens. Because of heavy oil tanker sinkings in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean by German submarines soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and resulting shortages on the East coast, gasoline was also rationed, although California then was a major oil-producing state and had plenty of supply. The rationing was nationwide. Fear of a Japanese air attack on the West coast caused preparation and blackout rules in California, and the silhouetting of oil tankers by

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Heyer Saga coastal city lights in the South and East required blackout there too. Hence cities were darkened at night and long road trips were out of the question for civilians. Various other commodities were in short supply, mainly because they had formerly been imported, such as rubber from Indonesia and Malaya, silk from the Far East, etc. Women had to give up silk stockings, and some resorted to leg makeup (including a drawn seam in the back; seamless stockings were not yet known) to simulate stockings. Some of these shortages led to new products, ultimately including artificial rubber and finally plastic, and new, faster growing plant were planted in Brazil to obtain rubber. Lead disappeared from consumer products. Rayon existed, but rayon and nylon, when produced, mostly went into parachutes for a few years. New construction was supposed to occur only if it served the war effort. When I tried to attend a scout meeting scheduled for a local park on the Monday after Pearl Harbor, I was challenged in the dark by a National Guard sentry, for a Guard post had been set up. The meeting did not occur that night, or again in that place. Air-raid warnings were set up. A Japanese submarine surfaced off the California coast and fired a few shells at an oil well near Santa Barbara. Not long afterward, I was awakened one night by the telephone ringing. The neighbor across the street was calling, panicked by the sounds and flashes of artillery. Curiously, the artillery itself had not awakened me, but both sound and flashes came to me distinctly from the window as I lay in bed. I assumed it was another submarine, this time being answered by shore batteries, since the extent of artillery activity clearly far exceeded what one submarine could do. I did not get up or consider this a very serious situation. Public warnings had issued to stay away from windows in such a situation. My parents, though, did get up and look out through the large front window. They and many other civilians were certain that they saw aircraft flying above the reach of the anti-aircraft artillery, which it turned out, was

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Heyer Saga making all the noise. Next day's newspaper revealed that enemy aircraft had been suspected (after the war it became clear that no enemy aircraft could have been there), setting off the air-raid warnings, black-out orders, and extensive anti-aircraft fire, and that no aircraft had been shot down and no bombs dropped. The existing three-inch anti-aircraft guns were replaced with six-inch guns, but none of this had any real effect, except that shrapnel from one of the shots fired at the "aircraft" damaged someone's roof. There was no air raid, but my parents were sure there were aircraft, perhaps a dozen or so American planes that had failed to identify themselves properly, flying above the guns' range. So were many others. I know no more than this about that episode. A few months after the war started, some motorized troops moved through Inglewood, apparently on their way to ship out from San Pedro harbor. They drove down Manchester, probably a few thousands of them, and people came out to watch as they would a parade. Most troops were in trucks, but there were also a number of armored tanks. Evidently one of the tank drivers was inexperienced (most of the army was inexperienced at that point), because I read in the next day's paper that a tank had gone astray and run over a string of perhaps a dozen cars parked along the street, flattening them all. (Since new cars were not available for the next four or five years, this must have been a considerable loss to the owners. These vehicles could not have been salvaged.) n. High School Ends In the last year of high school, I continued attending Dr. Lui's night school classes in downtown Los Angeles, took physics, a special chemistry program in preparation for a state-wide chemistry competition, edited the school newspaper, continued in Latin class and through correspondence courses in classical Latin and Greek, was elected to serve as President of the local branch of the World Friendship Club, and spent a week in the second-year Spanish class, until the last ended upon my being informed that editors of the paper were expected to devote an hour every day to attendance at the High School Student Council meetings, forcing me out of the Spanish class. Chapter 3, page 90

Heyer Saga Our second chemistry teacher, now in his second year of teaching ever, recruited several of his prior-year students to devote a full period every day to deepening and enhancing their chemistry skills, mostly by working alone in the chemistry laboratory on chemistry problems that he composed and assigned, with some opportunity to use the new "chain-omatic" scale, a highly precise (and quite delicate) scale for determining very tiny weights by what then were fairly advanced (but still wholly gravitational) means, per-mitting the operator to determine the precise weights of ingredients used in chemical processes. To push it to its maximum capability, on one occasion when I was alone with it, I weighed a half-inch lone bit of thin paper, then made a short line on the paper with a soft, dull pencil, and reweighed. Subtracting the second result from the first gave the net weight of the pencil mark, which the chain-o-matic scale identified to a precision well beyond anything I had seen before (or have seen since). (Of course, today such measurements might be accomplished to finer measurements by electronic means, but those were not in use then, as far as I know.) One of the girls that had shared classes with seven other students, including me, invited us all to enjoy several separate entertainment event together, thereby in effect forming a social group of the eight of us. The group included four girls (including herself) and four boys. One of those boys (son of a Dentist) was already going with one of the girls, but none of the other members had established any such relationship. These events were welcome and enjoyed, but a strain arose when the dentist's son changed partners, resulting in the withdrawal of his former partner. On one of these outings of the group, I ran out of money and so did not participate in whatever the group was doing next. The founder (a minister's daughter), asked me about participating, I told her my reason, and she immediately handed me enough to remove my excuse, with the words, "Here, friend! That generous action surprised and moved me. When elections were to be held for President of the Student Council (or maybe it was president of the senior class), I considered running, but

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Heyer Saga said nothing and decided not to do so, partly because another member of the group (Martin Fuller) expressed an interest in doing so. A candidate who seemed inappropriate to me had announced a run, so I was I inclined to confine myself to supporting the candidate from our group, whom I regarded as more likely a preferable choice. The dentist's son then announced that he would run, which he did, apparently winning because his voice roused a strong "teeny-bopper" "love-the-star" response. This was, I think, a surprising and informative experience. The generous founder of our group and I both had straight A's throughout high school, each year, and each semester, so the naming of the valedictorian came down to comparison of our "quarterly", or more accurately half-semester grades. In that respect, she came out ahead for one half-semester period, and she accordingly became valedictorian and I salutatorian (the next traditional recognition down). Unlike the intermediate school valedictorianship, neither of these recognitions automatically led to selection of a student to make the valedictory speech at graduation. Any member of the graduating class could apply, and the best prospect was chosen, although I do not remember by whom or by what group. At any rate, I chose not to apply, concentrating on other concerns. That class (a little over 500 members) graduated in early or mid-June, 1948.

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Heyer Saga

CHAPTER 4: COLLEGE
As we have seen, some college work was already under weigh (or on the way) before graduation from high school, including the Chinese ("Mandarin" dialect, as the term was then) language in University of California extension classes in Los Angeles, Latin and classical Greek by correspondence in the same program, etc. After graduation from high school, there was time for three summer courses at the newly established El Camino Junior College in Lawndale, south of Inglewood. These classes included beginning geology and other courses satisfying broad aspects of "general education" requirements, as the term then was, intended to introduce all students in the colleges of Arts and Sciences that existed in Universities generally, to a broad cultural awareness as a background and foundation for the more specialized major subjects studied in those institutions. Another summer class also supplemented these college preliminaries at night, in a different field and at a different institution. Although I had received advice from a few people to gain the advantage of going to one or another distant college for greater perspective, this was of course not feasible in my family's economic circumstances, so attendance at a number of different institutions in the same county was adopted as a less expensive alternative that might provide at least some variation in points of view. Because of the offer of the half scholarship in Chinese studies from the Chinese government for attendance at the University of Southern California (in Los Angeles), I enrolled there. The head of the East-Asian Studies Department, a Doctor Chen, had me sign up simultaneously for the first and the second year classes in Chinese language, as well as a course in the history of China. The university itself required a "world history" class, also a full school year, using a text written by Walbank and Taylor. This class was different from anything I ever experienced in any other teaching institution. It was the only college class that I ever took that gave assigned seats and took Chapter 4, page 93

Heyer Saga role checks in every meeting of the class. I quickly realized why the roll was taken. The main instructor was one of the authors, whose lectures were exact repetitions of the words of his textbook, making attendance in class a total waste of time, since it added nothing whatever to the textbook. The class was huge (about a thousand students, I suppose), because it was required of all entering freshmen. Between lectures, teaching assistants (graduate student working for more specialized degrees) gave some details of certain aspects of that history course, which were more interesting than the professor's rehash of what we had already read, but the goal of the course seemed to be to impart an awareness of multiple names of supposedly important people in parts of Europe and Asia, without any effort at depth of significance or interrelationships among the subjects. This was disappointing, but it induced me to look for better "world history" books, which also was frustrating. I finally concluded national biases rendered all such existing efforts inadequate, and made me think that a new effort must be made, which I intended to do later, if time would allow. Other courses were also taken there, and of course I continued supplementing all these with further correspondence courses, so timed that I could get those side ventures started before semester examinations at USC, do most of the work on a correspondence course completed during between-semester breaks at USC, and complete the outside course early in the following semester at USC, before the day studies got too intense to impede that effort. Around mid-year, the Chinese Communist Party army broke out of its back-country territory, in part because of Russian assistance in equipment, training, etc., pushed to the coast, then southward, and finally drove former General Chiang Kai-shek and his army (the former government) off the mainland altogether. Dr. Chen said that inflation toward the end of this process totally wiped out the value of any saving that had been left in any banks (including his), and that the Chinese government, now holding only Taiwan and a couple of small nearby islands, would be unable to renew my (or presumably anyone else's) scholarship for the following school year. Chapter 4, page 94

Heyer Saga Clearly that would make my attendance beyond that first year at USC infeasible, so I felt I had to tell Dr. Chen that. Still, I completed the one year there, increased my vocabulary and pronunciation in Chinese, finished a number of courses in a variety of other subjects, and gained an insight on the student body of that school. During the summer following the USC stint, I took four accelerated courses at Los Angeles City College, although the person to whom I had to apply kept assuring me that no more than two would be accepted by the University in the fall. He thought this would suffice to persuade me not to take more than two. He would not answer directly, however, when I kept asking, "But can I sign up for all four of them?" Finally I did sign up for all four, and completed them without difficulty. I received A's in all but one. At the same time, following my previously established habit of taking a night class and a correspondence course besides the regular day classes, the result was some tiring during that summer, including tiring of the eyes, leading me to close them during rather boring and implausible proclamations of the beginning Economics class teacher. At the end of the summer session, after I had completed the final examination in the beginning economics class, one day my steps in the school walkway happened to take me across those of the instructor for that course, who stopped, told me that I had received the highest grade on the final examination of anyone taking that course from him, but he was going to give me only a B anyway. I knew that this arbitrary action was a penalty for my not believing all the baloney that he had spewed, and perhaps he wanted to get a reaction from me. I did not give him the opportunity. I walked on without replying. The teacher of the advanced class in the same field gave me an A, and I could see that none of my classmates in beginning class had as clear a grasp as I did. UCLA struck me as very different from USC. This state school seemed to contain students brighter and far more serious than those I had met at the private school. Attendance was more demanding at the state school, but also more rewarding. There was no formal tuition at UCLA for California residents, and the "incidental fees" were easily satisfied from Chapter 4, page 95

Heyer Saga what was left of my earlier scholarship at USC. At UCLA, the first-year textbook in American history was the same text used at USC for the junior year! In addition to the work toward a degree in history with emphasis on the U.S., I also continued studies in Chinese, Latin, civics and political science, English literature, economics, archeology, physical anthropology, etc., and also to various "general education" courses that had not fit in before. The further correspondence and night-class courses continued, plus summer courses at other schools (one at California State College, a separate category from the state University, one in summer at UCLA itself), led to a bachelor's degree by January 1951, a year and a half after coming to UCLA. When I went on to transfer credits from that summer's studies to the University of California at Los Angeles in the autumn, they were all accepted with no problems. UCLA did not care in what order, at what school, or in what period of time I had completed all the college-level credits that I had earned. In fact, although I spent only one full school year at USC (private University), the total of all the credits that I transferred in to UCLA (the state University) induced that institution to enroll me as a junior. This enabled me to take "upper-division" (junior and senior year) courses, and to access "the stacks" (to wander around the parts of the school library where books not directly reachable by freshmen and sophomores except through a written request, fillable only by library employees). Both of these privileges were quite useful. The first permitted me to enroll from the beginning of my time there in courses in my major, necessary for graduation. The second made research much easier, because a search through the stacks often led to books filed near one I knew, but having better, more complete, or more pertinent than any I would have recognized in card files. During the summer session of 1950 UCLA offered a course in physical anthropology, a State College at Los Angeles course in U.S. history covered the middle decades of American history between a course

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Heyer Saga previously taken at IUCLA and two taken the next year. Therefore, when the next regular UCLA school year began, I had enough units to graduate, although I still needed a few courses to complete my history major and the Latin and Chinese minors. The first semester of that year covered those courses, including historiography and a research course, in which I wrote a monograph on former California Governor Culbert Olson, at that time the only Democratic governor that California had had in the twentieth century. One Latin course was squeezed in beyond what I really had the background for, because the normal prerequisite course was not available that year. Rather than wait a year to graduate, I took the course beyond the prerequisite. In view of the success of the previous school year, the school allowed me to make several special adjustments in satisfying a requirement by making that skip, piecing together courses taken at different institutions, and other adjustments, and also allowed me to take extra units beyond the normal in that semester, an opportunity which I eagerly took. With the extra hours in class, the extra load of a Latin course a bit obtuse for me, and courting Thelma, my grades slipped a bit that semester, so that I fell short of the Phi Beta Kappa, which otherwise probably would have been awarded, as the Phi Alpha had been for the previous year. Nevertheless, I graduated in January of 1951 with the desired bachelors degree in history, and the ultimately successful courtship far more than made up for the lack of the Phi Beta Kappa key. But that introduces another chapter; so before pursuing that, let us return to college. At UCLA, it was possible to do some graduate work, still within my self-imposed time limit, and the additional courses required for a high school teaching credential. Two other possibilities were considered. One was a graduate degree, which at first appealed to me, although the time seemed limited. The other was the need for a full year of practice teaching before receiving the teaching credential. The appeal of the first was the opportunity to write a master's thesis that might lead to originating a broader, deeper, sounder view of some part Chapter 4, page 97

Heyer Saga of history than previously recognized. Inquiries, however, revealed that UCLA granted master's degrees not on the basis of original theses, but on the basis of the applicant's familiarity with a long list of particular existing books. Such a project sounded totally worthless and unappealing, so that idea was cast aside. As to the latter, the initiation of the practice teaching occurred, which also allowed time for some private employment and thus, for the first time, a modest income in a Sears Roebuck store in Inglewood.

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Heyer Saga

CHAPTER 5: CUPID'S ARROW

In ancient classical Rome, Cupid was the agent of Venus, the goddess of love, inflicting this powerful emotion on unsuspecting individuals with the aid of his bow and arrow. It seems to me that the classical Romans represented him as a boy or youth, but in the U.S. he is normally represented by an infant in diapers, but able to fly and skillfully use archery. As suggested earlier, the two unnamed girls in high school who seemed to show some interest in me never really aroused any strong attraction in me, though they were nice enough. I enjoyed Thelma Sims' beautiful smiles when our paths crossed as we were moving from one class to the other, but I did not regard them as representing anything more than a friendly face that I saw from day to day. Both her oral reading and spelling of the minutes of the previous meetings of the World Friendship Club (in her duties as recording secretary), however, revealed that she was brighter and more thorough than other members of that club, although normally she remained silent during the club meetings. After I graduated from high school in 1948, I did not expect to see anyone from high school again, until perhaps the decennial reunion. Yet, a month later, to my surprise, an invitation from the World Friendship Club reached me, inviting me as its ex-president to attend their next social gettogether. That seemed surprising, but I did attend, saw Thelma (and others) there, but remained (dense as I was) unaware of any special significance of the event. The following summer, a similar invitation came. It happened on this occasion that, before I replied, for some reason (which I no longer recall) I happened to come briefly to the high school, where I saw her working in the night school office. I felt quite glad to see her and realized that I wanted to see her more often. I asked whether she would be attending the event, and she replied that she would. So I decided to attend again. Chapter 5, page 99

Heyer Saga On that occasion, the group carpooled from Inglewood High School to Griffith Park (Los Angeles), which contained a Zeiss "planetarium" or observatory with periodic shows in which stars and other celestial bodies were simulated with lights cast on the inside of the domed ceiling of the building to indicate locations and movements of celestial bodies. The group gathered at one convenient location in the park, where trees and grass provided an idyllic scene for a walk or lunch or both. I invited Thelma to have her lunch with me on the grass. We had both brought simple, paper bag lunches. I gave her something from my lunch, and perhaps she responded in kind. We chatted a little, I think, but superficially. Then some others of the group walked by and asked whether she wished to walk with them. Caught unprepared, without thinking I blurted out, without asking her first, that she was "with me". Clearly I had overstepped, because I had wanted that to be true, and from that moment I wanted it to stay that way ever after. She accepted it in good grace, without objection. Later, we hiked together up to the observatory for the show, arranged to meet again, and the courtship began. That occasion occurred on July 29, 1949, if I remember it correctly, and I have always regarded that day as unofficially the beginning of "us", although we did not marry or set up "housekeeping" (in a little wooden house trailer) until our marriage on August 19, 1951. We spent much of our time together after that, as often as possible, during what I regarded as courtship, to the point where, in one semester when carrying an unusually heavy academic load as well, my grades dropped from A's to B's, resulting in failure to receive the Phi Beta Kappa recognition, although I had earned a lesser award earlier. This cost was well worth it to enable us to be together more, and cement our relationship. Much later in life, during a discussion among my colleagues and myself, my last full time employment, the subject came up, and I made some reference to the courtship. My colleagues were surprised to hear the word "courtship", regarding it as an outdated word. I thus realized that I had become old fashioned.

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Heyer Saga I have made many mistakes since the courtship and marriage, of commission or omission, but this marriage, at least for me, was the right decision. I hope it was and is for her. A few years after our marriage, I learned more about the background of our coming together. Thelma was born in Heavener, Oklahoma, on December 12, 1931. Her parents moved twenty months later to Honey Grove, Texas, north of Dallas near the Oklahoma border. Thelma had two older brothers, Clarence and Hal, and a younger sister, Wanda. Like many small children, Thelma experienced frequent ear infections that never properly healed, and now impairs her hearing. She was always a quiet, studious person. When her father moved to California in late 1945, to work for a railroad, he planned to settle in Barstow, but the fates would have it otherwise. Someone on the train advised him to go on to Los Angeles for greater opportunity. He did so but found rental housing unavailable, at the end of the war. He ended up, therefore bringing his family to a trailer park on Century Boulevard, a major thoroughfare south of Inglewood, across from the parking lot of the Hollywood Park Race Track. The fates and the school system also added another necessary step to bring Thelma closer to me. Her home was located within the Los Angeles school district. She completed ninth grade at Horace Mann Junior High School, which included grade levels seven through nine. Curiously, the district provided a school bus from her neighborhood to Horace Mann Junior High, but not to George Washington High School that she was scheduled to attend the next school year. A school transfer to the Inglewood High School was granted, allowing her to complete her high school education there. Without every one of these multiple moves, over which she had no control, and the decisions of each of us to join the World Friendship Club, we might never have met. So we always say we were fated to form this union. Our first home together was a little wooden house trailer, which Thelma received in return for some money she had lent to a brother, who

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Heyer Saga could not at that point repay. I rented a heavy vehicle to pull the trailer to a trailer park near my parents' home, where for the first time in my life I had to back a trailer into the proper space. The trailer park provided separate showers and restrooms for male and female park tenants as well as electricity and water and laundry and clotheslines. We lived there for a year while I completed the practice teaching requirement for a high school teaching credential. The little trailer was small, but adequate for us. One end held a platform for a double bed mattress. The other end had two modest built-in seats facing each other with a small table between that could be folded down and converted to a bed using the seat cushions as a mattress. Along one inside wall of the trailer was a narrow clothes closet. The other side held a butane cook stove with two fire burners. The butane was piped in from a butane tank mounted outside on the tongue of the trailer. The burner nearest the outlet produced a blue flame, suitable for cooking our limited needs, but the second burner produced only a virtual token second flame. There was no oven. To get from one end of the narrow floor to the other, we had to make sure that the small cupboard and especially the closet doors were closed. While the roof leaked a bit, that was easily corrected by smearing tar on the roof. While we were there, Thelma continued her work at the night school office, and I worked as a stock clerk for Sears Roebuck & Co. Somehow, I learned of the availability of a used propeller box from one of several aircraft manufacturers nearby. Because of our small space, I acquired one, stood it on end under an awning just outside our trailer door (it was about as high as I was tall, but narrow), used a few hinges, a hasp and staple, and a lock to install a door on this simple but strong container. With the addition of my handmade shelves installed inside the box, it served well and safely as my bookcase, in which to install my modest library. On one occasion, when I was still in school and living at home, but after Thelma and I had spent much time together and were com-mitted to

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Heyer Saga each other, my mother informed me, without any preliminaries, of Thelma's "IQ", a concept popular among a few people in the United States during the first quarter of my life. I was irritated and offended, but I did not make any reply, having learned at an early age that confrontations with my mother never served any purpose other than unleashing her angry demeaning sarcasm. In the first place, I had known Thelma long enough and well enough to have satisfied myself of her qualities and nature, far more important than some magic numerical, single dimensional label. Secondly, it struck me as an invasion of Thelma's privacy to acquire such information, without any legitimate reason for doing so, from the records at El Camino Junior College where Mother worked in the chemistry department. Thelma attended classes part time at El Camino while working full time as a clerk in the Adult Education Department at Inglewood High School. Finally, I had long since reached the conclusion that the very concept of a single number that could be meaningful for evaluating a multidimensional human being as absurd nonsense. By that time I had undergone one so called "test" of such a concept, but the methods of the test were obviously such that a bunch of utterly distinct abilities and experiential exposures had been tossed together, perhaps testing a few quite different things (erroneously in at least one area), but ultimately lumped together on a purely arbitrary basis as though they were a single entity. I did not and do not believe that any such entity exists as "general intelligence", which "IQ" was supposed to measure. The idea was popular among administrators and supervisors of large organizations to give them a magic number by which to measure people without straining their brains, but it is not real. Later experience in taking two or three other such tests proved my thesis beyond doubt: the result in each case was a significantly higher rating than the previous one, even though I was still the same person, getting older, learning, but not increasing any basic capability.

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Heyer Saga A few years after these events, I learned some new aspects of how our marriage had been assisted. First, Thelma informed me that our "accidental" meetings when traveling between classes in high school were not accidental at all. She had gone out of her way in both directions to cross my path and flash me those beautiful and fetching smiles. Also, after I had graduated from high school, she asked her friend, Dorian Townsend, who was the corresponding secretary of the Inglewood High School branch of the World Friendship Club, to include me in the invitations to special Club outings, which is why those invitations were sent. So fate, school policies, transportation status, and our common goals and shared ideals, plus a little more, all helped get us together. I was and am incredibly lucky. Thelma also told me much later that my mother had persuaded her not to agree to marry me until I graduated, on the theory that marriage before that point would interfere with my education and, according to Mother's claim, it would have a severely adverse effect on my Father's health. I therefore went through the motions of several proposals, with bent knee and all, without knowing of this pact. Although we were both employed regularly by that time, our income was quite small, requiring a tight budget and a sparse life, but we were young and healthy, and did not expect to remain in cur-rent circumstances past summer, so that did not bother us. While working at Sears, it occurred to me that establishing a credit rating while in this job might later be helpful. Sears sold refrigerators, which we lacked. So I saved a bit of cash, in order to make a larger than typical down payment for the "fridge", while still working at Sears. We thereby acquired the refrigerator by making our first time-payment-purchase and placed it under the awning next to our house trailer door. Thelma, a few months later became pregnant, but miscarried. Our physician, Dr. Frudenfeld, tried to assuage her grief by saying that this outcome was probably for the best, because the fetus may well have been defective.

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Heyer Saga

CHAPTER 6: TEACHING
1952-1953 In autumn of 1950 during our courtship, Thelma had attended a Southern Baptist church operated by a Rev. Carl Pike, and I had often accompanied her, although I did not join it. He also operated a private school associated with his church, which offered classes at the elementary and intermediate levels. On one occasion, when he needed a new intermediate level teacher, he hired one who was not available yet, and would not be for a few weeks, so he asked me to fill in for that brief period, which I did, although at that time I would not have fully qualified yet in the public school field. When I was first seeking public school employment, I applied in the Los Angeles County system, which was large and would have multiple openings for its growing area, and also for a number of smaller school districts. I had hoped to return to teach Latin at Inglewood High when that teacher retired, but the principal there told me that school policy was not to hire their former students until they had worked elsewhere. (Although she had always said she would retire then, she did not.) I received an offer to be interviewed at an Orange County school district, but it was in a wealthy resort community where the cost of housing would be beyond my likely means as a new teacher, so I did not follow up that offer. Fontana, a small city in southwestern San Bernardino County also invited me to an interview, to which I agreed, and was hired. This city had previously sent its high school students to Ontario High, about 20 miles southwestward, but had decided to build and open a high school in Fontana itself, joining it to the local elementary school system to make a new Fontana School District. The idea of starting out as a new teacher in a new high school, with no existing collection of rules, traditions, etc., appealed to me, as did the open nature of the principal, so this is where I taught from September 1952 to June 1953. When the time came for Thelma and me to move from the Inglewood trailer park to Fontana, a Chapter 6, page 105

Heyer Saga considerable distance away, I called some likely businesses to see about selling the trailer to someone who could use it, and my "$70 car, which, though it had gotten me to and from work and practice teaching for a time, no longer ran. We were of course in no position to bargain, but I recall we received $40 for the trailer and $10 for the car, which seemed reasonable enough, considering their current state. When we went to Fontana to look for a place to live, we found a small grocery store at a corner a mile or two from the high school. Mr. Arguello, the proprietor of the store, owned a small duplex just across the street on Arrow Route, told us the rent for the vacant half of the duplex, and an agreement was reached. His name struck me, because I knew that one of the governors of California while California regarded itself as an independent country of "Californios", before the Mexican-American War. At some point I asked him whether he was related to that former governor, and asked me how I knew about it. Of course I had learned of it in a course at UCLA about the early history or California. After that, we brought our remaining possessions from Inglewood with my father's help, and set up housekeeping in this duplex. The arrangement was perfect. We had no car any more, but were across the street from the landlord and small grocery store, a great convenience for us newcomers, and within reasonable walking distance from work. A manageable walk in another direction could also take us from our new home to downtown with some contiguous streets and houses, a larger grocery store, and maybe a motion picture theater, though I do not remember any of these details precisely. On Thelma's birthday that year, we walked downtown to the movies and on the way back home we were treated to a long and impressive annual Geminid meteor shower. One problem, of course, was that my salary as a beginning teacher in a backwater county was still rather limited. It was better than either of us, or probably both of us, in Inglewood, and we ate better than had been typical in our trailer, plus only one of us had to work to earn it, but it was barely enough to satisfy all our needs between my monthly paychecks. The result of that, embarrassingly, was that we had to use up ALL our cash in Chapter 6, page 106

Heyer Saga between paydays, so when everything else was gone, I would have to give Mr. Arguello a silver dollar that I had acquired somewhere to pay for some final item of the pay period. It was, however, enough. (He was considerate enough that, without my asking (I would not have done so); he returned the silver dollar each payday when I made a new purchase. One factor that I had not expected was the heat in Fontana summers. It was unbearable at first for people accustomed to the moderate temperatures of coastal California. During the last days of that first summer there, I just adopted the practice of lying flat on the bare floor in the living room in the afternoons until I adjusted a little. When school started in September, I returned to wearing suit-and-tie teaching garb and ignored the temperature despite the heat. Although the building of the Fontana High School structure was supposed to be complete, my first view of it revealed a great, wide crack in the superficial stucco front wall, extending from roof to ground! This, however, was quickly corrected. Most of the other teachers appeared to be as inexperienced at teaching as I, including one named Connie Meeker whom I had met in the Education Department at UCLA. Generally they seemed compatible and friendly, enthusiastic, and effective at their jobs. There was, however, an older, experienced teacher, who had long taught in the high school in Ontario, but happily she came to Fontana, to teach beginning algebra every period all in one subject. Her surname was Hezmalhalch, but she was generally known as "Hezzy". Besides principal and teachers, there were boys' and girls' counselors, another counselor whose duties I do not recall, athletic coaches, and other positions for physical maintenance staff. The teachers were assigned to particular departments according to what they taught, but we started that first year with no department heads. Department heads were to be selected according to who volunteered for that role. I taught freshman and sophomore students in Latin, combined with a "home-room" English class, as well as a strange collection of unrelated subjects lumped Chapter 6, page 107

Heyer Saga into a single course, the reason for which was dubious to all the teachers (and presumably students) who had other sections of the same course of study. Thus I had a much more varied workload than Hezzy, which satisfied both of us. She loved sticking to one topic all day, but it would have driven me mad. Generally these were good students in my classes, young and eager to learn, and probably happy to be within easy walking distance of home, in contrast to the former 20-mile journey each way, to and from the high school in Ontario. Russ Freeman, a former conscientious objector from World War II, who only hinted to me privately of the problems he had faced from that status during the war, was the only staff member to volunteer to head the department trying to teach the miscellany of topics in the "strangecollection" course mentioned above. Those teachers had interesting meetings. In the end, we all agreed on making the course over into a broad geography class, which appealed to the students beginning high school, and to which most of the miscellaneous required but otherwise incompatible topics could be reasonably related. Russ, who was a few years older than I, became a very good friend, keeping in touch to some extent for many years. His wife, Betsy, discovered that I had studied more than one foreign language and suggested I should add Italian, the language of her forebears. Another good set of friends were Dick and Doris Clark, a Catholic couple wrestling with the task of controlling pregnancy without contravening Papal restrictions, which seemed always to make them nervous. I do not recall Dick's teaching degree (maybe biology), but he did teach a class for students of limited mental ability, which for some reason he had to skip one day. I was asked to take it, which worried me, because I did not feel qualified for such a role, but as far as I could tell, it all went fine.

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Heyer Saga A district administrative decision was made that Fontana students already in high school that year would continue attending Ontario High to finish out their high school years if they were juniors or seniors. The Fontana students entering the freshman or sophomore grades would enroll at the new Fontana High School. Hence Fontana had only the freshman and sophomore grades that first year. Another teacher at that school was a Slovak who taught a class in German. We talked about languages, and at some point he gave or lent me a beginning book on the Slovak language, which I found quite interesting. Although no courses in Slovakian were taught in that school, that language was spoken In Slovakia, then a part of the Czechoslovakian nation, formed after World War I from four former parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was dissolved at the end of that war. I do not recall who headed the foreign language department, but I remember spending a considerable amount of time outside of class at the school working in a number of committees needed to meet various needs of a new school, building up its curriculum, organization, distribution of duties, relationships, etc. That first year in Fontana was quite enjoyable, with its young students, the challenge of participating in the creation of a new institution, and the building of many new relationships, despite the tight personal budget. --------------------Income during our first year of marriage and the years of birth of each of our six children: Thelma and I married on August 19, 1951. Her federal income tax return for that year shows her gross income as a clerk-typist was $2630.00. My parents claimed me as their dependent that year, so we have no record of my income from Sears Department Store and Price Catering. Our joint federal tax return for 1952 shows a gross income of $3815.00. Our first child, Cynthia June, was born on September 6, 1953. Chapter 6, page 109

Heyer Saga Our gross income of $2539.00 for that year included $2513 for teaching, $175 from Muntz TV where I worked from the end of the school year until induction into the U.S. Army, and $438 for military service in the army. When our second child, Diana May, was born on December 25, 1954, we were living in El Paso, Texas, where I was stationed at Fort Bliss. My total income from the army that year was $1211.00. Our third child, Jeffrey Thomas, was born on August 28, 1956. We were back in Fontana, California by then. My gross income from teaching high school and a summer school class was $5478.00. Our fourth child, Julie Faye (later known as Jules Faye), was born on March 26, 1958. Our gross income from teaching was $4455.00. Winona April, our fifth child, was born on December 27, 1960. That year our gross income from teaching was $124.00 and from the San Bernardino County Counsel office was $7253.00. Martha Rose, our youngest child, was born on February 2, 1963. Income included $11,207.00 from the State of California and $1460.00 from San Bernardino County.

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Heyer Saga

CHAPTER 7: MILITARY SERVICE

1953-1955 a. Cindy June is born September 6, 1953 After my unsuccessful attempt to join the U. S. Navy at the age of 14, my efforts concentrated on trying to learn as much as possible within the time limit that I had set for myself, to assure being out of college before my brother's turn would come. National policy at the time was to exempt all of the following categories from compulsory military service: full-time college students, married men, men engaged in work considered critical for the country, men not physically able to perform typical military tasks, and perhaps some other categories. When the North Korean Army invaded South Korea, trained and experienced American soldiers were available and sent to deal with the crisis from Japan and other locations, and the length, scope, and course of that war remained unclear, so I did not yet enter the Army, though I intended to do so later. After accepting the teaching position at Fontana High School, I received an offer of employment in the Los Angeles City School System, which I declined. After having worked through most of the school year in Fontana, I notified the draft board that I waived all exemptions from military duty. I also notified the school principal that I was available for military duty. He told me that he would arrange an exemption for me on the ground of critical work (as teacher) if I wished, but I declined, because I felt it was time for me to do my part as a soldier. At the end of the school year, we rented an apartment for the summer in Lawndale, in the greater Los Angeles area. I took a summer job in the Muntz TV assembly plant to await the call to military duty, which came in July. We did not own an automobile, so I borrowed my sister's bicycle for the five-mile trip each way to and from work.

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Heyer Saga Since I had read and heard that much of military service, especially in the boot camp training phase, consists of "hurry up and wait", it seemed prudent to initiate some useful way to occupy my time during the "wait" periods; I signed up for a correspondence course in law, available from a Chicago company called La Salle University. I knew it would not be an accredited course, but it was a field of interest, and I hoped it might help my teaching, and increase my teaching pay level when I returned. I began to receive the books, found them fascinating and informative within their scope, and stayed with that course throughout basic training and later regular duty. On the day before I was to report for my Army physical examination, Thelma and I visited a used bookstore, which triggered an asthma attack from exposure to the dust. Accordingly, one of the examining physicians offered to give me yet another exemption (on the ground of disability), but I declined. He therefore assigned me to "stay" at that examination station for the next few days (I presume to see whether I would get better, which I did), before I was sent to Fort Ord for processing and assignment. I did not literally stay at the facility, but reported each day for light administrative chores. The processing included testing of various kinds to identify skills, abilities, and basic "intelligence". Despite this period, at least three people from that process were assigned to my basic training company, although they clearly were unfit for any such duties. After about two weeks, we were assigned to a training company, which was located in a wooden building with about 200 resident trainees. A fair number of similar buildings and recruit companies were also nearby. A tall, slender, obviously experienced, somewhat irascible African American sergeant ran our recruit training company, with two or three assistants. Of course I was already familiar with the marching, formation maneuvers, manual of arms, and related matters from the Boy Scouts and reading, but the main new material was learning to disassemble, reassemble, clean, maintain, and use various firearms (mostly the M-1 rifle, Chapter 7, page 112

Heyer Saga mortar, and one session with the pistol, which I could not attend because of assignment that day to Kitchen Police duty, a regular duty of soldiers). The company was regularly marched from the barracks to a group of special outside "stations", divided into smaller units for different types of training by the assistants, and then switched around so that every recruit got training in each of the several skills being taught at different stations, and finally marched back to barracks or mess hall. We were issued uniforms, including a khaki dress uniform (shirt, trousers, overseas cap, brown shoes, and a brown belt), a few olive- drab "fatigues" (Army word for work clothes), and a dark belt, together with strong, tough, lasting, laced boots, worn for ordinary duties and training, chores like guard and kitchen duties, etc. We also received Army undershorts, undershirts, and socks. Upon completion of our service, we were allowed to keep these items of clothing, which I did. This clothing, and especially the boots, were well made and would have been expensive to buy. After leaving service, I often used the fatigues and boots, until the fatigue wore out. The boots never wore out in my possession, and I think would still be usable today if we had kept them. We were initially categorized as "recruits", regardless of whether drafted or enlisted, but the draftees (including me) were provided a serial number preceded by the letters US, while enlistees' serial numbers were preceded by the letter RA, meaning "regular army." After a few months, we were "promoted" to (buck) private, with a small raise in income. The Army also provided an allowance to dependent wives and children, so of course I arranged for that to go to Thelma, but it was not much, so, since most of my needs for food, clothing, shelter, etc., were automatically provided, I arranged also that most of my regular wages were also sent to her, holding back (I think) $12 a month for things I had to buy, such as shaving cream, needle and thread for clothing repair, etc. Besides assembly, disassembly, care, and handling of weapons, we also had occasions to use them, on the rifle range for the M1's (I believe at 100, 200, and 300-yard distances to the targets), the mortar range for mortars (where three men in turn fired at dog-house-sized targets with Chapter 7, page 113

Heyer Saga incredibly little effect, and learned to "fix" (affix or attach the bayonet to the rifle barrel) and bravely attacked large rubber tires (suspended with ropes from a frame) with great speed and lan and pitifully little sign of damage. Of course, the steel belted tire was not yet in use, so that was not the reason. The tire of course moved when touched by the bayonet, since it was not held in place, so the force applied by the charging soldier was almost all lost because of the rope swing effect. Presumably a live recipient would not usually have moved aside so deftly. Whatever the exercise or training was assigned on training day, we recruits were all dressed in loose fitting fatigues, boots, and a drab cap shaped a little like that of a railroad engineer, a street-car motorman, etc., but softer, with vertical sides, a flat top, and a substantial bill to reduce errors caused by sun glare. When a certain amount of time had elapsed on one training session, the sergeant in charge would announce, "At ease, smoke 'em if you have 'em". This was what in other lines of endeavor would be called a "break", so recruits sat on the ground, smoked if so inclined, and rested several minutes, before the next session. I always carried one of my correspondence law books tucked between my skin and my undershirt beneath the loose-fitting fatigue tunic or jacket (an upper garment like a shirt), where such a book, though thick, would easily fit and be held in place by my waistband and belt. I pulled it out for continued study on any such "break". This study was always revealing and informative, presented clearly, illustrated by examples of the application of a rule of law, and I always made sure to master not only the rule, but also the reason for the law, as nearly as I could discern it from the context. This was not the customary way to proceed in current accredited law schools, but it was effective and fascinating for me. Our company head sergeant clearly did not approve of my peculiar way of spending my breaks, but could express no reason to object to it. After he got used to it, he took the trouble to tell me at some late point in our basic training that he hardly had noticed my presence, apparently because I had not gotten into any trouble.

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Heyer Saga This was not true of everyone in the company. As a whole, our basic training company consisted of a fairly typical collection of young western men, perhaps from 16 to 28 years old (though I never asked or knew the precise ages of any of them). Generally, they got along well together, did what was required of them, and presented few problems. I had no problems with them. The oldest was bitter because his wife had divorced him, making him eligible, as an unmarried man, to the "draft" (slang for compulsory military training and service). Another recruit acted like a gangster at first, but, within a few days, he revealed that this behavior had been a protective device until he could determine what his fellow recruits were like. He actually was a quiet, gentle public school teacher like me, and relaxed when he found another teacher bunked near him. Another recruit was sneakier, and I ultimately suspected that he was an actual gangster, hanging around in our barracks when the rest of us were out marching or being inspected (as he supposedly was, also). Upon return to barracks, I found cigarette burns on my blanket, though I have never smoked. I drew my own conclusions and corrected the situation informally, since a new, young lieutenant for the company declined to take any action. Otherwise, I would have been charged for the burned blanket, since those remained the property of the Army and were not considered "personal items". There were, however, several recruits who should not have been there, totally unfit for any military duties. The first one I met had already taken to his bed and declined to arise. I do not recall whether he was in the process center or the company barracks, or what his problem was. I don't recall his few words, but they were clear and consistent with his facial appearance, suggesting that he was an adult. Since he did not leave his bunk in my presence, I can't say anything about his mobility. I saw him only briefly and never again, but got the impression that he was engaging in passive resistance. My first glance revealed that the second was obviously both physically and mentally unable to perform the duties required of any soldier under any circumstances, and no competent and honest examining Chapter 7, page 115

Heyer Saga physician could possibly have thought otherwise. Certainly the physician who offered to declare me unfit for service would not have done so. I was appalled. The old sergeant, though he said nothing about it, obviously had the same thought. He had no authority to remove the disabled young person and went through the motions of having him go through at least some of the pointless (for him) military training, including placement of this inept young fellow on the firing line with a loaded rifle, but made sure that at least three non-coms (non-commissioned officers) controlled the rifle and the recruit constantly throughout the exercise, mainly focusing on assuring that the rifle was fired in the proper direction (toward the distant targets) and away from any human. I do not know what finally happened to him, but he could not possibly have survived combat, and any comrades with him would also have had a poor chance of surviving. One or two other recruits--actually volunteers, I believe--were not quite as quickly and obviously unfit, but they appeared too young, too small, and quickly showed themselves to be FAR too immature to serve effectively in any army. They behaved like small children, they looked like small children, hid in lockers, wept when found, and seemed totally unable to adapt to their circumstances. I saw no facial hair on them. I do not know what ages they claimed, but their behavior and appearance were consistent in suggesting that they had not passed the sixth grade, if they ever reached it. There were also AWOLs, some persistent, some only infrequently, but that was a lesser problem. One of the latter, named Willie, was married and, once or twice, later in training, went absent without leave to visit his wife in Southern California, but quickly returned in his car, which he kept near the base, so no one got too excited about that. After riding with Willie on a few trips, I backed off one time when he chose to go for his usual wild ride on a long holiday weekend that normally elicits very heavy traffic. As I had feared, he crashed his car that time.

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Heyer Saga After the two weeks of processing and 16 weeks of basic training, Uncle Sam released me for a week's leave, and directed me to return for some eight weeks of "leadership training", or some similar title, basically a preparation for becoming a higher NCO rank. Completion of basic training also produced a small raise in pay and grade to private first class (PFC). I went back to the Sims house for that week, and couldn't bear to be apart from Thelma and baby Cindy any longer, so, when I returned to Fort Ord, I rented a two-room apartment for them in nearby Salinas. Thelma's brother Clarence drove her and baby Cindy up to the Salinas apartment near the Fort Ord army base. My stay with this unit was briefer and less memorable than basic training, with no colorful characters (like 'teen-aged Raymond in basic, who always referred affectionately to himself as "old Raymond" or the gangster), and no obvious misfits. I do recall a special, continuing section, with a three-word name that meant "information group", who provided information such as a good newspaper would provide. I enjoyed sessions with them, and joined their competing chess players, served on occasion my turn as "officer of the day", on duty at night to deal with emergencies, and on at least one occasion participated in a field exercise in which each group of four "students" traded turns as in charge of the four-member "squad" assigned to "capture that ridge", where a machine-gun emplacement was located. If (in the last case) our situation had been that of an organization whose members knew each other, I probably would have divided the group in order to outflank the emplacement. Since this was not the case and we had no time to get to know, evaluate, and trust each other, when it was my turn to lead the attack, I felt I had to make a quick judgment, and that was that splitting the group to make a flanking attack would likely have failed through lack of effective and genuine coordination (my colleagues had already shown a sign of undependability, so I said for all to attack at once, gave the command, and led the charge. In real combat, this might well have proven disastrous, but no one could dare not to join the charge, so we quickly arrived at the modest crest, through a brief hail of (blank) machineChapter 7, page 117

Heyer Saga gun fire, and the gunner withdrew from the crest. We had quickly, if inelegantly, "captured" the crest. After completing the leaders' course, I was sent by rail to Fort Bliss, near El Paso, Texas, and assigned to work in the headquarters company of the Triple-A Anti-Aircraft-Artillery Training Group there, under the colonel in charge of this organization. The duties included proof reading training manuals, typed by civilian employees for this training. There were occasionally other different assignments, one of which was assembling the classified basic command documents covering what should be done in case of warfare breaking out within the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army "Southern Command". Although at first I felt that living in El Paso near the Fort Bliss army base was not a good environment for my little family so Thelma and Cindy remained in Gardena, California with her parents. We couldn't bear the separation for long, so the two of them traveled by train to join me in El Paso. We rented a two-room apartment in a large house that had been converted into several apartments and rented out to different young soldiers working at the base, and their wives. (See more details in Chapter 28: Family). While living there, I completed much of the correspondence course in law. In the meantime I discovered that the United States Armed Forces Institute (USAFI) offered its military personnel a whole series of correspondence courses in a wide variety of typical undergraduate college subjects, and provided the books and tuition for minimal charges. I therefore enrolled in some of these courses, mostly to go deeper into mathematics, chemistry, several foreign languages which I had not had time to pursue as deeply as I had wanted, and some other areas that just could not be fitted into my UCLA schedule. This was a wonderful opportunity, and I believe all these courses (equivalent of over an additional year or two in college) had a total cost to me of only a few dollars. I found the USAFI course on historical geology most interesting, especially the part that actually detailed evolution (visible fossil) history, the Chapter 7, page 118

Heyer Saga multiplicity of "land bridges" suggested by the fossils brought to mind an absurd picture of a network of crisscrossing, narrow strips of intercontinental connections, which later sea-floor exploration failed to find. Hence, when the theory of continental plate movement began to gain acceptance in the 1960s, its correctness was immediately obvious. Even then, some geologists were resisting it on the ground of "lack of proof" or "absence of a source of continental movement", but the well-known heat in Earth's interior and the memory of cooking cream of wheat and oatmeal (before the days of "instant", three-minute cereals), in which the particles, floating on boiling water, coalesce into mini-"continents", broken by occasional "volcanoes", and slide about constantly on the fluid surface until they solidify) also made the source of energy quite clear. (The theory was actually proposed in 1917, but not accepted for a half century.) b. Atomic Bomb Test An interesting event in service is described below about my participation in an Atomic bomb test in Nevada in the autumn of 1954. The army decided that its sergeants should be somewhat knowledgeable about the risks, precautions, and likely effects of the use of atomic weapons, and arranged a demonstration in uninhabited desert in southern Nevada. Propaganda and "news-media hype" to that point had emphasized the destructive power of the atom to such an extent that the army brass was becoming concerned that troops would feel so hopeless in the face of an atomic attack (or so overconfident over the prospect of atomic-weapon support) that they would be paralyzed by panic (or complacency) and take no action to deal with the problem. (I do not recall off-hand the exact sequence of events, but I think it was around this time that Russia developed its own atomic bomb.) Since I was assigned to the "operations officer" (S-3) of the AAA RTC staff*, our office played some role in arrangements at Fort Bliss, and staff discussions. I expressed great curiosity about the project and the experience. Being only a corporal in autumn 1954, I had not been scheduled to attend the exercise [which was basically for sergeants and a Chapter 7, page 119

Heyer Saga few officers who chose to attend]. Although I do not recall hearing anyone say so, I gained the impression that some reluctance was felt by some participants chosen, or at least some was expected by the leadership. Whether merely to accommodate me, or to leaven the mix with someone interested in attending, one officer on staff suggested that I could go as a clerk of a young lieutenant in the office who was attending, as did a few other officers. So that is how I came to participate in the exercise. __________________________________________________ Central staff of AAA RTC and the Army generally at that time consisted of S-1 (personnel), S-2 ("intelligence"), S-3 (planning and operations), S-4 (quartermaster: property procurement, care, management, and distribution), adjutant (which also made important personnel decisions, may have included the judge advocate's office [to administer and advise on military justice], and perhaps other functions that were never clear to me.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------c. Preparation At the scheduled time, the army transported us (the attendees or participants) to Camp Desert Rock, in southern Nevada. The permanent camp consisted, as nearly as I can recall, of a mess hall, an administration building, a latrine, and rows of rocks marking out the boundaries of otherwise imaginary roads and walkways. I saw no living vegetation, and little soil. The officers were accommodated in buildings, either the mess hall, administration building, or small barracks, which I have otherwise forgotten. Sergeants were assigned to tents, all of which blew away in a windstorm one evening when most of the troops were visiting Las Vegas, maybe 70 miles away. I was in a tent up to that time. The desert was very cold at night without a tent. Preparation consisted of lectures and instruction on the effects of an atomic explosion (alpha, beta, and gamma radiation, visible light, radiant heat, and impact), their effective radii and duration, the significance of the "mushroom" cloud, and the means of defense, as well as specific direction Chapter 7, page 120

Heyer Saga on performing the exercise, and a preliminary view of the demonstration site. Because literally blinding light and potentially lethal radiant heat would be propagated fastest and farthest, the primary emphasis was on these immediate effects. Since these propagate in essentially straight lines in the demonstration and in the usual military situation, any fully opaque object could provide some shielding (at a sufficient distance). Other forms of radiation, according to their instruction, do not reach as far, but continue to be emitted by dust from the cloud and metal objects near the explosion site.) To allay concerns of the solders about being sterilized by the other forms of radiation, the lectures emphasized the view that this was an unrealistic concern, because anyone close enough to receive any significant dose of ionizing radiation would be well within the area of "total burn" from radiant heat, and would not survive for that reason, because of the different effective radii of effect. Sound and impulse or impact arrives after the initial light and radiant heat emission, by an amount of time depending on the distance from the explosion. They gave us more detail than that, but these are the main features I recall. The demonstration itself included some other details, which were probably mentioned in the preparation. I cannot recall what was said about sound, but of course it travels about 1100 feet per second. Instruction did include a description of the test site and procedure there. The device used was not exactly a bomb to be dropped, but a stationary device placed on a tower, which looked rather like an oil derrick, in size, shape, and structure. It was located some distance from the campperhaps 15-20 miles, but I am not sure about that; it could have been farther. The site was quite flat and fairly smooth. A very few cacti were visible. Before any detonations were scheduled, we were instructed in the procedure, and walked over the ground of the site to see the tower and other objects, which had been placed to show what the effect of the detonation would be.

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Heyer Saga Some small buildings had been constructed nearby. They looked rather like a village, but I do not think they were full-sized houses. They may have been perhaps playhouse size, maybe 1200 to 1500 yards from "ground zero" (the point on the ground directly below the nuclear device). Some armored tanks (treaded vehicles) were placed between 500 and 1000 yards from ground zero in a slightly different direction. Farther away from the derrick were dummies dressed in military uniforms, both inside and outside of small, military-style tents. 2000 yards (a little over a mile) from ground zero began a series of long trenches running at right angles to the direct line from ground zero. There were several trenches, but not many, so I gather that the distance from ground zero to the "front" (nearest) trench would not be significantly different from the distance to the "back" or "farthest" trench. The trenches were wide enough to permit easy movement of personnel in one direction, but it would have been a tight squeeze to pass someone in them. They were deep enough to hide most of the body of a standing man, but shallow enough that everyone had a clear view in all directions when standing up, so they were probably close to five feet deep, perhaps a little less. (Possibly the floor of the trench was higher on the side closer to ground zero than toward the other side, so that we could step up to see and down to crouch, making the deeper part six feet. I do not clearly recall that, but it seems we were 'way down in when we crouched.) Each space between trenches was several times the width of one trench, so people in the trench ahead did not meaningfully affect the view of those behind. A rather large yucca tree was located behind the trenches, i.e., beyond the trenches from the tower. It was the only vegetation visible from that location, so we had a clear, unobstructed view toward the tower, straight ahead, and the small buildings, off to our right and somewhat closer to the tower than we were. Although I do not recall the method of ingress to and egress from the trenches, I do not recall needing to scramble, so there were probably steps

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Heyer Saga at each end. I do seem to recall our filing into (and later out of) each trench single file from the ends. Back at camp, in the middle of the night (i.e., about 2 a. m.) before a scheduled demonstration time, we were roused, fed, and loaded into a group of trucks to be transported to the demonstration site. The trucks left us at the site near the trenches, and then withdrew five or ten miles away. We were marched into the trenches to await "zero hour", the scheduled time of detonation. Loudspeakers periodically announced "zero minus 2 hours", "zero minus 90 minutes", "zero minus 60 minutes", "zero minus 45 minutes", up to "zero minus five minutes", then four, three, etc., and seconds if we got that far. "Zero hour" was always 6:00 a. m., about dawn, apparently the stillest-air time of day. Winds, however, had to be monitored at various altitudes to make sure that the dust cloud after the explosion would not drift over Las Vegas. Winds at different altitudes might move in different directions. Night after night we got up in the dark, rode to the site, marched into the trenches, awaited the countdown, and heard the loudspeaker announce: Zero minus 20 minutes (pause); Zero minus 15 minutes (pause); Zero minus 10 minutes (pause); Zero minus 5 minutes (pause); Zero minus 24 hours. The last announcement meant that winds were unfavorable at some altitude, and the detonation was therefore postponed to the following day, when we would go through the whole thing again. Once we even got down to a minute or less in the count before being informed that the night had been wasted. We would then file back out of the trenches, and the trucks would return and take us back to camp. When this process stretched into weeks and we passed payday, I became concerned that Thelma would not have sufficient money, and after talking with an officer from AAA RTC, our Chapter 7, page 123

Heyer Saga S-3 (the colonel who was my immediate supervisor in the office) contacted her and confirmed that there was no problem. I can't recall the numbers involved, but there must have been at least several hundred, and probably a few thousand soldiers involved in this expeditionsay battalion to regiment size, most of them experienced top sergeants. One night a younger "buck" (ordinary or lowest-grade) sergeant, who had befriended me as his "buddy" during the period of our assignment there, got drunk and informed me that he had seen atomic bombs and that they were about the size of a fire extinguisher which happened to catch his eye during his report. Not a good security risk. In 1997 I noticed that a recent television fiction episode showed an object about that size and shape which was supposed to be such a device in the story line of the show. Now, of course, one can get plans for such a device from various public sources, or so I have heard. c. Zero Hour Finally, one dark, cold dawn the loudspeaker completed the count to "zero". As instructed, we were already all crouched down in the trenches, facing away from "ground zero" (our backs to it), well below the rims of the trenches (at least a foot or two below), with our eyes closed, an arm covering the eyes and pressed against the back of the trench (away from the blast site). Nevertheless, I saw, through all of those obstacles and protections, a sudden, bright light filling my whole field of vision. It did not last long, certainly not longer than a second or two. I did not immediately move. Protected by the earth surrounding the trench, though, I felt no heat, and at first no other effect. As directed, we remained crouched. I do not remember clearly, for some reason, anything said or experienced about the sound, but it seems to me that the sound was not a single clap, but rose gradually and continued for some time, like rolling thunder. Yet this may not be accurate; I do not know why that part seems to have left little confident memory. It Chapter 7, page 124

Heyer Saga should have taken over five seconds for the first sound to reach me, and that sounds reasonably consistent with what I seem to recall. After a further lapse of time which seemed somewhat prolonged because of anticipation, but was probably not more than another 10 or 15 seconds, dirt, pebbles, and litter fell in lightly on us from the trench top, and the ground itself seemed to shake, like a very slight earthquake. This was the shock wave. (Logically, I suppose ground-borne and airborne shock waves should travel at different velocities, and perhaps they did, but the litter down the neck is mostly what I recall between the time of the light and the order to stand.) We then were allowed to stand and look around. Behind us (beyond our trench from ground zero), a yucca tree was aflame, lit by the flash. (This was both a forceful warning of what would have happened if anyone had peered out of the trench too soon, and convincing proof of the efficacy of ordinary dirt (and rock) to protect against the initial radiation blast, but no official comment was made on it.) In front, at some distance, was a wall of smoke and dust. Above, the sky, totally clear each day until then, was no longer visible, obscured totally by dust and smoke, which I suppose was the bottom of the mushroom cloud, but we could see no edge and therefore no shapeit covered the whole visible sky. Drivers from the trucks several miles away could see the typical mushroom cloud. As directed, we then filed out of the trenches and walked forward toward ground zero. Bits of former plant life (which I had not noticed on our earlier walk, and thus must have been dead already and not green), small birds, and mice that happened to be passing at the wrong time were visible on the ground, burnt to a crisp. (Thelma recalls that, at the time, I recounted the antics of one soldier who, on seeing one of these unfortunate little animalsshe recalled it as a jackrabbitcalled out "Medic!" I do not independently recall that item.) The steel derrick or tower on which the device had rested was no longer present. All that remained of it were small bits of twisted metal a few Chapter 7, page 125

Heyer Saga inches long, visible on the ground at various points, hundreds of yards from its original location. We were advised to steer clear of these, because of radiation risk. The small wooden buildings that had been to our right were no longer visible. The flash heat that had only set fire to the yucca tree at 2000 yards had vaporized these buildings some hundreds of yards closer to the blast. Dummies that had been outside (in uniform) were badly burnt, and the only remnants of the small tents were thin rectangular charcoal outlines of their bases left on the ground by the flash heat. Dummies inside these tents, though knocked about, showed no heat effects at all: just the tent cloth had protected them from that. (Of course, I do not know how hot they became. Human skin might feel heat that would not necessarily leave any visible effect on wood, paint, and cloth. I did not feel them for residual heat.) I can't recall exactly how far we reached toward ground zero. In preparation, I think we had gone within about 500 yards. I believe our closest approach after the blast was perhaps somewhere around 800 or so yards from ground zero. We did reach the vicinity of some tanks (armored and tracked vehicles), which were knocked on their sides by the shock of the blast (I believe they would have weighed about 14 tons each), but I do not recall seeing obvious heat damage to them. The tanks, however, were monitored with Geiger counters as radiating, so we were not allowed to get close to them. I recall on re-reading this that small areas around each tank were marked as off-limits, and guards were there to assure compliance. By that time, the air-borne (and radioactive) dust was approaching, so we were walked back to where the trucks had left us. We boarded, one at a time, as each of us was thoroughly brushed off with a broom, monitored for radiation (assumed to be from dust), and cleaned further if needed according to the radiation readings (and of course the official interpretation of them, but I do not know the levels that they considered not dangerous). One sergeant with a thick moustache was repeatedly monitored, brushed, and re-monitored for some time before being allowed to board the bus. We then rode back to camp, received some final "post-briefing", and were soon Chapter 7, page 126

Heyer Saga shipped back to our various stations. I am unaware of any health effects the experience had, and evidently it did not sterilize. Four children, born after that, appear to be as healthy as any Heyers have been. I am a little frustrated by the imprecision of my recollection. I once knew these numbers better. At least one anomaly occurs in my memory of these events. It seems we advanced substantially farther toward ground zero before the explosion than we were allowed to go afterward, yet the tanks are the closest thing to the tower that I recall seeing in the "before picture", and yet I distinctly recall seeing themI can still see them in my mind's eyein the "after picture". On mentioning this discrepancy to Thelma, she suggested that the blast force had not only knocked them over but also perhaps moved them farther from ground zero. That is possible, but does not seem likely to me, on the scale of the discrepancy. I cannot reconcile this discrepancy in my mental file so long afterward. I hope the rest is more accurate. At any rate, this is what memory provides, 43 years after the event, which was interesting, but not a subject on which I have often thought, so not much memory "refreshment" has occurred, which might have kept it sharper.

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Heyer Saga

CHAPTER 8: BACK TO FONTANA

1955-1960 a. Diana May is born December 25, 1954 In March of 1954 Thelma and Cindy joined me in El Paso, the location of the Triple-A Artillery Training Center at "Fort Bliss" which was named for Lieutenant Colonel William Wallace Smith Bliss who served in the Mexican war from 1846-1847. Early on Christmas day of 1954, she delivered our second child, Diana May Heyer. That year, I was promoted from PFC to Corporal (signified by two chevrons on my left upper sleeve) and a tiny rise in wage. I became eligible to be promoted to ("buck") sergeant later, but promotions for that rank were awarded to regular (career) army" members (designated by "RA" before the Army serial number, while a "draftee" had "U.S.". b. "Baby Bar" exam Looking into requirements for taking the California State Bar exam I found that, for the purpose of admission to the state bar, those students who were not studying full time at an "accredited" university had to take and pass a special examination in the typical first three subjects taught in law schools before any studies beyond the first year could be counted as preparation for taking the main bar exam. My correspondence course could not count as an "accredited course", so I needed to take the "special" exam commonly known as the "baby bar". Even though I did not expect to practice law, I thought that passing the main bar exam would help convince the school administration that my studies in that field (law) would be an equivalent of a graduate degree for increasing my modest income. When the time came for taking the "baby bar" I arranged with one of the officers at Fort Bliss, Texas, to proctor my taking of the exam (i.e., certify that I had received the questions at a specific time and place and that I had completed them and turned them Chapter 8 page 128

Heyer Saga in to him within the time allowed by the Bar Association.) I passed the "baby bar", so that step was complete. Before the end of my army enlistment, I wrote to the ABA-accredited private University of San Francisco law school for permission to enroll in three summer courses. None of the courses offered would be on the bar examination, but I thought it would be helpful to (1) see what their examinations would be like, (2) what the competition would be like, and (3) what their law library would contain. USF required me to take a proctored LSAT before admission, which I successfully completed. I was then admitted for one summer session, but not for courses that I would actually be able to use on the California State Bar exam. In that summer session I learned what I had set out to discover, got good grades (though that did not matter under the circumstances), knew better what to expect on the main bar examination, and discovered some very valuable sources on subjects which the correspondence courses had not covered adequately. In June of 1955, I returned to civilian life after receiving an honorable discharge from further active military service. Although we had lived on the edge of our resources, as described earlier, using a gift silver dollar to eke out each month in my first year of teaching, and my service income was also modest, we never-the-less never again were quite that low on cash. I bought an old "Reo", an automobile model then no longer produced for many years, for the trip back to California. Because we had acquired a few more possessions for our now-larger family, I also bought a small utility trailer for the trip. c. Crossing the "Great American Desert" Although West Texas was nearly as dry (away from the Rio Grande), the title "Great American Desert", referred to the area west of El Paso, through New Mexico, Arizona, and the dry eastern portion of Southern California (including San Bernardino County, between Mexico and the most Chapter 8 page 129

Heyer Saga southerly and easterly mountains of California.) This area included Death Valley and other places with less forbidding names but nearly equal dryness and hence danger. A few weeks before we were to start back home, we learned of a young woman who had recently undertaken this journey with a small child and an infant, but the infant had died on the journey. To avoid the risk of such a tragedy in my family, I drove mostly at night, stopping at motels along the way each morning for some hours of sleep. Thelma watched the children while I slept. We made sure that all members of the family were kept adequately shaded and hydrated throughout the trip. Although we were aware that population density and availability of services by this time were far better than in the days of the pioneers, care and caution still seemed the best policy. I hitched the trailer to the little car, driving across our route without any problem, resting only during the daytime. The journey consumed three days. After a brief visit with our parents in Southern California, Thelma, 22month-old Cindy, and 6-month old Diana, and I moved to a public housing complex at Hunters Point in southeast San Francisco for the duration of the summer session of the University of San Francisco law school. d. Our First and Second Homes (flash-back) After Thelma and I became engaged to marry, I learned that the Lennox area somewhat south and east of Inglewood was being subdivided, homes were being built on it and sold, partly perhaps because of increasing population, clearing of swamps, and the construction of the new El Camino Junior College (where I had taken three courses in its first semester in the new site). The new homes could be bought for $3,000 each. Although I did not have enough money to contribute anything useful at the time, Thelma had saved some money to use for a down payment. Mother did the negotiating and co-signed the mortgage loan. We were able to acquire the property, expecting to move in when I graduated from UCLA and found employment. Chapter 8 page 130

Heyer Saga In order for us to make the monthly payments with insufficient income of our own, a realtor rented out the property for us, and set up rental payments sufficient to pay the monthly mortgage payments. This came close to working out for a time, but the renter's payments gradually began to be made later each month, until they got a full month behind. Finally I wrote them to review the situation, explained the difficulty it put us in, and urged them to catch up the missing month's rent. They moved out without paying the missed rent. We then rented the house to Thelma's eldest brother, Clarence and his wife, Shirley, who lived there for the remaining several years that we owned the property. When we returned to California from military service in El Paso, Texas, it had become clear that we would not be able to live in that "first" house, but in the meantime it had increased in value while I finished work on my teaching credential, taught my first year, and served in the U.S. Army. The house could now be sold for $4,500. We used the proceeds of the sale to pay off the existing mortgage balance and make the down payment on the new home in Fontana with the help of the G.I. Bill guaranteed financing. We thereafter moved into our "own" home in Fontana, a small tract house subject to a thirty-year mortgage. It was satisfying at last to have our own home, accessible to work. The tract houses were similar enough that, in the beginning, I had to count houses to identify my own when coming home after dark, When our expanding family outgrew the house, we were able to sell off "home #2", and use the proceeds to buy home #3--a larger house with a larger yard in a different part of town. e. Return to Fontana High School When I returned to Fontana High School, as I recall, the law then was that an employee who had gone into military service had a right to return to the same or similar function upon his release from active duty, even though we remained in the inactive reserve for a specified period of time (six years, I think, but maybe less). Mr. Cameron, the Fontana High School Principal, rehired me to teach mostly Latin, but now at a larger salary. I also taught a Chapter 8 page 131

Heyer Saga German class, which included students in all four years of German in the one class. The school by then had all four years of high school. So many different levels of German students in one class satisfied my preference for variety, but presented the challenge of trying to serve them all adequately. Most of my teacher friends were still there, perhaps more confident now and certainly more experienced. I heard of rather harrowing conditions during my absence. One was close to a riot of some male students, requiring teachers to step in forcefully and in numbers, rather different from the quiet and orderly school that I remembered (and that I found on my return). Why this had occurred, I never learned. The school now had rules to deal with problems that had actually occurred, as our principal had promised. Another bad report was revealed about how former Latin students had outrageously and unmercifully bedeviled the Latin teacher (who had taken my place), playing all kinds of unkind "practical jokes" on him while I was away. Again, I never learned why. He did not return to teach after my return. Still, the teaching generally went well after I returned. Before my departure for military service, I had taught the pronunciation of Latin as my high school Latin teacher had done, using the pronunciation generally regarded by linguists as the classical usage, from comparisons in poetry, etc. In this system, the Latin short "i" is pronounced like English short "i", while the long "I" was pronounced "ee", the "v" like English "w", the "u" like English "oo", etc. Upon my return, I discovered that some new students had joined us who had been taught to use the Italian (Catholic Church) pronunciation, as though the modern Italians had been the ancient Romans, recognizing only one vowel instead of each of every two sets of vowel sounds, and treating the sounds of "u", "v", and "w" all alike. Two other ways of pronunciation were also in widespread use, for slightly different purposes (such as legal terms, sayings, etc.). When I discovered that at least two separate pronunciation systems had been learned in different places by students in some classes, I had a Chapter 8 page 132

Heyer Saga choice: should I demand that all conform to one way, imposing a burden on half the students? Since Latin was not ordinarily used orally anymore except in set phrases, I decided that a better course was to advise them all to continue using whichever pronunciation they had learned and to which they were accustomed, since I would recognize in each case whether they were using it correctly. Under the circumstances, I did not quibble over their pronunciation in any case. I believe that most of them learned well, enjoyed the course, and some of them completed all four years, which was unusual in many schools. Two of them were outstanding Latin students, and at graduation time were recognized for this achievement formally with small awards. The only time that any class of mine engaged in a "practical joke" while I was there was one day when competing demands made me late to a class. Finding the classroom empty, I was surprised and befuddled for a moment, but then heard a giggle from outside. I walked out of the hall and around to the outside of my window, where the whole class was crouching below the window level, with wide grins. I also grinned and said, "let's go in now". It was a genuine, good-natured joke, not the mean-spirited "jokes" played at the school that I had heard about. We went on with the lesson, and no mean behavior showed up in my classes as long as I was there. During my teaching of Latin, I noticed that one bright girl student often sketched in her spare time, fairly impressively. As her senior year approached its end, she seemed to become depressed, and I heard her tell a friend that she wanted to go to college, but her family could not afford to send both their children to college, and "naturally" they needed to choose the son because of his gender. Her efforts to learn about art scholarships from the school counselor had achieved nothing. Her brother was also in one of my classes, but was neither very bright nor motivated. Without speaking to the girl about it, I asked the school art teacher (a Mr. Massey) whether he knew her and had seen her artwork. He had, and thought that a scholarship was quite likely available. He knew the right connections, and the scholarship was forthcoming. Years later, I happened to come upon her and her mother in town, when the mother thanked me for Chapter 8 page 133

Heyer Saga helping her daughter enjoy her college work, which had led to a degree in commercial drawing. f. Jeffrey Thomas Is born August 28, 1956 Our third child, Jeffrey Thomas Heyer, was born at Kaiser Hospital in Fontana on August 28, 1956. As a teacher at Fontana High School, I was entitled to enroll my family in the Kaiser medical system, a step I eagerly took as soon as eligible, and have maintained ever since when possible. [An aside on the Kaiser Foundation hospitals and system: Before the US formally entered World War II, Henry J. Kaiser purveyed concrete and cement in California. Competitors normally confined themselves to the generic terms, but, to emphasize the quality and name of his concrete, he named it "Permanente", and seems to have been quite successful. He also seems to have been alert to possibilities. [After Germany declared war on the United States, German submarines were sinking the small oil tankers then in use to transport oil from the Gulf of Mexico [mostly Texas] to the Northeastern states. These sinkings were outrunning the construction of new ships, creating oil shortages in the North East. Kaiser realized that he could build ships faster (on the west coast because by using concrete, he could simply pour the substance in molds, without the need for the slow and expensive process of welding steel sheets together. He thus was able to branch out into this new field and help the war effort at the same time. Although concrete ships are presumably heavier and slower than normal steel tankers, they were built too far west for German submarines to reach before they entered the crucial area. (After this new enlargement of his enterprise, Henry J. shifted gradually into steel fabrication, at a new location in the Fontana area of Southern California, filling a need, since steel fabrication was not yet widespread in the west, but made sense during a heavy need for steel on the west coast. Since a large portion of his employees in Fontana when we moved there were from Eastern European origins [Serbs, Croats, and Chapter 8 page 134

Heyer Saga Slovenians], I infer that he may have made a particular effort to recruit them from the eastern part of the US, but perhaps not. I also do not know whether his next plan was inspired by his acquaintance with the advanced western-European methods of publicly supported, universal medical care, but he created his own medical-care program, available to all Kaiser employees, and also to employees of other large employers within the same areas, including government agencies. ) Hence, this Kaiser Health Insurance opportunity was available to us in Fontana, and, as it turned out, also later in Northern California, with at least one gap, when Thelma had a miscarriage soon after we had moved northward, but my new probationary employment did not yet authorize Kaiser faculty membership. Hence, before our establishing a new bank account or my having received any wages, she had to be hospitalized, but the local hospital would not accept her without an up-front payment of hundreds of dollars. It was difficult to arrange this quickly in a new area, and they would not even deal with the hemorrhaging! Somehow I worked it out, but vowed inwardly that this must never happen again, so, when the same (private) hospital sent out a request for the gift of funds to enable them to expand, I immediately threw the request in the trash. As soon as my probationary period of employment ended, we signed up with Kaiser in Northern California and have never been without it since then.) g. Other activities in Fontana After my return to Fontana, I took on various school committee roles, joined a local "Toastmasters' Club", the local Democratic club, the statewide California Democratic Council, was elected to the County Democratic Central Committee, and later to the Chaffey College Board of Trustees and some local CDC roles. During this period I began to study the Stock Market and made a few small investments, and was invited to participate in some joint real estate ventures. One got off to a reasonable start, but with basically inconsistent goals among the participants, so that proved impractical. Another may have been sound enough, but I found that I needed to withdraw early, because Chapter 8 page 135

Heyer Saga of other demands for funds. In later years I was unwise enough to participate in yet another joint venture, but that one finally convinced me that a totally separate and independent approach to all investments was best for me. The school principal, Ernest Camfield, when contacted by someone in a local Womens Club, asked me to present a book review to the group. I chose to speak on Dwight D. Eisenhower's recent book on the American role in the European theater of operations during World War II. General Eisenhower had served as regional combined-forces chief in charge of the European war zone during World War II. Since Eisenhower's approach in the book was rather like Julius Caesar's in comparable circumstances, written to help get elected head of state, I therefore referred to it informally as Eisenhower's Gallic War, and generally described his approach to the book and practice of trying to make all the allied chiefs sound considerably better than they were, to please these influential if no longer powerful leaders, but not totally concealing all the problems that he had with them and their conflicting strategic purposes. One lady afterward made clear that she had hoped more for a book report that merely recited the author's words. They did not invite me back. Other projects included completing the Armed Services correspondence courses of which I had availed myself while in the Army, including foreign language courses, more advanced chemistry, biochemistry, differential calculus, the more demanding integral calculus, as well as further U.C. Berkeley correspondence courses in organizational management, "historical geology" (which was an extremely misleading title but a highly interesting and informative description of the evolution of biology as revealed by fossil evidence).

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Heyer Saga

CHAPTER 9: PRACTICE OF LAW

a. Passing the State Bar Exam, 1957 My effort to induce the school district to count my Law courses as a further degree entitling me to a larger salary rate was dismissed by the Superintendent, so I enrolled in a summer program called the California Bar Review Course, led by several very well-informed and specialized lawschool instructors. That course was offered in both northern and southern California (Los Angeles). Hence, once again, we all (Thelma, Cindy, Diana, two-year-old Jeff, and I) traipsed away from Fontana for the summer, staying with Thelma's parents in Gardena. Thelma's sister Wanda offered to let me study at the nearby apartment that she shared with a friend. I studied intensely, attended the Bar Review course, and sat with other students at a table including another candidate who had studied law under a lawyer, and complained of missing out on making of a lot of money during the review, and others who had previously tried to pass the state bar exam multiple times, failed, delayed re-filing for years, and came back repeatedly. The final Bar Exam was given near the end of summer, and I took it. So much emphasis had been focused on the field of contracts, with such over-fine detail and extreme trivia, and so many candidates seemed so focused on that topic, that I decided to skip it on the bar exam, and instead emphasized constitutional law, a field in which I was far more interested and which I understood better than many of my fellow candidates because of my history major. The exam itself consisted of three successive days of testing, split into two sessions each day. For most questions, the candidate viewed a statement of events and was asked to identify the "rights and liabilities of the parties", list them all, identify the issues implicit in the situation described, resolve those issues, explain the reasoning applied, and reach a conclusion on the issues raised by "reasoning in a lawyer-like manner". A few questions took somewhat different tacks, requiring a totally different approach. Chapter 9, page 137

Heyer Saga We knew in advance what fields of law would be covered, but some candidates did not always seem to be able to recognize just what issues were involved, rather surprising to me, since almost all of the thousand candidates in each half of the state to take the examination had graduated from large, famous, and accredited law schools. Each half-day session lasted 3.5 hours, during which four questions had to be answered. My problem was never to identify the issues nor identify what needed to be identified, or to reason in the required commonlaw manner, nor to cover all the necessary points, but to get it all completed within the time allowed. The exercise soon taught me to be as concise as possible, while making every point stand out clearly so that it would not be missed by the reviewers. I was discouraged at the end of the first day, thinking I must have failed, partly because of comments volunteered (more like spewed out) by other candidates, but having started, I continued and finished the exam, gradually realizing that the volunteered "expertise" was not particularly well informed. The extensive review of the State Bar Exam papers, conducted by a large collection of law school instructors, was not completed until December. The results revealed that five-eighths of the candidates had failed! Three eighths had passed. Those who failed could see their papers and any marks made by the reviewers, to prepare for future tries. Those who passed could not see their papers. On the same day that notice came to my home (school was in session then, and we were living back at home in Fontana), Thelma opened and read it, and then called the school to ask them to pass it on to me. Instead of passing it on to me individually, however, the school presented it as an announcement over the intercom, so I learned, along with everyone else, that I had passed the state bar examination. The state bar authorities scheduled a session to be sworn in as a member of the bar in Northern California promptly in December of the same year, and in January in Southern California. I attended the session in Chapter 9, page 138

Heyer Saga Los Angeles because it did not seem important to be sworn in promptly since I still did not expect actually to practice law. I did, however, decide to become a member of the California State Bar. Before this, I had not given that matter much thought. In the meantime, I was proceeding in other directions, beginning to build up savings, teaching beginning algebra one summer, signing up for new courses in other fields, reading a number of books written about World War II from the points of view of several major nations that had been involved in it, and other books on world history to see in more detail what some had done in this direction, and concluding that the world did not yet contain a well-done, perceptive, and broadly balanced world history, although some mighty efforts had been made. This made me begin to try to decide the proper scope and nature of such a potential book. b. Julie Faye Is born March 26, 1958 [See Chapter 28. Family.] c. Private Legal Practice, 1958-1960 Before admission to the California State Bar, I had never intended to actually undertake the practice of law. In the following months, however, I was surprised to have a number of people, mostly fellow Fontana High teachers, but also a former student, and a few referrals from such teachers to persons who did not know me, all seeking my legal assistance. Hence, unexpectedly, I was engaged in the practice of law! The largest of these undertakings was the handling of the probate of a deceased parent of one of the teachers. The variety and nature of some of these cases brought home a deeper and more meaningful recognition of the full meaning of a saying among lawyers, to the effect that a new member of the bar knows the principles of law, but not where the courthouse is. Actually, not only the location of different pertinent entities and facilities, and local practices in different places, but also the more specialized technicalities in each of the

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Heyer Saga many different branches and fields of law in a large, twentieth century state revealed themselves to me. The usual rules of contracts (originally derived from Roman law), torts, criminal law, constitutional law, etc., were (and still are) subject to certain special time limitations and other rules applying to suits against various levels of government, where allowed at all. The details of laws governing employment, enterprises, public domain, special purpose public entities, etc., also had to be applied in those and other fields. Fundamentally, the English legal system and all of those derived from it, including the American, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, Indian (of India), South African, etc., are generally covered by English common law. In addition to (or modification of) those principles, each of those nations has altered the earlier concepts to fit the times, places, and perceived needs of the various derived systems. [When some of the Saxons of Europe, after the weakening of the Roman Empire, had spread westward along the coast of what is now the Netherlands, Belgium, and nearby areas onto offshore islands, those who became adept at sailing and fishing came to be called "Angles", because of their "angling" [fishing with a hook and line]. Both their skill at sea and the pressures on them from another group expanding from the south northward toward them, led many of the Angles to leave the mainland and settle in Britain, initially at the invitation of the Celtic people living there, who felt the need for assistance against Irish attacks. Once the newcomer Englishmen (Angles) got a foothold, however, increasing numbers came into Britain, until they dominated the country. [At first these invaders founded many small, separate Angle or Saxon kingdoms, which controlled the island from north of Wales to a troubled border with Scotland. Later, a single King Alfred managed to unite the island's Anglo-Saxons into a single kingdom, but various individual earls still mostly ruled each shire. Their law was primarily custom, and was enforced locally by the earls within their own earldoms, and nationally by

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Heyer Saga the king. There was no law common to the whole kingdom, except for the national rules. [When the Normans [Norsemen who had seized a part of what is now France in and around Normandy], however, invaded England in 1066, they replaced the English king and earls with Norman kings and earls, who were not familiar with English customary law. The Norman invaders, therefore, made few, poor, and troublesome rulings, disrupting the kingdom. In order to gain better control, the system was altered, so that the king appointed a group of professional judges to travel about the country to determine the customary law in what was intended to be a logical but practical way in all earldoms, uniformly. Thus, for the first time, English law became a uniform system of law, common to the whole country. [This was the origin of the "common law" system, which underlies, but does not constitute all, of the law today in our country. Statutes passed by legislatures are not exactly part of that system, but judges generally interpret them, where possible, to make them consistent with the whole system, to avoid the kind of "Catch 22" irresolvable conflicts depicted by writer Emile Zola and commemorated in an old motion picture.] After I already had an unexpected but actual law practice, I decided to leave full time teaching to focus on it, since the Superintendent of Schools declined to allow a raise on the basis of my law degree and admission to the Bar. A few months before the end of that school year, I therefore notified the school principal that I would not return to work at the high school after the end of my fourth school year of teaching at Fontana High School. I opened a local office and hired a former student to answer phones and perform office duties for a time. A friendly lawyer offered me the position of assistant district attorney in the city of Colton, but I felt that I should stay in Fontana, and so declined his kind offer. In 1958 another lawyer by the name of Louis Novak, whom I did not know, offered me a job in his office, which I did accept. He never spent much time in the office, and none that allowed time for discussion of exactly Chapter 9, page 141

Heyer Saga what he wanted my role to be. His first paycheck to me bounced, but I continued to work there for a while longer, taking occasion to remind him of the bounced check, after which he paid with a good check. By that time it was clear that he was a hopeless alcoholic, would never work in the office but only come in to pick up papers needed in trial or to bluff his way into obtaining contracts which he would not dependably fulfill. I concluded that this arrangement could not work out satisfactorily, and notified him that I would be leaving. In addition to maintaining my small office in Fontana, I bought the practice and office equipment of an elderly retiring attorney in nearby Riverside, California in 1959. I hired an older lady named Troy, who had worked for the retired attorney, as my office staff. I had only a little work for her, but she was a charming older lady. Business continued to come in to both offices in the two cities, including defending persons accused of crimes, for which payment came from the county in view of lack of a public defender at the time. However, the income was not really sufficient to support my family and meet the overhead, although we had enough money to continue a while longer in hopes of improvement. d. Winona April is born December 27, 1960 (See Chapter 28. Family) e. Public Law in the County Counsel's office 1960-1963 A little later a teacher at Fontana High School contacted me and advised me that her husband was an attorney employed in the San Bernardino County Counsel's office, and that his office needed a new attorney. I applied, was interviewed by the County Counsel himself, and awaited his reply. A week or so later, the husband of my teacher friend called to inform me that the current major influenza epidemic had disabled three attorneys working in that office and taken the life of the County Counsel, leaving himself (the teacher's husband) the only functioning attorney in the office. Chapter 9, page 142

Heyer Saga He then asked, "When can you report for duty?" I accepted the offer and left private practice for this public service employment. It turned out that the "sole survivor" (who had called me in) specialized in advice to school districts (on behalf of the county), suffered physical and emotional problems precluding trial work, and therefore did nothing else. When I reported for work there after promptly closing my offices (finishing up some cases and turning one not yet scheduled for trial to another attorney who worked in that field), my main duties at first were advising various county department heads on questions which they asked, becoming familiar with the multiple departments and the special laws and ordinances pertaining to them, meeting officials in a wide variety of functions, acting as trial attorney in cases arising in the field of education and in cases involving disputes between the county and its officials on one side or the other in a considerable range of situations. It was a satisfying kind of practice, taught me a good deal, and allowed me to begin to put together a description of the entire range of functions of the county, its many special-purpose districts (over a hundred), its school districts (also over a hundred), its various official appointees, such as justices of the peace (needed in a county so large and sparsely populated that its few cities were concentrated in a relatively small area in its southwest corner), various sheriffs and marshals, etc. This relatively broad range of topics and duties permitted the development of a regularized system or collection of principles applicable to these various aspects of law and their relationships with state statutes (apparently no one had thought to do that before), which provided the foundation for the establishment of such special districts and the rules governing them, as well as a systematic picture of the whole system. Some trial work included cases involving private individuals or companies in disputes with the county, enforcement of county ordinances, guidance for the special districts and minor officials who sometimes overstepped their authority. Chapter 9, page 143

Heyer Saga In one trial case involving a dispute between the county and a private business, both parties presented views which were both incompatible with each other, and also seemed to go farther than was reasonable. When it came time for my final argument, I approached this conflict as fairly as possible; pointing out the excessive positions of both sides as originally presented, and took a position that I thought better balanced their rights. The judge accepted my view on the spot immediately. This was a satisfying outcome to me, and no one complained. On another occasion, the County Health Department wanted to republish the various county ordinances and other features of its system in a more orderly and complete format than was provided by the then-current scattered and unconnected ordinances. After I refined this system with some suggestions, they asked me to present the result to the County Supervisors, which I did. The supervisors passed it as an updated, comprehensive ordinance. This made me aware that similar sloppy, inconvenient, and scattered ordinances were widespread in this county, and not well indexed. I therefore made it my regular practice thereafter to follow the same procedure when other departments asked me to help them update and coordinate the ordinances that affected them, so that gradually the disordered and difficult-to-locate ordinances increasingly became coordinated, consolidated, and modernized. On one occasion, a supervisor commented that I must have something more important to do, but the departments gradually and increasingly wanted to gain the advantages of this kind of modernizing and rationalizing process, and, after I left, the county finally hired an outsider to finish the project. Soon after I started to work in the County Counsel's office, the two attorneys who had been temporarily disabled by the serious influenza epidemic that year, returned to work. One of these attorneys specialized in "public domain" lawsuits between the county and former owners of property being seized for public use under the law of "eminent domain." The other attorney was a quiet but able woman in another field, which I do not recall. I Chapter 9, page 144

Heyer Saga believe that after I left that office, she was appointed to a judgeship, as had a former member of the office shortly before I had come to work there. Then the supervisors appointed a former Worker's Compensation lawyer to be the new County Counsel. He laid out a few rules about the format in which all requests for legal advice addressed to our office should be presented. His approach seemed an excellent improvement in our process over the prior lack of system, enabling an easier recognition of what was really wanted, and therefore an easier way to respond when the request was aimed at getting a favorable answer leaning one way, but the real goal often could not be done lawfully in the manner proposed. (Some department heads liked to try to get approvals for approaches that I thought needed to be modified, so the new approach was an improvement.) To illustrate such an anomaly (or actually outrage) that had occurred before any of us were there, in the time of the previous County Counsel, various abuses of power by an earlier Board of Supervisors and some department heads had led to the passage of an initiative proposal being placed on the ballot by an employees' group to require the usual civil service protections provided to civil servants in other jurisdictions. According to state law at the time, the county board could then either put the newly passed civil service law into practice directly, or adopt it formally. They did not have the right to change it. Yet, they did not like it, so they altered it in some ways, increasing the number of politically appointed positions by several categories, and purported to put that, watered down version, into effect. The supervisors asked the County Counsel whether that procedure could be followed. He knew, I presume, that it was unlawful, but also that it was what the board wanted, so he evaded a direct answer, saying, as the printed minutes revealed, "It will probably never come up". It did come up again after his demise, while I was still working there, because of another abuse of power that had occurred and a public reaction that appeared to be a threat to the current supervisors. They wanted to bend a little (but only a little) by creating still another "modifying" proposal, which would eliminate both former versions (the legitimate one and the Chapter 9, page 145

Heyer Saga "trick" one) and adopt yet another new one that would modify one overreaching encroachment but leave most of the others. This arrangement was accepted as a compromise, but I believe the public was at least reasonably satisfied at the time. On another occasion, the county adopted an ordinance requiring that adult children, if their income was above a specified amount, to contribute to the support of their indigent parents according to a declared standard. Many objections arose ("many" for the size of our office, but not in comparison to the population of our county). These cases all came to me and their numbers overburdened our clerical staff. I devised a few standard forms for the replies, and asked the staff to use these on my cases in this area, with appropriate insertions of names, addresses, amounts, etc., which I indicated for each case. This was before the age of desktop computers, so filling in appropriate data on a standardized form saved a considerable amount of time and money for the County Counsels office. My principal secretary did not want to do this, because it did not "look professional enough", but I insisted because it made the system far more efficient and reduced the time lag between receipt of objections and preparing individual replies. I had to appear before the board to present the official position on each case of an objection, but the board often reduced the load in individual cases, which I lacked authority to do. After I had worked for some time in the County Counsel's office, two other attorneys were added to the office. These two seemed to talk to me more than to the older attorneys, so we three became good friends. One was named Steve Friedman, and had come from New York City. I do not recall what his assignment was. He told me on one occasion that, where he had come from, everyone was an avowed adherent to some religious group or other (although he did not phrase it that way), and he was surprised to find that in California that was not always true. At a later time, we both applied for a job as city attorney (or maybe it was deputy city attorney) of Beverly Hills. He was employed in that capacity, but later was passed over for city attorney, and therefore called me for advice on applying to work for another organization, for which I then worked (later after our time in the Chapter 9, page 146

Heyer Saga County Counsel's office). I provided the necessary information, and he got that job. He was unmarried in the time that I knew him. The other newer attorney in the County Counsel's office, named Fred Lopez, and was married. Thelma remembers the wife as named Mary. Fred was assigned to take over one of my former routine tasks. He surprised me on one occasion by revealing that he never tried to reconcile his bank checking account (which we did monthly in our house); he merely would stop in at the bank periodically and ask his current balance! It seems to me that a third person joined our office also, late in my tenure there, the same person who became the official, full-time public defender, but I cannot recall whether he came to our office before or after he held that position, or, if he did come to join our organization, what role he played. f. The new county counsel Our new County Counsel, because of his experience in the worker's compensation field, was able to, and did, offer a night class in that field, which was interesting to me both because of its intrinsic subject matter and because it impinged on other parts of the scattered social security system. (Worker's Compensation refers to partial wage replacement or medical care [or both] provided, as required by law, by certain employers or their insurers to their employees unable to work because of injuries arising from their employment. It was common in the developed parts of Europe and in some parts of the British Empire in the late nineteenth century (but not in the United States before the twentieth century, and poorly in some states, even after it became standard in the Northeast, Midwest, and on the West Coast).

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Heyer Saga

CHAPTER 10: END OF THE DREAM

1962 As mentioned earlier, although I felt it would be unfair to impose the burden of a political future on a prospective wife, I believed that it was my obligation to try. After discussing it with Thelma, I took the various political steps to begin the process, as mentioned earlier. The crucial election occurred when the position of state assembly member from our county (San Bernardino) became open while I was still employed as a member of the County Counsel's staff. I was an elected member of the Chaffey Community College in Ontario, California. In addition, I was known at the County Counsel's office, in the county branch of the California Democratic Council, at Fontana High School, among the county Bar Association, in the local government Bar Association (created by a member of the larger bar), in the Fontana Toastmasters club, and elsewhere, including numerous county officials and employees. I had business cards made, as well as a newspaper-style campaign brochure distributed throughout the county, talked to a number of political groups, the local NAACP, etc., and rented a billboard in the county with a brief, simple message. The county Democratic Council held a nominating conference, at which I spoke, along with three other candidates. The group nominated a person new to the Democratic Party (although most of them did not know that) probably because of the support of an influential attorney who largely dominated the group. That attorney's secretary was, or appeared to be, the nominee's lady friend, and the attorney probably thought he could control that newcomer, and did support him and arrange financing for a competing publication in the last few days of the campaign. (On the occasion of this conference, Thelma came to support me, in what someone called a "striking white costume", and displayed a large supportive banner, which she and friends had made.) Chapter 10, page 148

Heyer Saga This was a setback, but I had already filed the papers necessary for me to appear on the ballot, so I stayed in the campaign, knowing I could not succeed in my ultimate goal except by winning this and all later elections until reaching a position high enough to bring the ultimate goal about. Others have of course won elections after losing earlier ones, such as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt, but they had financial resources, which I could never match, and my goal required more than either did, though both were truly great presidents. I became aware that the nominee had always registered as a Republican through all his previous voting life. In the election previous to this one, however, the California Democratic Council had succeeded in electing the first full slate of major state elective officials in the twentieth century by unifying their campaign, thus preventing cross-filing Republicans from capturing all positions before the Democratic candidates could get a nominee of their own nominated. Thereafter, the new legislature outlawed the manipulative system of cross-filing, so that was now no longer a problem for either side. (It was only immediately after that election result that the interloper changed his registration.) Some members of the Council, however, failed to recognize that change in the law, and so felt it was improper of me to seek the office despite the Council's choosing the interloper, whom I did not believe to be a real democrat. I did not comment on that nominee's changing "allegiances" after that prior election, except on one occasion where he showed up at a local Democratic Club meeting. As long as he was present to speak on it, I did point out this sudden switch, because it persuaded me that he was not a genuine Democrat. He did not deny this recent sudden switch, but merely asked how I knew. In addition to the foregoing steps, I followed a judge's advice to conduct a door-to-door canvas in one neighborhood, but my full-time employment made a larger effort in that manner impractical. Although a number of my former fellow teachers made small financial contributions to my campaign, for which I was grateful, the over-all cost of Chapter 10, page 149

Heyer Saga the campaign to me wiped out about half of our savings, so obviously I could not try again, and I realized before election day that I would not succeed on this occasion and could not afford to try again.

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Heyer Saga

CHAPTER 11: RIDING CIRCUIT 1

California Department of Professional and Vocational Standards, 1963 a. Martha Rose Is born February 2, 1963 After losing the election, the Local-Government Bar Association and the local NAACP offered me leadership roles, but I could not proceed effectively in that county because I could not stay in political life to accomplish what I had planned, and yet anything I might do thereafter would be treated by some as political anyway. Therefore I looked for employment elsewhere, and received invitations to be interviewed by both the City of Beverly Hills and the state Department of Professional and Vocational Standards. The city personnel manager asked Steve Freeman and me a few questions, including whether we had applied in order to meet famous actors (no) and gave us each a questionnaire to fill out. Steve burst out in anguish at one item, "That's not fair!" I just skipped the questions that I did not like. Later we received an invitation to come again for a further step. I was not eager to go again, but reluctantly did so. That time it was a city councilman who grilled us (separately) in a manner that irritated me. Steve was hired. The head of the Department of Professional and Vocational standards asked only a few questions and hired me. The job there was in one way rather similar to my work in the County Counsel's office, giving legal advice to a wide range of administrators, boards, and individual managers of separate agencies of the state, each with a separate purpose and function. Those organizations and functions varied and were not related to those with which we had dealt in the County Counsel's office. They included organizations regulating all sorts of occupations and some professions in California, such as the Boxing Commissioner, the Barbers and Cosmetologists, and dozens of others. That office was also much smaller than the one at my former position. In the County Counsel office, I was the fourth attorney in the office when I Chapter 11, page 151

Heyer Saga came, after which the new County Counsel made five, and three or four more came later, a total of eight or nine attorneys and all their secretaries. At "P & V", the headman had been an attorney there but was promoted to head of the department, under whom I joined his attorney Ralph Amerson, who guided me into the new job. The only other staff was one secretary. I accepted this appointment, learned the new field rapidly, with Ralph's help, followed my earlier practice of keeping track of previously issued advice by subject, and enjoyed the work, despite the odd way that I was introduced to the job. The chief called me to his office to be "introduced to the job", after which he characterized each of the people guiding the various specific component agencies, mostly with unkind but un-useful epithets! (Needless to say, I ignored these.) I do not recall any problems with any of the people we advised. After a time, Ralph left, though at the time I did not know why. I was able to keep up effectively in the following months, so no one was hired to take Ralph's place. Later I learned from the secretary that Ralph had left to return to his former job, because the wage rate on which I had based my willingness to come to the office was higher than his, and his request for a raise on that basis had been turned down. That saddened me, because I certainly did not intend to cause him any grief. Later, however, he saw me in a different context and was very friendly, so I guess he did not blame me.

[See Chapter 28. Family for our move to state Capital area.]

Chapter 11, page 152

Heyer Saga

CHAPTER 12: RIDING CIRCUIT 2

California Unemployment and Disability Insurance Board, 1963-1970 a. Circuit Riding Background In the early days of the United States, its population was small and sparsely scattered. To make the holding of trials and taking of testimony accessible to most people, the custom developed for judges, attorneys for both (or all) sides, and rarely witnesses, to travel together from place to place to hold the trials where the parties to the disputes resided, or at least to places which those parties could reach. For lack of better transportation, these traveling groups rode horseback or in horse drawn carriages from place to place. This custom was called riding circuit, because the route normally taken was called the circuit. Some courts are still called circuit courts, but the term riding circuit is now no longer used. I never rode horses or carriages to my hearings, but did travel widely enough to provide justice to people scattered widely enough that their coming to our office for hearings would be unduly burdensome to them, so Ill use the term on behalf of the three different agencies which employed me for that purpose. b. History of unemployment insurance This entire field of unemployment insurance came into existence in the U.S. under the Social Security Act of 1935, which created the FederalState unemployment insurance program. Similar systems had existed in Europe and some parts of the British Empire since before the turn of the century in 1900 but the U.S. adopted the system over three decades later, and even then the process was delayed by lawsuits, subterfuges, and other obstructions from the oligarchists, as has happened recently again in other crucial fields, as well as an irresponsible U.S. Supreme Court.

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Heyer Saga The U.S. Congress, at President Franklin D. Roosevelts urging, had created the system of unemployment insurance to provide temporary partial wage replacement due to involuntary unemployment as well as to stabilize the economy during recessions. The U.S. Department of Labor was to oversee the program and the federal government paid for the costs of enforcement, but it was left up to each state to administer its own program. This was largely in the past by the time of my recruitment to the field, and before then, the success of the system throughout and immediately after World War II led to a surplus in the Unemployment Insurance fund, so the state used this surplus to provide Disability Insurance to workers unable to work because of a temporary disability. This arrangement neatly meshed with the Social Security total disability insurance for longer-lasting disabilities. The California Unemployment and Disability Insurance Board also handled cases arising from the state temporary disability insurance program. Both of these state programs were available only to persons who worked for a set period of time in industrial, commercial, and construction industries, earning above a required minimum wage each quarter of a year for a specified time. During that time, the worker had to contribute a set portion of his or her wage regularly to become eligible for the benefit, and then only if that worker became unemployed through no fault of his or her own, remained ready, willing, and able physically to work, and was actively seeking work. Being laid off by the employer because of lack of available work to do entitled the worker to receive a modest temporary unemployment insurance payment, but being fired for misconduct connected with the work was treated as not being unemployed through no fault of ones own. Congress decided to require the holding of hearings to review the decisions of first-line administrative personnel who had authority to decide initially the merits of claims, objections, duties, etc., in instances in which administrative agencies of the federal government, state and possession governments, and local governments made decisions based on facts and Chapter 12, page 154

Heyer Saga law on a scale too large and new for typical judges to handle. Over the years, this new function required the holding of hearings, taking of evidence, decisions on the basis of pertinent law, with explanation of the reasons for the decisions. These decisions could be appealed to and reviewed by the traditional judges, but the numbers of such appeals were far lower than would have been the case if the original decisions had been directly appealed to the traditional judges, and the record coming to such a judge would have been much more complete than otherwise. Thus, the basic Congressional intent was reasonably clear in the abstract, but in specific cases not always so clear. To resolve any issues, hearings were held, evidence taken, both sides heard, and decisions reached by the ALJs, with the reasons clearly stated in most cases. c. Calif. Unemployment and Disability Insurance Board One advantage of working in Sacramento is that postings on most significant state jobs openings are available in a single state personnel office. Some months later after starting my job with P. & V. Standards, I saw a job announcement that caught my interest. This position would involve a rise in income, though it involved travel and a probationary period. I applied and was hired for a position in the state Unemployment and Disability Appeals Board. At that time the title was "referee", which of course led to jokes about vertically striped shirts and flag calls, leading ultimately to a clearer retitling of all federal employees in comparable positions as "administrative law judges". Having taught for the Fontana High School District for four school years, I would have acquired permanent "tenure" if I had continued on for the next school term. A few years later, I stayed as long as or longer than that in each of the three positions involving "riding circuit". The name of the agency that hired me was the California Unemployment and Disability Insurance Appeals Board. This name applied to the final state administrative board that dealt with such questions and its Chapter 12, page 155

Heyer Saga staff, and to the various field offices, which provided most of the hearings. Jack Clevenger, whose base was also in Sacramento, supervised the field offices throughout the state. Initially, I worked in the Sacramento field office. This field office included its Referee-In-Charge several other "referees" or (later) Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) of various ages (generally older than I), some hearing assistants, secretaries, and stenographers. Their names all now escape my memory, but the initials of one of the Referees were "RPM", some-times treated as a nickname or description of this ambitious Referee. He had a reputation for activity, curiosity, and for asking more questions than could be helpful in the case in order to widen his knowledge on any topic that interested him, relevant or not. The Referee-In-Charge provided me with a copy of the pertinent statute covering unemployment insurance, advised me to make sure the decision "told the story" of the case, and assigned an experienced Referee to observe and comment on my first hearing. Although I was uncomfortable with the idea that someone whose decision is supposed to be final (in the absence of an appeal) would be subject to review and on probation, leading me to wonder how this seemingly incompatible set of conditions would work out. In fact, it worked out fine. He did not question the merits of any of my decisions, but only concerned himself with the style, so I took great care to make the style clear, complete, and self-explanatory. In cases before me, when the parties, or one of them, was not able to present his or her case effectively (in the early days this was typical of claimants), I asked further questions to clarify the facts, and always asked each party whether he or she had anything further to say before closing the hearing. I was careful never to make any decision, even mental, before the hearing ended, but usually dictated the decision to the hearing assistant afterward if time allowed. I was later appalled to discover how often some judges made up their minds before they had heard the evidence of the parties, which I Chapter 12, page 156

Heyer Saga considered an unconscionable behavior. I was also careful never to give the appearance of browbeating or favoring either side (an approach which also sometimes was not followed by some other ALJs, but far less often with this agency than with another where I later served. d. The Process Each ALJ had a hearing assistant who assembled the initial case files and traveled with the ALJ if particular hearings were to involve travel to locations away from Sacramento. At the hearing, the hearing assistants task was to record the testimony taken by both sides as well as the judges words, either 1) Stenographically by old-fashioned pen and paper, or 2) With the aid of special manual recording machine and various codes, or 3) With an electronic digital recorder, depending on the particular hearing assistants previous training, preference, and skill. This clearly sometimes required that I inform the hearing assistant of particular words and spellings that might be unfamiliar. Thus their jobs related to the holding of the hearing, not to anything otherwise related to the ability to hear. Since prior skills of claimants were relevant to the cases, I always asked what kinds of work they had done, especially at their latest job, but found that most could not clearly answer, and would give such vague answers as everything, even if the job was actually rather narrow, as it usually was, or even the name of their position. One, for example, who had difficulty expressing himself clearly, used the word spyglass, which I could not understand because of his regional accent (and my unfamiliarity with it). I asked him to show me the motions he had previously used to perform this work, upon which he rose and swung his arm close to the floor with his hand closed, as if he were

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Heyer Saga harvesting a low-growing plant with a sickle. Thus, I immediately realized that he had been harvesting asparagus, a common seasonal task. On some occasions translators were necessary, but some had trouble keeping their own independent contributions out of the translation, though previously advised to do so, and one simply knew less English than the claimant did, so the claimant decided to do his own translation, which was quite adequate. One lady gave a version of events quite different from her employers view, but when I asked my usual final question, anything else? she used the opportunity to speak again, giving an angry version clearly incompatible with her own former testimony. Until then, the truth was unclear; after that it was crystal clear! (Sometimes it is best not to get the final word!). Similarly, another, much younger lady gave a version of the facts quite different from what the prior local Employment Department examiner had concluded from that examiners inquiries. I raised the prior examiners assertions, whereupon the young claimant, to my surprise, immediately agreed that her own prior response had not been correct, but added that what really had happened was yet a third version! When I asked about the discrepancies among these three different versions, without hesitation she came up with yet a fourth version! Needless to say, those two cases were the easiest ones I ever had to resolve. Besides our own and other regional offices where ALJs were stationed, the state was dotted with much more numerous Employment Department offices which received requests for work and for unemployment benefits. Officials in these offices collected the initial information from claimants, former employers, and sometimes other sources, created a file of this information pertinent to each case, and made the initial decisions to grant or deny the request, paid the benefits, etc. If either claimant or former employer objected to this decision, they could request a hearing before an ALJ, which is how those cases came to us in the first place. Chapter 12, page 158

Heyer Saga After riding circuit for a while, I noticed two patterns in the process: first, in traveling up the Sacramento Valley, the towns farther northward from Sacramento were always detectable before they came into actual view, because first one would see a great, dark cloud ahead where the town would be for a few towns in a row, ending with Redding. These clouds were always a fore warning that the car was approaching a city where lumber scrap was constantly being created by processing and then burned, causing a few one-town smog clouds over each of perhaps three towns in a row. Going south of Sacramento down the San Joaquin Valley, however, revealed no such private, local clouds. Second, each of these Employment Department offices in the Central Valley seemed to have its own separate feel, because one person in each office was in charge of granting or denying the benefits requested. Despite the goal of the heads of most large governmental, industrial, commercial, and eleemosynary organizations being to obtain uniformity of action of all subordinates by oversimplifying the principles of what was to be achieved, individual middle-management personnel tend to set their own personal stamp on each location. The offices in Redding and two southward from Sacramento, if I remember rightly, always seemed much more rigid, anticlaimant, close-minded, and oligarchic in their approaches, while others seemed more even handed, calm, and pleasant. Although my decisions could be overruled by the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, they almost never were. In one case that I vaguely recall and in a later job, the review agency of that organization overruled me, but the claimant took my decision to an attorney, who went to court with it. The court over ruled the agency and reinstated my decision. This was satisfying because I had issued several similar decisions, which righted certain repeated wrongs, and the court decision put a final end to those wrongs. As in the past, after I became familiar with the most common issues and worked out the best way to set forth the law of those cases, I began to build up a series of such rulings into a set of standard law paragraphs that could regularly be plugged into further similar cases, saving time recasting Chapter 12, page 159

Heyer Saga them, as most attorneys do for the sake of efficiency. Seeing some of these, Jack Clevenger followed that example and circulated similar standardized law paragraphs to the whole ALJ corps. I did not use his versions, however, because I considered mine more e. Something new After that, three things occurred that were unprecedented for me. 1) The ALJ in charge of my office informed me that the local firstline Employment Office wanted a nearby state college to offer a course on the administration of Unemployment Insurance to its field offices, and I had been chosen to teach it because I seemed to show the most enthusiasm for the subject. I accepted, and taught the course, but at this late date, I do not remember details of that experience. 2) A little later, Jack Clevenger notified all ALJs that they could submit essays on Unemployment Insurance, which would be assembled into a book called Referees Examine Unemployment Insurance (the title referees was then still in use), and the author of the best one would receive a prize or award of a certain amount of money (I do not recall the sum). Although there must have been close to a hundred ALJs in the state then, only a small number submitted papers (maybe six to eight), but the book never materialized. I wrote on the relationship between unemployment insurance and another related field, and won the prize. 3) Still later, Clevenger also announced a written test that could be taken by any ALJ who wanted to be considered for any future opening of a position as presiding ALJ of any field office. A number of ALJs took the exam, including me. It was rather simple and obvious, so I had no trouble getting the best rating. No vacancy was yet available, however. At some point I requested reassignment from the field office to the Appeals Board staff to allow me more time to be with my family. There was no required travel for that position. This request was not granted at that time. However, the head ALJ in the Appeals Board office bought an

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Heyer Saga abandoned country schoolhouse to remodel as a home, and while working on its roof he fell and suffered injuries that left him disabled for some time. Later on, I was transferred to the Appeals Board staff, assigned to the disabled ALJs personal office, and given instructions to handle delivery of decisions completed by the staff to the (appointed) board members, advise them on appropriate action, especially those affecting or creating precedent, and similar duties, which I did regularly. No on specifically said I was in charge, but some thought I was. I also advised members of the staff on how to resolve cases that came to them if they asked me (most did not, but some did, especially two who came to me on every case that came to them! One of these two came so often because that intelligent and reasonably well informed, chronically had difficulty making up his mind. After we talked each time, he was able to finish the case normally without further discussion of that case. The other ALJ who came to talk about his cases was bright and had, in fact, not only passed the Bar examination but also had obtained the more advanced Masters Degree in Law, and had customarily been assigned to resolve a special category of cases, so he was extremely competent in that narrow field. He was also inescapably thorough and meticulous in resolving those cases, but constitutionally unable to satisfy himself that he had covered every possible angle in every possible way within a reasonable time. He had great expertise, but in his case, too, he just could not finally sign off for fear that he had missed something or stated something without sufficient precision, and had been that way for many years before I came on the scene. He was rarely able to complete more than one or two cases in a month (when I typically completed 45 or more of my own cases in the field office, when I had been there, and more in the Appeals Board office). When he came to me each time, I would get the picture of the case quickly, discuss his current issue and proposed language, and suggest the proper course and conclusion, and he would leave, seemingly satisfied, but would be back two weeks later, still hung up on the same few words! If I had understood my position to be permanent, I might have tried to resolve this Chapter 12, page 161

Heyer Saga problem more thoroughly, but that seemed incompatible with the expectation that the former head of that office had chosen not to push the matter over many years, and would likely return to the position in the future. Also, I did not really believe that he could do other than what he did. While I remained in that office (not riding circuit for the time being) a group of members of the ALJs professional organization, including my friend Nat Austin, decided that our organization should produce a publication by and for the ALJs, and asked me to edit it. I agreed to, and sought contributing articles, but I composed most of it, writing on professional issues and questions. The publication was named Double Affirmation, which stands for the term used in our appeals process. When an appeal was made regarding a claim for unemployment or disability benefits, the file goes to a field office. If the original decision is affirmed by the ALJ in the field, it becomes the first affirmation. If either party appeals the ALJs decision to the Appeals Board and it affirms the ALJs decision that is called a double affirmation. If the Board denies the claim, though, that over rides the ALJ decision and the case ends there. I decided that, because many ALJs did not have law degrees and were unfamiliar with any aspect of the law outside the unemployment insurance statute, and that the fundamental rule of the Common Law which underlies all British, U.S., and other law derived from Britain is that all of the law must be administered in a way that makes the results compatible with all the rest of it. I wrote a series of articles for Double Affirmation on fact finding beyond testimony (the best known source), such as taking official notice, comparable to the common court practice of taking judicial notice of facts of general and common knowledge such as might be obtained from typical standard reference sources of scientific or geographical information. This process may have led to yet another teaching assignment, this time calling for my teaching of a summary of unemployment insurance law to members of the Unemployment Insurance Review Board staff, on the Chapter 12, page 162

Heyer Saga basis of its most prominent judicial and related sources. Such a request did come, and this time it was to be sponsored by and taught at McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento. Thus I completed the full range of teaching assignments, from two weeks teaching at the junior high school level at Rev. Pikes school in Lawndale, California, before I received my certification in teaching, four years at Fontana High School, several lawrelated courses in Junior Colleges (now known as Community Colleges), the course in unemployment insurance practices for local Employment Office employees at state college, and this final occasion at the McGeorge School of Law. f. Memorable case Shortly before I was transferred to the Appeals Board staff, one or two cases came to me involving an issue that I had not previously faced: a large U.S. passenger airline had had dismissed or in effect demoted a former airline stewardess essentially for marrying! The airline made two arguments, some in one situation, some in another; I do not recall which came to me at that time, but the general situation was that the airline required female airline stewardesses to notify the company if they married. Then the company removed the stewardess from that job, but might reassign her to a ground job paying much less for much more work. I heard the evidence and decided against the airline, on the basis that California civil law proclaimed that a contract in contravention of marriage is unenforceable in this state. More current law might have said the same thing more clearly: A contract against marriage is unlawful and cannot be enforced in this state. The law was clear, forcing a person out of a job for marrying, an unconscionable, unlawful, and unenforceable contract. I do not recall the amount of detail that I included, but it was an easy and obvious decision. Nevertheless, the board overruled it! This turned out to be only an isolated example of a large number of similar cases arising around the same time. I discussed my frustration with Nat and Justine when such a case came to me again after I was at the board. It appeared to me that without reason, the board was determined to Chapter 12, page 163

Heyer Saga take this unconscionable action regularly, but that we should try again. Both of them also had received such a case. In the end, we decided to combine the three cases, thus bringing into the picture both of the airlines damned if you do, damned if you dont approaches. We agreed to divide the writing of the decision among us. Nat wrote the facts of the three cases, I wrote the century-old California law portion, and Justin wrote a portion pointing out recent pertinent national law changes. We combined our efforts and submitted the decision to the board. This time the board accepted our arguments and abandoned their former position. The principle clearly applied to all passenger airlines, and since then airline flight attendants have been able to keep their jobs while able to do the work, married or unmarried. This was probably the most satisfying decision I was able to write. I thought of it again every time I came aboard an airline after that. g. A twist in the road There was a possibility for a while that when the former injured head of the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board would return and reassume his former duties, I might be considered for a higher office, reporting to the Board. The rapid hiring of a whole series of incompetent and irresponsible individuals at various levels of state government, including a new member of the Appeals Board, who was clearly a shallow, poor addition, however, followed the election of Ronald Reagan as Governor of California in 1967. Not much later, a worse one arrived. This one was positively evil, trying to force his ignorant view on the board, and simply grabbing case files for cases that he did not want to be resolved at all and carrying them home to hold and hide indefinitely. Fortunately for me, the remainder of the Board notified me that they could not now place me in the potential assignment, but could put me in charge of an ALJ field office in San Jose, which seemed prudent to accept for now. We kept our Citrus Heights home but rented it out and moved to Santa Clara where we bought another house. Our children started school

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Heyer Saga there with Martha Rose in kindergarten, Winona and Jules in elementary school, Jeff in middle school, and Cindy and Dina in high school. In the San Jose field office, I was the ALJ in charge of several ALJs conducting hearings northward a limited distance and southward a bit farther. The ALJs did their jobs generally without difficulty and were pleasant. The lady in charge of the clerical staff was pleasant, helpful, and hard working. We had a few hearing reporters whose skills varied in quality, but it was an easy office to guide, with a friendly staff. One member of the clerical staff had experienced the heartbreak of a child born without arms, and another thought that others looked down on her because she had to wear a colostomy bag, but actually no one has even known that. I was back riding circuit again, part time, but that was less burdensome than it had been in the Sacramento field office, because I could usually get home each night. On one occasion I received a letter from a person complaining about one of our older ALJs, making assertions about his work on the basis of an appeals board decision against him on a prior occasion. In fact, I had written that prior decision when I was working for the Board, so I know that case quite well, and that the assertions were false. I therefore replied saying so, and heard no more from him. The head of the clerical staff, who had taken my dictation, afterward told me that the whole office regarded me a great hero because of this. It was nice to hear, but it was just one of the routine, necessary steps anyone in such a circumstance deals with. Although I had thought that accepting a position, as ALJ in charge, would enhance my record, the continuing negative effect of ever more unsuitable appointees after Reagans election discouraged me. The San Jose field office to which I was later assigned, included its "Referee in Charge", several other "referees" or (later) Administrative Law Judges (ALJ's) of various ages (generally older than I), some hearing assistants, secretaries, and stenographers. The Referee in Charge provided me with a copy of the pertinent statute covering unemployment insurance, advised me to make sure the Chapter 12, page 165

Heyer Saga decision "told the story" of the case, and assigned an experienced ALJ to observe and comment on my first hearing. Although I was uncomfortable with the idea that someone whose decision is supposed to be final (in the absence of an appeal) would be subject to review and on probation, leading me to wonder how this seemingly incompatible set of conditions would work out. In fact, it worked out fine. He did not question the merits of any of my decisions, but only concerned himself with the style, so I took great care to make the style clear, complete, and self-explanatory. Sometime late in my work with California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and its subordinate field offices, Jack Clevenger initiated a project aimed at providing a training facility for the personnel of various departments which performed duties or had functions governed by similar underlying principles of administrative law to those performed by the California Department of Employment, and invited me to play a part. I did so briefly. Between 1968 and 1970, I observed the steady decline in the quality of application of the law by appointees of Governor Ronald Reagan; I realized that in good conscience I could no longer remain associated with that administration of law agency. Around that time, a former member of my San Jose field office invited me to come to Southern California to consider joining him in his private law practice. I drove down to Ontario but soon realized that my friends approach would be risky and probably not likely to succeed, so I declined to accept his offer and returned to the San Jose field office, where I continued working for a time.

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Heyer Saga

CHAPTER 13: RIDING CIRCUIT 3

a. Social Security & Disability Insurance Administration, 1970-1978 When I was seeking a new employment to avoid further contact with Governor Ronald Reagan's administration and his irresponsible appointees in California, I became aware that the Social Security Administration, a national governmental agency, was seeking attorneys new to administer its programs. I applied, although that process was more complex and tedious than any employment opportunity that I had ever run across before (or since). It required each applicant to obtain the recommendation of at least 25 persons, familiar with the applicant's career and willing and able to support the application with favorable reports of the applicant's abilities and achievements, and indicate a favorable view of the applicant's suitability to conduct fair hearings, make sound decisions in cases, and display a proper judicial demeanor. I was hired, along with a large room full of other candidates from all parts of the country. Before I received the reply, I arranged to view a hearing conducted by an existing appointee of this organization who held hearings in and near Marin County. This seemed a good step to take to see in advance what the job would entail. The observation convinced me that the organization needed me, if this hearing was typical. The appointees approach was highly biased and abusive, revealed no trace of a judicial demeanor, and was well below the level of quality typical of the ALJs whose decisions I had reviewed when working for the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board. In addition to the burdensome application process, the new employees (also ALJs to be) were required to attend a lengthy training program in Virginia, at which the person in charge of the program gave all of us the agency's version of the law to be applied, and also presented us with multiple medical specialists who introduced the group to various medical concepts. This was mostly not new to me, because of previously having conducted multiple hearings on temporary disability cases and Chapter 13, page 167

Heyer Saga ability to work on the part of injured employees. It apparently was not familiar to most of the southern part of the trainees, although I assume that the South has at least a comparable number of injuries and health problems to those of other parts of the country. Some of the southerners claimed to be unable to understand the instructor on the liver and related problems. She did have a Puerto Rican accent, but her English was clear enough, once the listener notices that she pronounced "liver" as "leever". I gained the impression that these new ALJs were neither serious nor particularly responsible in their approach toward anything even slightly new to them. They were mostly former judges now out of office, and not impressive, although one of them liked to show off by asking questions that had already been answered. We were all billeted in various buildings around the area throughout the six weeks of training. I was placed in a room with someone from the Midwest, who suffered from a very limiting illness of his own, and had trouble getting to where he was sup-00 would be able to perform his duties once he was stationed. Another member of this class openly told me that his approach to the law was to first make up his mind according to his gut feeling, then to make up an excuse for reaching that conclusion! I was appalled. The burdensome and extensive requirement for these jobs did not seem to have produced the desired effect of attracting the best candidates. At completion of the training program, we were furnished with a form on which to indicate to which of the offices that needed new ALJs we were willing to be assigned. It emphasized that the likelihood of appointment would be far better for those who were willing to go anywhere in the country. Nevertheless, I selected only the office near Sacramento, California so we would be able to return to our former home in Citrus Heights. I suspected that I was one of the two most useful trainees in that Social Security training group, and therefore probably had a reasonably good chance at appointment in that agency. The person that I thought was Chapter 13, page 168

Heyer Saga the brightest of this group was in fact selected to work in a more prestigious role for a different agency, one that played a role in international commercial relations. Incidentally, he was the brother of actor Robert Duvall, prominent in the Western series "Lonesome Dove". Throughout the training course, when the lead instructor of the course asked a question to determine what we knew so far, I was almost always the only one who responded. Others may have known without choosing to respond, but no one else gave any sign of knowing. Nevertheless, the instructor, after the course ended and I had returned to my former job, called me at least three different times (when I was out conducting Unemployment Insurance hearings on "circuit") to tell me that I "must have misunderstood" in listing only one acceptable employment location, because the odds of being hired would be much better if I chose other places, especially If I chose the office in Mississippi, where I could "live like a king" on the standard national pay rate. Each time, however, I stood fast. I certainly did not want to move my family to Mississippi for any price. Finally, in 1970, they did assign me to the Sacramento, California, office that I preferred. When I arrived, I realized why he had pushed so hard. A decision had already been made that another person, who had previously worked for another agency to which he wanted to return, would be hired first into this office, and the Social Security Administration did not want an additional ALJ in that office right away. In the end, though, they did want me in the organization. The office to which I was now appointed in SSA was located between our home and downtown Sacramento, so it was more convenient for me than my previous position with the Unemployment and Disability Insurance Board. b. The New Office Before my appointment to work in the new SSA office, it had been headed by three successive ALJs since its founding in 1935 (although I Chapter 13, page 169

Heyer Saga presume that the title was different then). The first ALJ in that office had been one of the first eight ALJs throughout the nation to work at such a position. I never saw what he looked like at that time, but did see a photograph that showed his later appearance, which was essentially how he still appeared. The nature of his health problems were never revealed to me, nor did I ask, but he obviously was significantly impaired by severely damaged hands (suggesting serious diabetes to me), and displayed an unhealthy, purplish skin hue. Evidently, when he had been in charge, he had been the only ALJ in the office. In conversations with me, he spoke softly and seemed pleasant enough, but I later became aware that, in conducting hearings, his approach was as biased and improper as the ALJ in this agency, whose hearing I had observed before going to the training. I got the impression that emphasis on the extreme dis-ability standards that were taught in the training program skewed the outlook and behavior of many of the agency's ALJs to this kind of clearly improper behavior. This first ALJ in the Sacramento office was quite unproductive when I knew him, but I do not know how he was in earlier times. He might produce only three or four decisions in a month when I was there! Yet he was determined to put his son through college, so he hung on at work. That burden might have influenced his excessively strict approach to anyone else's physical limitations. (On one occasion, he accidentally locked his keys in his car. He quietly came to me to ask me to help him retrieve them. He had two tools for that purpose. One was a thin, flat piece of steel about an inch wide, which could be inserted into the door to try to unlatch it. The other was a wire clothes hanger. He probably had experienced the same problem before. At his direction, I was able to solve his problem. He could not have done it himself, because of his impaired hands.) I observed that his health was such that the distance he had to walk from the parking lot to get to his office was such that he was out of breath and unable to function usefully for some time after reaching his office. Since this situation surely limited his usefulness when he was present, and Chapter 13, page 170

Heyer Saga the agency had evidently not wanted to try to force retirement, when I was later in position to do so, I called the state regional SSA headquarters to suggest that it would be useful for them to arrange a reserved parking spot for him, closer to the office, as it had done for the current ALJ-In-Charge. The answer was a total and impatient dismissal of the idea. Before I left that office, the impaired ALJ of our office died. The second ALJ to come to that office had been an attorney who wanted to be located in California but, to be sure of appointment to the agency, had agreed to work elsewhere for a time on his understanding that he would soon be sent to California. I know nothing about the details of that arrangement, if there was one, but when he was sent to California, he had turned sour, regarded the agency to have broken its promise, and used that mental excuse to behave unreasonably for the rest of his career, looking for ways to "get back at the agency" for its "cheating" him. He was still working there when I came, though no longer in charge. He was generally obnoxious and dis-liked, and typically completed perhaps eight decisions a month. From time to time, the ALJ-In-Charge asked me to soothe some person whom this ALJ had angered during the course of circuit riding to different hearing sites. The ALJ-in-charge advised me that "no one would bother me" if I issued 12 decisions per month, which was about what he did. I had never produced that few decisions in prior employment, and saw no reason to change that practice. I actually issued 16 decisions in my first month there, and increasingly more after that. The returning ALJ, mentioned earlier, from a different agency was also added to that office staff along with me. He seemed quite able and reasonable, but was anxious to return to his former job when an opening became available. He was notably older than the ALJ-in-charge and the obnoxious one. Ultimately, he did get his wish. He had earlier left his former job for what had appeared to be a better opportunity in private practice, but had come back when he changed his mind.

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Heyer Saga c. The System The purpose and goal of the Social Security System was, of course, vital to the country, and the agency's goal of securing and continuing high productivity was also important, but it was not yet well thought out nor particularly effective. The agency had adopted the practice of publishing the number of decisions issued by each ALJ in their organization during each month, and circulating the results to every ALJ in the organization. In theory, I suppose, they expected to create competition that would keep productivity high. Several obstacles, however, interfered with achieving this goal. Some were built in. First, it discouraged some ALJs from proceeding in the most efficient manner. In some situations, as where a number of members of the affected public were affected by the same circumstances and facts, the most efficient way to resolve these cases was to combine them and treat them as a single case. This could be quite helpful in bringing justice more expeditiously than by separating them out and wasting time in repetitious hearings. Although not appropriate in many cases, it is occasionally, and in those cases I often did combine cases where a fair set of hearings could be accomplished that way. Many ALJs would not do so, because doing so would make their productivity look lower, than if they had broken the cases up into multiple pieces, giving the appearance (on the monthly report) of having completed more cases. They wanted that appearance more than actual efficiency, because that was how they were ranked. Hence, they wanted to "get credit" for so many numbers. When someone suggested to me that my numbers would look better if I made sure to get "credit" for more decisions by using the other approach, I answered that I was not there to get credit, but to do the job as it should be done. Also, because real efficiency is normally achieved when people in one office work together, rather than in competition or at odds against each other, the ALJsIn-Charge in many offices followed the policy of working Chapter 13, page 172

Heyer Saga out a modus vivendi in their own offices in which a consensus would be developed in that office, keeping the productivity of every member seeming to be similar in that office. Often this result was not particularly efficient if a change in pace was needed, but it satisfied the particular group. More importantly, relatively soon after I had come to the SSA, someone at the east coast main office issued a request that productivity rise, and repeated it with increasing fervor as time passed, but without much effect. In most offices that had reached the accommodation mentioned in the paragraph above, where presumably the office already had the maximum production practical there, these harangues were unhelpful. Since the agency neither suggested any practical way to accomplish its goal, nor took any action of its own that would help in accomplishing it, success was minimal. Finally, the central control in the agency did take two steps that they thought would help. The first was to invite suggestions; the second was to design a simplified form of decision that set forth no reasoning if the ALJ decided in favor of the public claimant. The second procedure was unlawful, because Congress had long before required that officials who were obligated by federal law to hold hearings and take evidence on which to base any decisions must always give their reasons, for the very good reason that, otherwise, the reason might be unlawful and be reviewed by a constitutional judge. The agency's goal was to make writing the decision quicker, but there was always the risk that a higher agency reviewing body might overrule the favorable decision of an ALJ in the absence of a stated reason for the ALJ's decision. For these reasons, I never used the shortcut suggested above. Also, I always examined the reasoning first, before making a final decision, so the proposed mode of expedition, even if it had been lawful, would not, in fact, have saved time. I did, however, write a series of suggestions that would help improve efficiency and expedition, and sent them to the main office, through the normal regional channel.

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Heyer Saga Some months later, an experienced administrative officer in the regional office, called me to ask whether I had received a reply to my suggestions, since he had not seen them. I informed him that I had not. Later, when a new official was put in charge of the agency (or at least the part of it that included our function), the regional man called me to suggest that I briefly summarize a few of the most crucial among my suggestions and send them through the regional office to the new chief, so they would be on his desk when he first came to work at his new job. I did so, leaving out everything but the most urgent steps. My original set of suggestions had covered about 20 pages or more and included basic motivational, educational, and morale suggestions as well as simple, obvious, and immediate steps to increase efficiency. In the later version, I confined my comments to two pages, setting forth a dozen very immediate and specific proposals, including the hiring of law clerks to assist the ALJs willing and able to make good use of them to increase case turnover, to provide clerical staff and such routine items as filing cabinets in proportion to increases in productivity, etc. In the meantime, the head of our office left to work farther south, I believe in San Diego. The older member of our office became ALJ-InCharge briefly, and the internal squabbles that seem to have been present since the office had been established continued to aggravate the situation. A dispute between two of the support staff (over an open or closed door and smoking) resulted in resentments, and I noticed that the office support staff seemed to have split into three factions. Then an effort to hire another clerical staff member seemed to be going nowhere. My productivity increased to 140 decisions per month, so I needed to utilize further support staff to manage the clerical load and keep their work productive. So I then had two hearing assistants and two secretaries to keep up with me, and in effect was using one of my own suggestions to increase my own productivity. Once again, as in my prior job, I began to build up a new set of forms summarizing the principals of particular aspects of the laws pertinent to our Chapter 13, page 174

Heyer Saga work for "plugging in" to appropriate decisions. The agency opened up a new set of offices to cover a new set of laws and to hire the equivalent of new ALJs. Their wages were to be less than ours, which I did not consider to be either fair to them or sensible for the agency. I met one of them, invited him home for supper, and conveyed to him what information occurred to me to help him. The most recent head of our office left about that time, finally being allowed to return to the job he had left years before and for which he had yearned while in our office. This left our office down to only two surviving ALJs, the obnoxious ALJ and myself. I was put in charge. I decided that the time had come to break up the troublesome factions among the clerical staff, keeping the two crews I had, taking over a third, and sending a troublemaker and two more cooperative and experienced people to the new office, not far away. To free me to handle still more cases, I asked my hearing assistant to act as conduit between my requests and the other two hearing assistants, and also attempted to get a particularly helpful staff member an upgrade of income in return for all her diligent work. The authorities able to act on that request dragged their feet, but I insisted and accomplished this recognition. A "technician" from central office was sent to help me in an unspecified way. I did not consider him equal to drafting decisions for me, nor did I need such a person, nor was I willing to try to use him as a law clerk. He tried to be "useful" by letting me know that my decisions did not accord with the "average" ALJs decisions, so I informed him that my job was to make the right decisions in accord with pertinent law, without regard to the quality of any other ALJs decisions. Around that time, my original hearing assistant informed me that she was upset by marital problems, so I decided to relieve her of the coordinating task and reassigned it to the "technician", since I had not found any other appropriate task for him. He seemed a pleasant fellow, and I thought he might do a better job at getting a troublesome member of the staff to feel more equal to her colleagues in status. I had inferred that her Chapter 13, page 175

Heyer Saga misbehavior in one situation when she was first reassigned to me had been motivated by her dislike of me, so I thought the technician might be able to reach her. She did have ability, and I felt that she did not need to like me, but ought not to be sent along with the other faction member to trouble the new office. Ultimately, however, the technician, too, gave up on her, so at that point I reassigned her to one of the remaining ALJs, since I had done everything else I could think of, and no one wanted to work with either her or the other ALJ (the obnoxious one). She complained to the regional office, and the administrator there tried to change my mind, but I was not willing to do so. Accordingly, he reassigned her to a different role in a nearby field office, where she created further problems, this time with the husband of one of my remaining hearing assistants. One lady, who formerly had worked for the ALJ-In-Charge when I had first come to this office, asked me to draft a will for her, because she was facing major surgery to deal with cancer. I acceded to her request, wished her a good outcome, and did not charge her for it. She did recover and returned to work. Around that time, another clerical staff member became unable to work because of carpal tunnel syndrome. As a result of multiple staff transfers to the new office, the departure of another troublesome one, and the retirement of the carpal tunnel syndrome lady, our office now needed a new clerical staff member, and had settled down somewhat internally. I had made the request in plenty of time, but no progress was occurring. Finally, I decided to go visit the regional office to get some movement going. I went directly to the office that handled this sort of thing, and found that the person who should have been moving the process along was not doing it. I therefore prodded her into taking a step, which she did to get rid of me, but I insisted that she take the next step. This process went on for a couple of hours, until finally the candidate was called, agreed to accept the job, and the time to report for duty was set.

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Heyer Saga Having accomplished my goal, I left that office, and as I was leaving the building, the person in charge of the San Francisco regional office of the Social Security System came across me, asked me in a gruff and clearly displeased voice what I was doing there. I told him and left to return to our office, where I notified the person, who would greet and guide the new employee, of what had been accomplished. d. The system finally begins to change The new chief of SSA ALJs took his new office in the east, and either read or assigned an assistant to read my later recommendations, and actually seemed to take them seriously, at least up to a point. He or an assistant actually contacted me about it. This was already a step forward. He never became aware, as far as I know, of the earlier recommendations, but he gradually did begin to put into effect a set of changes that approximated my second, short set of proposals. He also took steps to change position assignments. He had, in fact, already assigned an ALJ from Orange County to head the San Francisco office (I did not know about that yet), but when the appointee's wife came north, she did not want her husband to stay there, so he withdrew from that assignment and returned to Orange County. But for her objection, my role would not have gone further with this agency, but then the new Washington chief offered me a position as head of the Philadelphia regional office. I replied that I thought I would be more useful in California. This topic continued to be batted around a while, he jockeying for me to move to Pennsylvania, I arguing that I would be more useful in California, just as the negotiating over Mississippi versus California placement had gone on for some weeks before I was first hired into the agency. In the end, the result was the same. The new chief hired me as regional chief in San Francisco. I was not entirely sure that I really wanted to take that post, because it would disrupt the family. In addition, I felt that I could not abandon the office where I had been working, at least not before new ALJs could take over in the Sacramento area. I therefore retained control and ran both the Chapter 13, page 177

Heyer Saga regional office and the local office for a time, until new ALJs were installed. Thus I was able to keep the Sacramento area office staff usefully occupied, and also get acquainted with the San Francisco office, as well as consider advice from various sources as to where we might resettle. We ended up buying a house in El Granada near Half Moon Bay. More details are given in Chapter 28 on Family. e. Meanwhile, back at the SSA office By the time that new ALJs could be brought to my Sacramento office, all the perennially endemic problems in that office had been essentially resolved, and I could finally feel comfortable leaving that office to its new ALJ-In-Charge. I next set about familiarizing myself with the regional office, its existing and supplemental staff, and the other agency heads who met regularly there, of whom I was now a member. At the same time, I set about visiting as many of the branch offices in my region as feasible, helping each office to make progress on its caseload by both helping them with my own work and example, and getting a feel for their natures and attitudes. I quickly found that the branch office near the coast south of the regional office was composed entirely of rigid and stubborn ALJs who would never adapt to new needs, although they could easily do so, so I looked for a way around that. The best approach seemed to be to shrink their territory so that more amenable ALJs could accomplish more with the territory taken. It also became clear that the oldest and largest Los Angeles office had grown unwieldy in size, and problems arose from having so many people working from the same office. In theory, a new kind of office structure in that office might conceivably have helped, but such an undertaking would have taken far too much time and might not have been approved anyway. In particular, friction had developed between the ALJ-InCharge and another ALJ, which afflicted the office as a whole. Chapter 13, page 178

Heyer Saga I decided that the best solution there was to create a new office up the coast from the LA office, enabling one or the other of those two individuals to move to the new office which was carved from the southern part of the territory currently attached to the foot-dragging office mentioned in the previous paragraphs. I set to work to bring these steps about. The ALJ-In-Charge in Los Angeles approved these changes, and transferred to the new office when the process was complete. This made his job much simpler and more pleasant, and gave the new office an experienced leader. The existing larger office in Los Angeles was rid of the former internal dispute, and a different ALJ-In-Charge took over, with a smaller staff. Of course the foot draggers farther north complained about it, but the two problems were solved. The former ALJ-In-Charge in the old Los Angeles office was the brightest ALJ-In-Charge in the region, and might have accepted appointment to take my place when I decided to leave, but he had an active and sometimes mischievous sense of humor. Perhaps those qualities lay behind the frictions between him and the troublesome person who remained in that office. The various representatives of different agencies who met regularly in the regional headquarters were a group that our regional ALJ would need to get along with, and generally seemed to be rigid and showed no trace of a sense of humor, as I had observed. I therefore concluded that this whimsical ALJ-In-Charge would not be well received by them. He was satisfied to stay in the office and its territory carved from the territory of the stubborn office farther north, so I thought it best to keep him there. Another ALJ-In-Charge in a San Joaquin County SSA office was quite ambitious and would have liked to take my place if I left, but he had proven himself to lack sound judgment on at least two occasions: The first was his action in propositioning his hearing assistant recently, and the second was his expression of the desire to take some territory from the foot-dragging coastal office mentioned above, so that he could fly his private aircraft from his office in the San Joaquin valley to the coast to hold hearings (and back again). Chapter 13, page 179

Heyer Saga This would be dangerous to him and to anyone who might ride along with him, as hearing assistants normally did. It would therefore have been unwise to authorize any such action, and impractical to send such assistants on such a route by auto. He therefore would not be a suitable replacement for me when the time would come for me to leave. Ultimately, therefore, I needed to select someone who would be suitable to replace me, and those potential candidates did not fill the bill. When the time came, I selected the head of an office to the east of the regional office for this role. I noted that, whenever he sent a communication to me about the needs of his office and personnel, he always had the signatures of all the ALJs in his office. That seemed to indicate that he always was able to get consensus in his office, an excellent achievement. When the time came, I asked him whether he would accept that position if I recommended him. He agreed to do so. I was eager to make sure that my replacement would be someone familiar to the area, and the chief on the east coast asked me for a recommendation. But this is getting ahead of myself. Our new national chief began to effectuate some of my suggestions, giving others and me a law clerk at last. My assigned young law clerk was quite capable. I gave him some training in what I wanted him to do and how to do it, and he was soon followed by numerous other law clerks throughout the region (and presumably the nation). One defect in the system, however, suggested the need to arrange a change. The law clerks were hired at a particular rate of pay, which made their positions essentially dead-end jobs. A better system would be to allow for a promotion of one grade for the best of them, and that would be most practical to set up for the regional law clerk. By creating this slight increase in pay one grade, the experienced lead law clerk could ultimately be promoted to ALJ, only one grade higher. Such a promotion, if it was authorized and occurred, would then leave a vacancy for another law clerk to do the same, and so on, allowing the position to lead to a useful

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Heyer Saga recruitment source. I put one of my subordinate administrators to work on this. Progress in the agency was always painfully slow, so my original law clerk had left for other employment before this process was completed, but another nearby law clerk could come and benefit from it, so this improvement in the system could go into effect at a reasonable time. I continued to try to improve the system. As my earlier mechanical proposals went into effect throughout the nation and did gradually improve the productivity of the department, I thought that the chief of the ALJs would recognize the value of what I had first suggested, and would therefore understand the value of some additional steps that I considered crucial, such as periodic regional educational conferences, emphasis on professionalism and esprit de corps to improve morale, etc. Despite multiple efforts in these directions, there was no response. I made as many improvements as I could get away with by myself and through my staff, but the process was always pain-fully slow. At the same time, the central office set about trying to push one of the ALJs in Marin out of his job. This person was the individual that I had first observed, and who had not favorably impressed me. If the effort had been based on legitimate methods and facts, therefore, I would have had no problem with removing him, but it was in fact not based on any legitimate reason, but just browbeating. There was nothing I could do, but I became ever more uncomfortable with the prevailing state of affairs. When I had accomplished as much as I thought was possible, I therefore called the national chief of the agency on the last workday before Christmas one year and informed him that I no longer wished to be the regional chief. He made some silly remark on my "always having been chauvinistic" toward my jurisdiction. He then offered "to do something for me" such as assignment to the office created northwest of Los Angeles (presumably because he had heard complaints about the creation of this office and stupidly believed it was for personal benefit), but I replied that I was not asking for anything. He then asked Chapter 13, page 181

Heyer Saga whether I could recommend a replacement for me, which I did in accordance with the conclusion mentioned above.

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Heyer Saga

CHAPTER 14: RIDING CIRCUIT 4

U.S. Labor Department, 1978-1990 Enforcing the Longshoremen and Harbor Workers' Act a. Transfer to the U.S. Labor Department

As I recall, changing from an agency advisor working first for the San Bernardino County Counsel's office and later for the State Department of Professional and Vocational Standards to an administrative law judge deciding cases in Unemployment Insurance was a simple paper application, setting forth previous employments and with highly satisfying results. On the other hand, transferring to the Social Security Administration seemed an absurdly tedious and not especially effective process, calling for considerable effort to raise the standards of decision quality and organizational efficiency. Still, for quite a while, moving to a new field was somewhat satisfying in enabling me to make improvements, which seemed to be in the public interest. At some point after applying for a position with the federal Department of Labor, I was invited to an interview involving a board of several reviewers. I am not certain that this was in connection with that particular transfer or promotion, but since it seems not to have been part of another such process, it probably was. The members of the panel included a personnel manager, a judge from a constitutional court, and a few other participants. Presumably all the members had received copies of my written application, with the usual background data. The personnel manager presided and asked the first questions. I do not recall what I said or how much, but my comments were not extensive. The judge then commented on the written material, giving a surprisingly supportive set of comments. I Chapter 14, page 183

Heyer Saga recall no other comparable encomium for me in connection with any other employment change. b. The Black Lung Act Throughout a significant part of the twentieth century (and before), physicians in both Britain and the United States were generally aware of silicosis, a disease arising from excessive exposure to silicon dust in the air surrounding miners during digging in stony mine areas. Even so, those same physicians, despite awareness of "miners lung", a condition that they attributed to working in coal mines, did not regard it as a disease, since supposedly the obvious symptoms (coughing, gasping, etc.) would end promptly whenever the miners left the mines. On one occasion, however, a British physician recognized severe consequences of NON-miners working on a barge that carried coal from one location to another in their ability to breathe after considerable exposure. These workers were never exposed too much silicon, so they could not have acquired silicosis. This researcher took the trouble to conduct or obtain autopsies and lungs of deceased workers who had obviously suffered from their extended exposure, not to silicon but to coal dust. His data overwhelmingly and definitively proved, beyond rational doubt, that long-term exposure to coal dust tends to destroy the miners' lungs, changing pristine pink lungs to coal-blackened lungs, and literally to destroy large portions of lungs, leaving great empty gaps in them. This was the origin of formal awareness of the existence of the newly recognized disease, pneumoconiosis, and a deadly disease of coal miners generally (at least in the two countries mentioned.) Nevertheless, long established physicians in the Appalachians generally did not change their approach to coal miners suffering this disease. This was consistent with the general approach of governing officials as well as the physicians in the Appalachian region, which was to avoid the more considerate approach to workers suffering from the harmful results of employer misconduct, in contrast with characteristics of more advanced states. Chapter 14, page 184

Heyer Saga At this point, President John Kennedy became the first, and still only, Catholic person to become a president of this nation, and set about, among other projects, to try to improve the economic conditions throughout Appalachia. Since the states involved took no suitable action in this direction, Congress created a new national law to provide a more neutral law applying to coal miners, and financing it nationally. Though its name was longer, it came to be known as the Black Lung Act". I no longer remember the dates, but I believe I may have first been called to apply this law as part of my duties in the last part of my work in applying the Unemployment Insurance and Disability laws. Certainly I continued this as part of my work for the Social Security Administration. Late in that role, after conducting black-lung hearings wherever that relatively new law applied (from a north-western mining community to Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, etc.), I continued applying that law until the very last time that I held such a hearing, when the local miners leaders (after the hearing) presented a sculpture of a seated coal miner to me. This figure is about five inches wide by seven inches tall, made of anthracite ("hard" coal), with his headlamp on his cap (attached to his battery power source on his lower back), his cup by his right foot, and his bucket by his left foot. The whole figure was mounted on a square wooden block, with an engraved metal legend saying: "National Coalition of Black Lung and Respiratory Disease Clinics, Inc. 1987" They also offered me the chance to examine a coal mine directly, but I declined. Even the thought of it made me a bit claustrophobic. c. The new assignment I knew at least two ALJs who were already deciding cases applying the Longshoremen and Harbor Workers' compensation laws, because we had worked in other agencies together. Chapter 14, page 185

Heyer Saga At the request of the Department of Labor, while I still worked for the Social Security Administration, I had also presided over a meeting involving the potential hiring of two applicants to the Department of Labor. Although I did not know it before I was appointed to the same position, they were also on duty when I arrived there after appointment. Another person of whom I knew was also working there before I came to work there, although I do not think I had met her yet. She was the one who had declined to join me in my isolated Social Security office, south of Market Street in San Francisco, to which I was assigned after requesting reassignment from my position as head of the Regional. d. History and Function of the Longshoremen and Harbor Workers Compensation Act For centuries, the British and other European nations and their private maritime shipping competed in the Atlantic Ocean, especially after the Portuguese expanded down the west coast of Africa, the Spanish across the Ocean to the Americas, and the British, Dutch, and French tried to establish themselves in farther North America. The Spanish focused mainly on conquest, enslavement, and gold acquisition, the Dutch and Portuguese on trade, the British on ridding themselves of various classes of citizens, many starving from the effects of the outrageous enclosure acts (expelling the workers who traditionally had produced the nation's food from the land that they had held for thousands of years when the combination of the Norman Conquest and the discovery that growing sheep could net the conquerors more money than allowing citizens to continue producing food led to this conscienceless shortcut). The increase in trade and conquest led to more demand for ship crewmembers. Each nation had its own approach to this process, the British resorting to capturing and forcing men from other activities to spending their lives at sea until they died, were lost at sea, or starved when no longer able to serve. That practice led ultimately to several mutinies, three of which involved the same naval officer, first of his own crew in the Pacific Ocean, again when most of the British fleet mutinied in England, Chapter 14, page 186

Heyer Saga and finally when that officer was governor of the new British Colony of Australia mutinied because most of the new settlers were unwilling Irish and other convict victims of the starvation imposed by the enclosure acts. In the United States, this impressment system did not take hold, and British use of it on Americans at sea (among other grievances) led to the War of 1812" (which in fact lasted into 1815). By the later nineteenth century, steamships dominated most sea trade, although some sailing vessels still plied the seas. Most European and American vessels were manned by regularly employed and paid crews, although earlier practice of kidnapping victims for work overseas ("shanghaiing", from the fact that the ships destination often was China) had not totally disappeared. Up to that time, essentially all cargo ships, at least in the United States, were loaded and unloaded by regularly employed or irregularly hired cargo handlers, who worked for the harbor or the cargo lines. Because of irregularity in the practices in each harbor and among different employers, a considerable amount of inconsistency arose in whether and how individual "longshoremen" and "harbor workers" would be cared for when injured on the job. Laws were inconsistent for a time, but gradually the nation began to realize the need for greater consistency. Efforts by courts led to a mix of absurd variations, including instances where a worker might be injured crossing a gangplank, yet differently treated depending on whether he landed in water or on land, although in both cases injury might be essentially the same. Finally, the nation did adopt statutes for all such maritime problems, consistent over the nation. Those statutes, taken together, comprise the "Longshoremen and Harbor Workers Compensation Act." (Longshoremen refer to workers "along" the shore where shipping is docked.) In the days when individual workmen lifted, carried, and deposited loads in either direction, their work was called "break bulk", because Chapter 14, page 187

Heyer Saga individuals carried individual loads of material or objects until, all together, the loading or unloading was completed. This still occurs to some extent. On the other hand, in the twentieth century, some changes began to occur. As ships and their loads became larger, the break bulk loading process became inefficient. A new system was therefore created, which became increasingly preferred where it was available. Instead of individual workmen carrying individual, one-person loads on or off a ship, the initial loading would be into a "container", a metal box about the size and shape of a railroad boxcar or a highway "trailer" of the typical semi-truck trailer. This box filling might occur anywhere in the country. The box would then be loaded onto a train or rig, and transported to the harbor. Huge cranes (operated by experienced longshoremen) would then lift the container and stack it atop a "container ship", at the precise location required. Workers on the ship would now fasten down the container to the ship deck or to an existing, previously attached container, and the process continues until the ship is fully loaded and all containers are fastened down properly. Generally, individual workers do not need to go onto or come back from the ship during most of the process. At the other end of the trip, the whole process is reversed: Cranes unload each container onto a rig or rail chassis waiting on the shore, and these are driven off by semi rigs or rail spurs to any place suit-able in a different country. The result of all this is much faster, more efficient, and normally safer loading and unloading, better wages for the crane operators, faster turnaround time for the ship, but of course more limited employment for the harbor workers. This newer, more efficient containership system requires a specially designed ship, with a long, broad upper deck, and minimum other superstructure besides the necessary observation and control tower. The port itself of course needs to be structured properly to enable use by a container ship, and the ship can only use a properly designed port at each Chapter 14, page 188

Heyer Saga end of its route. If it makes use of several ports, it can use its special container receiving or discharging capability only in a proper container port. e. The Office Our Longshoremen and Harbor Workers' Act office was in San Francisco for the entire time that I worked there (longer than in any other law office in my life). We served the Pacific Coast harbors from San Diego to Seattle. There were such oceanic harbors in the San Pedro-Long Beach area (Los Angeles harbors), where the famous British ship the Queen Mary was permanently moored, the San Francisco harbor (no longer very significant), and the Oakland harbor (where I first saw the cranes of the container ship system in operation). When I was younger, Stockton operated a port large enough to serve oceangoing ships, but with the rise of container ships and other large ships, Stockton ceased to be a major port. I do not recall with certainty whether Portland or any other Oregon port was able to handle container ships. Although there are seaports in Hawaii and Alaska, I do not recall going to either for hearings in the last phase of my regular employment. In this office, in contrast to the previous two fulltime circuit riding employments, all the ALJs were actual attorneys, as nearly as I know, and generally more experienced and pleasant than some of my earlier colleagues. I am not aware of significant conflicts among this Labor Department group, which was larger (in numbers) than in other offices in which I had worked. I believe there were ten or twelve ALJs in that office. A few had come to our country from abroad, one from Poland (Alex, who taught me a little of the Polish language), one from Austria, and one was related to a family still in Italy, but I do not recall whether he was born here or in Italy. He introduced me to the summer "Three-Penny Opera" presented at lunchtime without fee, featuring operatic selections from the San Francisco opera company. One evidently had come from Kentucky, several from New York, etc.

Chapter 14, page 189

Heyer Saga After I had worked there for some time, another person that I had known joined us in that office. Her name was Ellin OShea. She had worked in the San Francisco Social Security Office, and on one occasion had called me to confirm that I had attended an educational event, which I had requested of the main office, through the regional office, permission to attend. The outcome had been that the central office did not bother to reply, so I had not attended, as I informed her. Her response suggested to my mind that she was quite considerate, sensible, and reasonable. I do not recall actually meeting her, but I inferred that she was on this occasion working under the direction of the field office official who later advised me to send an abbreviated version of the multiple page set of suggestions that I had sent to the central office in response to their invitation of suggested improvements in their system. His thought was that a brief version of my suggestions, arriving at the office of the new national chief before he took office, might well have more effect when he did arrive than my previous efforts. I followed that suggestion, which did in fact lead to significant improvements in the Social Security system, as mentioned earlier. It turned out that Ellin and this gentleman both had Irish backgrounds, and ultimately they married each other. She left the regional office for a time, and was the person that I put in charge of the San Francisco office when she returned to the area as an ALJ, when I found that the two competing individuals (and their respective supporters) who wanted to be in charge of that office appeared likely to create another harmful competition in that office, such as had existed previously in the Sacramento SSA field office. Some members of the Department of Labor office asked me about her before she arrived, because they regarded the existing female ALJ in our office as a difficult person with whom to work. I assured them that Ellin was a bright, pleasant, and considerate person whom they all would like, and they ultimately did.

Chapter 14, page 190

Heyer Saga Oddly, while I have recalled a considerable amount of information about my work in Unemployment Insurance, disability, and related fields, and also in the Social Security Administration, my memory of the actual duties and cases in the Labor Department is rather sparse, despite my having worked there much longer. I do recall that cases in Oakland did not normally require overnight commitments, and that cases in and near the Los Angeles harbors ordinarily led to week-long basing in a room in the Queen Mary. A short walk covered the distance between this basing and the hearing location. Most of the assignments to San Diego, likewise, were to a single set of quarters, although the distance between quarters and hearing site was somewhat greater. Air flights got us to and from all the sites distant from the Bay Area, whether northward to Washington or southward to Los Angeles, Long Beach, or San Diego. f. Outlook at Labor While I received promotions to higher authority in the Unemployment Insurance agency and in the Social Security agency, I neither sought nor wanted to repeat such roles at the Department of Labor, and did not seek or receive any such appointments there. One ALJ friend there commented that I seemed happier there than in my prior positions. When a new organization was created and had its first case assigned before it had any ALJ of its own, I was asked to conduct its first hearing and present a proposed decision, which I did. I also recall a series of cases involving disputes between a railroad that operated in California and elsewhere on one side and several employees on the other. I do not recall in which agency this situation arose. Because of the scope and widespread implications of this situation, I combined all of these cases into one, so that the resulting record would make clear what the total situation was, held hearings in a variety of necessary places, and issued a decision that included the total results of all of the component outcomes. Chapter 14, page 191

Heyer Saga g. The end of full-time Circuit Riding In each (and almost throughout all) of the agencies that had circuit riding ALJs, every such agency included a review board that oversaw and functioned as a reviewer of appeals from the various ALJs decisions. Throughout almost all of my service for these three agencies, I was rarely ever over-ruled in these reviews, because I knew the law well and followed principles consistent with the Congressional intent in adopting these laws. Until the final months of my employment in the Department of Labor, even in the rare cases where such reviews did overrule my decision, attorneys representing the parties typically appealed further to constitutional courts, where the judges in those courts generally reinstated my decisions, overruling the agency review organization. It was therefore satisfying to see justice properly done in almost all cases that I handled through those years. Incidentally, while I worked for the Department of Labor, that agency ultimately began to follow the example of the Social Security Administration in hiring law clerks (attorneys admitted to practice but with only limited actual practice) as aides to the ALJs. Thus, at least that part of my suggestions to SSA had finally spread to DOL, but without the career refinements that I had added in my region. Also, although I had been careful to avoid making any further suggestions on my own at DOL, when individual computers became available, one of my colleagues requested that attorneys in the office who wished to do so could have such computers issued to them for use in the office to increase productivity. He and I and perhaps a third ALJ submitted a joint request, which was adopted, and proved to be quite helpful. My original intention had been to continue working at DOL for a couple more years, after the end of 1990, as the retirement annuity would be larger, both for Thelma and for me, and also allow me to complete the purchase of our home. In 1982, however, Ronald Reagan, former irresponsible and dangerous governor of California, with his incompetent Chapter 14, page 192

Heyer Saga appointees, whose election ultimately influenced me to leave employment with the state, finally became president. At first, this did not significantly affect me, but as his influence slowly grew, my enthusiasm for the work began to wane. He finally changed the review agency enough so that their decisions became increasingly unreasonable. During this period, Thelma had taken employment to hasten the paying off of our home mortgage, and my health seemed to lose ground. The situation worsened, the work of issuing fair decisions only to see them irresponsibly overruled became so frustrating in my last months that I finally decided to retire earlier than originally planned rather than work pointlessly without the satisfaction of being able to improve the administration of justice any further. h. Retirement at last! Our home mortgage was finally paid off in September of 1989. I arranged to retire a few days into 1990 instead of remaining through 1992 as originally planned. I chose to have my retirement benefits shrunk enough to allow Thelma to receive the maximum payments allowed after my demise, and I then retired. Thelma continued to work for two years after that, and in effect I took my first real vacation in many years, spending time daily on the nearby beach during good weather and making notes on the weather during the rainy and windy seasons, leading to writing of a whimsical collection of responses to the seasonal changes. Cindy and Jules put these whimsies into a booklet that I shared with all my children. Thelma enthusiastically characterized this project as "poetry", and even suggested that I enter a San Mateo County poetry contest that was under way, but I did not. The most I could say about this was that this little undertaking was the result of observation of seasonal changes along the coast in view of our home during one year. In theory, I might have improved our long-term income if I had worked two years longer, but by that time, my impression was that if I had tried to Chapter 14, page 193

Heyer Saga continue under the existing circumstances, my frustration would not have permitted me to survive those two years. I have never for a moment regretted having retired from full time work!

Chapter 14, page 194

Heyer Saga

CHAPTER 15: RIDING CIRCUIT 5

OTHER During the periods of regular duties Riding Circuit mentioned above, occasionally one agency or another would call on me to undertake a different project. A few times I was sent from California to Illinois to conduct hearings and make decisions there. Twice I was called on to hold hearings in American owned islands in the Pacific Ocean, relating in one case to administrative issues, in the other, to deal with problems arising from a recent typhoon, always a danger in the Pacific. A time or two, the request was for me to conduct hearings and decide cases for new agencies that did not yet have an ALJ of their own. On one occasion the request was to hear and decide a group of related cases involving major railroads and some of their employees in the western portion of the United States. An agreement was reached in which all of these cases would be combined into one overall group, which I could decide in a single overall decision. This involved a number of different issues and required several hearings scattered about in different parts of the west. The issues were all deeply disputed, and hence consumed considerable time and travel. The ultimate decision covered all aspects of each dispute and resolved them together in a single overall decision. At some point (I cant recall in which circuit riding agency it first arose) President John F. Kennedy became concerned that the Appalachian area was in deep social and economic trouble, mainly caused by long-term circumstances and geography, but also seriously aggravated by erroneous beliefs, irresponsible behavior of persons with excessive power, and the internal social and political structure within the region.

Chapter 15, page 195

Heyer Saga Studies conducted in Great Britain had recently shown that, contrary to the accepted wisdom of the day, the severely destructive lung disease called pneumoconiosis does, in fact, arise from exposure to coal dust. This had at first been denied on various inaccurate grounds but ultimately was proven by the fact that the victims in a particular case had never been in a coal mine and had therefore never been exposed to the rocky pollution typical in a mine, to which the disease had been erroneously attributed. Because those with authority in the Appalachian states were not willing (or perhaps able) to deal with this problem in the way that other states dealt with comparable problems, President Kennedy recognized that federal action would be the only effective solution. He, therefore, called on Congress to adopt appropriate legislation establishing a program of testing coal mine workers to determine the presence and the effects, if any, on the coal mine workers, and in addition to make appropriate provisions for the consequential effects on the miners. The new program did go into effect, the appropriate steps were taken, after which hearings were held and decisions issued on what should be done in each case. I was one of the ALJs who conducted these hearings and issued decisions from around that time. These hearings were mostly in or near Appalachia, but also extended to any place in the contiguous U.S. states where coalmines existedthe law was nationwide, even though its origin had been derived from the special situation about Appalachia. Some of these mines were primarily involved with soft coal but most with hard coal, and they extended from the northwestern part of the country to Alabama as well as up to Appalachia. After that, regardless of the agency for which I might generally be working, I also was irregularly assigned to further so-called Black Lung cases for the remainder of my federal service. On the occasion of my last such hearing, after the hearings were all completed, a miner representing the United Mine Workers Union presented me with a gift of a statuette of a seated mine worker in full mining regalia, made of hard coal. Shortly afterward, I retired finally from all public employment. Chapter 15, page 196

Heyer Saga

CHAPTER 16: INVESTING

When my father made some improvements on the rented house where my parents and I then lived, the landlord raised the rent, on the false assertion that the increased value would result in higher taxes on him. In fact, at that time, such would not have followed. He was just trying to squeeze more money from the tenants. This action led my parents to move from that rented house in southern Inglewood to buy a larger house several blocks farther northward, where my siblings and I grew up, and where my parents remained for the rest of their lives. Father taught me the numbers, the number system as he had learned it, and the alphabet, as well as the use of hand and power tools. After I learned to read, I focused on cartoons, childrens books, and library sources at first, but soon turned to the news as reported by the Los Angeles Daily News and the local Public Library sources. The Daily News had been a modest weekly newspaper, which carefully avoided the typical right wing propaganda put out by larger papers. When the great Herbert Hoover economic crash turned much of the local population against his irresponsible approach, the two great newspapers lost ground, and the Daily News grew into a county wide, daily paper. The Daily News was far more balanced and neutral in its approach toward all sorts of news, in sharp contrast to the two large racist papers. I followed the News and noticed these differences early. (In contrast, we also took a weekly paper filled with obvious falsehoods, such as stories about giant man-eating plants in far off, certainly nonexistent places). Later I began to read the stock market pages, and began to notice certain repetitive behaviors of some stocks, such as seasonal price changes in an Alaskan mine and the then-famous Toys R Us stores (founded in 1948). No one in our household talked of this subject, but on one occasion I later asked my father about looking in that direction, Chapter 17, page 197

Heyer Saga because it slowly dawned on me that the economic system seemed to be heavily weighted against the workers and toward the big investors. His response was that he did not consider stock market investing as a worthy behavior for a person. Of course I agreed with his outlook, but it seemed to me that such an expansion of view could improve the possibility of better balancing a workers prospects. I was still quite ignorant of the field, and never raised the question again with him. At that time I did not even recognize the cost of the stockbrokers fee for each transaction, and of course I then had no money to test the subject. After I began teaching at various levels, I began occasionally to visit local stock brokerages to observe procedures and commonly mentioned topics. After my income increased on my return to teaching after military service, I began to watch the market more closely, to explore more sources of information that were readily available, and finally to begin to make a few purchases. Increasingly I became aware that good, widespread, and easily available sources of information could be found in libraries and through publications. I got a little advice from experienced brokers and slowly began to form a picture of the field and how to examine, balance, and approach the system. Some people began to offer tips and advice, which clearly were not suitable for me. I looked for consistent histories of stocks over periods of 10, 12, or 15 years (information on even longer periods were available, but usually a longer period was not necessarily more dependable), especially in large, well-known American companies. I usually avoided stocks with short or irregular histories. I then gradually branched out, exploring a widening range of types of companies, and slowly enlarging these ranges of types. Economic conditions began to suggest new directions, such as foreign companies to balance those of our own nation, provided that a reasonable degree of information could be found on them, such as British, Australian, etc.

Chapter 17, page 198

Heyer Saga When my mother passed away and my share of the estate was received, with Thelmas approval, she and I divided the funds that came to us, about half to us and the other half divided among each of our six children. When later the American dollar began to fall in value, I began to suggest still more diversity among international stocks, bonds for a while, and mutual funds. After I retired from the Department of Labor in 1990, the idea of a genuine vacation was very appealing. During all the years of legal service in different agencies of government, I had always made a point of making sure that I did not use up all earnedvacation reserve allowed by any of these agencies. Therefore I only took such short vacations as would not use up any potential vacation time still available. The agencies did impose some limits on how much earned vacation time a person could accrue. Therefore my actual vacations were limited to ones, which would have been permanently lost if not used by the end of the year. The point of this approach was so that, in case of my illness, disability, or death, my family would still have available the maximum amount of such future retirement entitlement that they could have. Now that all this was behind me I could and did relax and took what was the first real vacation I had ever had, and spent my time walking on the beach in the summer time or looking out the front window in the rainy parts of the winter, observing seasonal changes in the weather, behavior of birds and other animals, and writing a series of comments on what I saw during this period. This phase perhaps lasted around eighteen months and resulted in the whimsical book that my daughters, Jules and Cindy, put together for my 70th birthday. At this point I accepted appointment to conduct hearings for what I believe was a private agency, which functioned as a kind of overseer of persons, working in the stock investment industry. I do not believe that it had a connection with any government agency. The reason for this undertaking was to bring in a little extra money in retirement.

Chapter 17, page 199

Heyer Saga Superficially, this should have been an easy undertaking. I understood the pertinent law, and the hearings occurred no more than one or two in a month, in contrast to my original eight or ten hearings each day for five consecutive days while working in Unemployment Insurance. Also, these unemployment insurance hearings required travel up and down the central valley of California, while the new set of hearings all occurred at facilities conveniently located nearby. In practice, however, I soon realized that this new set of hearings, in contrast with all the previous legal work I had done, were not at all satisfying, and discontinued this activity after a limited number of hearings. a. Baraban Brokerage I became aware of a brokerage house, located in nearby San Bruno, California that had been founded by Harvey Baraban but one of the periodic problems of the industry had caused him such distress that he was no longer able to continue with the firm. A different person took over the firm, but retained the name Baraban. In order to help keep this company in operation despite the economic downturn, a decision was made to offer, for a fee, a program for training prospective workers in the stock market industry. The fee was reasonable, so I took the training, in the expectation that it might enhance my handling of my own stock investments. The course proved informative and broadening, and in due course I completed the training and successfully passed the required examination to become what is often referred to as a stockbroker, but which is technically a licensed representative. Technically the broker is the owner or a group of owners of the brokerage firm, and the licensed representative is a sort of adjunct or employee of the brokerage house. When I became a licensed representative, I began teaching a number of the classes for the firm that I had recently taken. This proved interesting and, surprisingly to me, led to my acquiring a few regular clients. This had not been part of my plan and the number of these clients was never large. The teaching was of value to me because I received payment for it. Chapter 17, page 200

Heyer Saga Another advantage of working in that office, which had been my main objective, was that I had ready access to a considerable amount of informative data and sources of information that were in the office. I made use of these materials extensively in researching potential purchases and examining the relative qualities of prospective choices. This was useful both for my own investments and for the benefit of my few clients. After a few years of this activity, I decided to discontinue my formal association with the company and with my former clients. I did however maintain contact with Harry Helmy, who had worked with me and helped me in the course of my time there, and he has remained my broker to the present day. b. General Comments on Stock Investing In general, therefore, I have recommended and would continue to recommend ever broadening diversity of stocks (but not more bonds until the dollar improves), among wider ranges of nations, but making due allowances for balance, dependability, etc. Use a slow and steady approach toward purchases. Never rush or jump in with both feet, never cease to follow the field, and avoid panic in times of crisis. When a big decline is in motion, wait for the bottom (not buying), but then slowly begin to add more again, at a steady pace. Make use of convenient resources that are available at a modest cost. Never rush in or flee; never panic out. Never put too much in a new venture at one time. Avoid over investing in one or a few stocks. Keep everything in balance at all times. Initially, I advised our children to use these original gifts to invest in stocks and bonds, or to purchase or improve their homes, or for acquiring training or tools of a trade, and the like, and not for unneeded or whimsical consumer purchases, and they have generally confined themselves to such. After our income rose, we were also able, sometimes, to make additions to their investments.

Chapter 17, page 201

Heyer Saga For a while, I drafted and circulated suggestions in this field to family members, but abandoned that practice after it seemed that I had pretty much covered the ground and was beginning to repeat myself. Circumstances vary, of course, from time to time, so the best step to take at one time or for one person is not always the best at a different time or for a different person. So these general comments must always be taken in light of different circumstances, times, or needs; and with careful judgment at any specific times. I hope these rather vague suggestions will continue to be helpful, with the aid of reflection on the existing and the likely long-term future circumstances and changes. Aside from the emphasis on slow and steady, balance and care, diversity, etc., another factor should be mentioned. That is the obvious need for common sense care and avoidance of both overenthusiasm and over fearfulness from time to time. There are times when a brilliant manager is highly successful for decades, but his successor wanders off in the wrong direction, harming many stockholders. There are also times when a dubious idea becomes a popular fad among many managers in a particular field, such as when many local gas, oil, and similar public service suppliers in the US Southwest and Southeast suddenly all decided that they could make more money for themselves by also becoming land developers in fast-growing parts of the nation. Obviously, they were not really qualified or successful in these ventures, costing themselves and others a good deal, and in the end harming their companies without any useful accomplishments. One even ended up losing all of its original resources needed for public service. These types of errors are often, but not always, fairly obvious to sensible observers. Fads do continue to occur, however. The most common of these are in the banking business. These seem to go off base and launch multiple errors almost every generation since the founding of our republic. Since U.S. banks never seem to get over this tendency, buying them should be confined to relatively limited amounts, bought only

Chapter 17, page 202

Heyer Saga in times when prices are unusually low and only for stronger-than-usual banks. One might also watch out for volunteered tips not supported by convincing evidence. I noticed that such offerings often come from individuals not generally well informed, as during the bar review course and among volunteer experts about tips. It is best to do ones own research on history and success of particular investments. For example, we all gain from observing and learning from nature, fellow humans, and particular kinds of problems. Many people manage to do so fairly well, but sometimes villains such as power- grabbers, deliberately mislead. It is also prudent to recognize that many of us tend to make the same sorts of mistakes repeatedly, so it helps to try to avoid these errors. A few unusual individuals have managed to learn some of these missteps and thus to avoid or minimize the worst, but the problems continue to spring up and complicate our lives.

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Heyer Saga

CHAPTER 17: OTHER WHIMSIES

a. Whimsies in General . . . Besides the whimsical observations of seasonal changes and the wildlife observed on or from the beaches, from raven pairs hunting food or teaching their adolescent offspring to do so, sparrows doing the same in a different way at piles of enriched groundcover or manure, dead or dying jelly fish washed onto the beach by a usually distant storm or their tiny cousins, Velella vellela (the so-called by-the-wind-sailor) similarly stormcast ashore by the hundreds, sometimes porpoises at the edge of visibility, pelicans in the air diving beneath the sea, and other whimsies have sometimes drawn me. Children, likewise, sometimes engage in whimsy, though much of what a child does may be regarded as just "play", at times may also include serious attempts to discover aspects of reality or more often to understand those that have been discovered. My effort to master the skills required in jumping off the roof of the garage and landing with properly bent knees and body-rolling to avoid broken bones or other injuries, and the slow watering of a section of bare ground to test the likelihood of a river separating one continent into two (none, but the real explanation was not admitted until decades later, though discovered around the end of World War I) were not mere whimsies, but serious experiments that appeared likely to be useful later. Still, creative whimsies did occur, both in childhood and later, including various building projects and casual experiments, drawing, painting, planning the large layout of a town that could be drawn to show comparable sizes of its inhabitants (but that idea was too grandiose actually to pursue). Another project that came to mind, to illustrate the actual relative distances among major planets in our solar system, was not so whimsical in conception, but its execution revealed why the school illustrations did not try to show those relative distances. With a strip of butcher paper perhaps Chapter 17, page 204

Heyer Saga three or four feet high and maybe 15 feet long, I set out to do the measurements of relative distances and sizes of the seven planets then recognized, as well as of the Sun (in elementary school). The soft-ball-to-Ping-Pong-ball sizes of the planets in the school prints turned out to be far too large to fit as more than tiny dots, even on my long sheet of butcher paper. This did reveal to me, though, the real scope of our Solar system relative to its planets, and impressed me in a way that the books and wall illustrations did not. Whether others in the class got the point, or cared, I do not know. At some point, still as a child, I carved a wooden string-puppet Mickey Mouse, with threads to attach the dangling arms and legs to the torso (and head). A girl in my class offered to make clothes for it, but that did not happen. This occasion was, I suppose, a genuine whim, with no scientific purpose. b. Later Whimsies After learning to play chess from my father and trying it with those willing to play it among the "information" staff in the Army "advanced training" course (an NCO training program) while I was assigned there, I later ran across books setting forth three separate claims as to where the game had arisen, and how it had changed. Finally, I found a book that explained the situation clearly. At first the ancestral game was invented in India, under the name "chatu ranga", which meant "four corners". Four players would initially each control a corner of the typical 64 rectangles of the square playing board. Each player had four "armies" (pieces): 1) "Elephant corps" 2) "Horse cavalry" 3) "Infantry" 4) "King". Chapter 17, page 205

Heyer Saga At that stage, the rules were relatively simple, were meant to develop military strategy, and had rather limited moves and actions. In theory, it was every king acting and controlling his pieces for himself. Later, the arrangement changed to only two kings facing each other, but the other pieces remained as numerous as before. Also, the other two former kings were replaced with advisors, and a queen for each of the two remaining kings. The basic plan began to add other features, and the whole system spread northeastward to China and beyond, as well as westward to Iran and beyond. Iranians renamed the kings as shahs, and began to use the term "shah mat" ("the king is dead") for the final decisive win or loss of a game. That term later changed to "check mate" in English. Further changes led to the long distance moves of queens, rooks (in which the elephant changes into the object in which its rider had formerly ridden on the elephant's back, but today usually represented in Europe and elsewhere as a castle), and bishops, and the knights acquired their unique ability to outmaneuver the power pieces in an odd, oblique manner. The foot soldiers or infantry, though, mostly moved as before, except in the most recent change, introduced, as one can guess from its French name, by the French, called "en passant". In this newest maneuver, as players know, a pawn can capture an enemy piece by a sort of dance step, in which he (or it) simultaneously moves both forward and to one side, replacing another piece occupying the adjacent space, or similarly moves and takes another adjacent pawn that has failed to strike first. Having become aware of all this, a whim led me to try to begin carving a chess set of my own design. The original idea was to do as much as possible on my father's lathe, which I had used and knew how to use. It turned out, however, that only two pieces could be made that way, because my distance in Fontana from my parents home in Inglewood was too far to make the original plan practical. The first attempt to make a piece totally by hand was a pitiful preliminary, but it is still with the ultimate set. The effort to make all of each figure type alike yielded to a way both easier and more satisfying. Chapter 17, page 206

Heyer Saga It remains easy to see the gradually improving skill in the individual pieces, starting with absurdly crude and proceeding with slight gains and diverse "people" (chess pieces) who even acquired moustaches of different styles in some cases, leading me to think of them as having divergent ethnic names. My children disagreed among themselves as to whether I would EVER finish it, but it finally was finished, and remains in existence. A similar effort led, also slowly, to a different set of chess pieces, whose styles were even more exotic and whimsical, inspired by and growing from a homemade motion picture that Jeffrey made in high school. c. An Aside Of course my father always won the chess games with me after he taught me how to play, until one time that I won. After that, I won the few that we still played. I taught my children the game, and the pattern was the same: I won until one time when one of my children borrowed a book that contained details of winning approaches and won out. Later one of my sister Kathys sons also won the chess games he played with me. That, of course, was a good and natural thing. The early losses and ultimate victory demonstrated the value of persistence, and also revealed the broader cyclical nature of life. Early, we struggle to learn, we grow in ability, and we master some skill or perception, rise to a peak, continue for whatever time, and slowly begin to decline. Of course, chess is only a game played as a pastime. (It has been called the game of kings, perhaps because it started with kings (or wouldbe kings) or was meant to teach military strategy, but I have never seen any evidence that kings or individuals have gained military perception from playing chess). Even so, I mention it here as a symbol of the cycle of life. d. Other Whimsies When I was a child spending my weekly dime allowances, some of the purchases were small booklets conveying bits of information on Chapter 17, page 207

Heyer Saga techniques of drawing. One showed how a twelve-inch ruler could be used to make a small grid, after which a small drawing on or under the grid could be simply enlarged by making a large-scale grid on which the original small drawing could be enlarged to scale. For Christmas or a birthday, I also received a metal mechanism that was useful for that process, which I could redesign later if necessary. I do not have it any more, and the grid system was both simpler and easier to apply, at least when my oldest children were small. Therefore, one of my whims was to make and use such a set of grids to make and then enlarge drawings of a few common Disney characters. From this foundation, I managed to paint these characters directly on the wall of the childrens room when we moved to the larger of the two houses in which we lived (at different times) in Fontana. The grid-enlargement system was also applied to the attempt to paint a portrait of Thelma from a photograph, and is still on the inside, western wall of the Sun Room (upstairs, east side of the living room.) Other wood carvings for our children included two royal guards with their tall, black, beef-eater hats (so called because these hats came into use at about the time when many Britons were starving from the effective ousting of many farmers and peasants in the outrageous enclosure movement, enabling the powerful to switch from agriculture to sheep raising, and impoverishing the commoners; the beef-eater hat contrasted this social travesty with the nourishing meals presumably available to the royal guards), a few wooden dolls with wide skirts, and a magical female figure with two antennae (screwed into her head), which was given to Jules at her request sometime after she and her husband, Chris Stern, settled in Sedro-Woolley, Washington. At some time in Citrus Heights, Thelma purchased a large piece of soapstone, which pure whimsy led me to carve into a figure that I called Endeva. To me this was a pun on the word endeavor, because the carving was intended to convey the idea of life arising from the Earth on which we live, and reaching for the moon. Endeva is still here, with a Chapter 17, page 208

Heyer Saga nondescript, uneven soapstone base, out of which arises the figure, with her hands reaching out to touch the moon. I have no illusions that this is fine art by anyones measure, but it was enjoyable to conceive and to carve, and I found that touching the hands and fingers gave a strange feeling, as if the figure were alive, and was my child. Finally, I recognize that whimsies are of no great significance, and hence have already been over indulged somewhat here, but one other occasion might be mentioned briefly. At one time, when I was confined to a hospital bed for several days in Fontana, California, I took the opportunity to write a few whimsical short stories, including one about Par Oat, a parrot in a prehistoric human band, which learns to speak from its caretakers, and in turn influences their early culture. At another time I wrote a cartoon story for my children as a lighthearted introduction to algebra, titled Als Jabber. The main character, Al, explained the simple aspects of algebra. When my granddaughter Rachel Eileen Gainer was quite young, perhaps preschool age, I wrote Biology A: Rachels Germs, a whimsical introduction to biology, illustrated with cartoons. For Ethan, I composed Ethan Gainers Alphabet of Machines, also illustrated with freehand sketches. Samples: A a Lets use A to spell Axle Bb B is in bearing to put the axle in

B is in Boom, a part of a crane that lifts BIG Another cartoon story was The Three Pigs that was meant to gently introduce our children to the fields of business and investing. In the late 1990s another enjoyable creative project involved sculpting small (four to five inch) figurines of ancient goddesses for Thelma. She was enrolled in a local interfaith seminary program here in Half Moon Bay at the time. Desiring to immerse herself in the Goddess lore of a part of her studies, she began to accumulate figurines of goddesses of different Chapter 17, page 209

Heyer Saga cultures and faiths. She found pictures of ancient Near East clay goddess statuettes that are housed in museums. She bought clay to experiment with and turned it over to me to produce duplicates. e. Whimsical musings For a period in recent time, over enthusiastic individuals have been proclaiming that we humans are expanding our lives, and soon will be living to 150 or 200 years, or perhaps forever. That seems unlikely to me, despite recent medical discoveries that have prolonged some lives (probably including mine) beyond what had been common. One enthusiast, when questioned about this view, even "assumed" that abilities would improve equally with age, although that does not appear to me generally to be true. Actually, even if such survival extensions were to occur on the suggested time scale, the result would be harmful to civilization. I have read of many cases, and observed some, in which an individual who made great contributions in some field, becomes so well established, so famous or influential in his field, that progress in his field began to decline to a virtual halt until he died, after which it gradually improved. It happens in every field, whether a science, an art, politics, or whatever. The cycle of life is crucial to life. The recognized greatest physicist of his time (a Brit), around the turn of the century (1900), asserted that everything had been discovered, except that further, minor progress might occur in refining the minor decimal points of physics. The Curies were then already working toward disproving him fundamentally. Similar patterns occurred in France and Germany, and seemed to have slowed fundamental progress in their fields, too, until they died. More recently, the same tendency has arisen in non-medical biological understanding, despite the great leap forward in biology arising from the work of Crick, Watson, and Franklin over a half century ago. Therefore, while most of us probably would prefer to live "just a little longer, a year or two", regardless of present age, and it is painful to lose a loved one, I do not believe in trying to prolong life indefinitely. Each Chapter 17, page 210

Heyer Saga generation is entitled to push forward to enrich knowledge and understanding a bit farther than the ancestors have done, with the aid of further experiences beyond those experienced before. I do not fear death for myself, and expected the immediate end on several occasions, but would like time to contribute a little more.

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Heyer Saga

CHAPTER 18: CONTINUING THE SEARCH

As mentioned before, after graduating from college, I continued taking college courses, mostly by correspondence, To learn more about courses that had not fit into my under- graduate program. These included a more advanced course in geology than the initial one previously taken. This course pro-vided little persuasive geological information, with its multiple references to supposed land bridges from continent to continent (to explain the obvious biological connections among the fossil biota), but did reveal a great deal of fascinating information about prehistoric biology, which I found to be helpful. Years later, after long and stubborn refusal of geologists generally to recognize the reality of tectonic plates despite a German scientists revelation of them in the World War I period, the reality of the movements of these plates as the real cause of the geographic separations among different closely related fossils became finally recognized. Thus the need for the implausible, crisscrossing land bridges evaporated. One geologist still claimed that proof was lacking for the tectonic plate theory, but in fact, any childs observation of the movements and coalescence of cooking oatmeal or other cereals into miniature continents or tectonic plates, and the deep heat that stirs Earths upper layers, made clear to most people that the tectonic plate theory was sound. Only later was sufficient exploration of the Ocean bottom done to give a final and total confirmation of the lack of land bridges. Other post-college courses taken included a wide range of subjects: such as organizational management, various biological, archaeological, scientific, historical, and technical subjects, as well as further foreign languages.

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Heyer Saga In the Army USAFI (United States Armed Forces Institute), courses taken included differential calculus, Integral calculus, further courses in German, Spanish, Russian, chemistry, etc. Later, other subjects were pursued, moving into different aspects of biology, biochemistry, foreign histories, and several foreign languages: Norwegian, Armenian, Albanian, Farsi (official Iranian language, which, being a basically Indo-European language like English, despite its borrowings, by both cultures, of words from multiple foreign languages: English borrowed from Latin, Greek, and French, while Farsi borrowed from Arabic), Hindi, Urdu, Kurdish, ancient Hittite, and Sanskrit (enabling a comparison of the most ancient known Indo-European languages), and standard modern Arabic. Our world is full of many fascinating fields and things, and curiosity can never be fully satisfied. Some of these courses were studied by correspondence, some in classes, and some through purchased books. a. My Next Project My plan to write a series of ten volumes summarizing all of biology, anthropology, and human history provided a goal after I retired from law (after a brief bit of lighter writing and a brief course [with some teaching] in investment rules, practices, and techniques). The most time in the main project was devoted to examining available information and drawing some inferences on the origin of biology on Earth. A number of absurd theories were proposed on this subject by various people. One was that Earth biology arose from some other (unidentified) planet and spread throughout the universe, but no evidence has ever been presented to support such theories, and later evidence suggests the opposite, that Earth biology arose on and from the Earth and has always been consistent among the biota of this Earth. Another theory was the Russian author Oparins 1924 idea of a union or a collection of multiple unstated bits of unidentified matter. This was too vague to be useful. A more useful observation was that known biota show a fairly consistent rise in complexity over the time in which biology has been Chapter 18, page 213

Heyer Saga found, implying that biology began very simply, and slowly increased in complexity over time. A more specific proposal was that the first bion (my term for the least complex biological entity on Earth) must have been a self-reproducing molecule. That seems to have occurred. One problem in seeking this molecule was the lack of knowledge of its structure, and another was the lack of agreement among biologists as to what they meant by life (their favorite term), i.e., what it was or is. They generally did not, and still to a considerable degree do not, agree on what they mean by the term. I therefore decided to take a different approach from any of them, and used a different term, with different standards. The term, as suggested above, was bion. The second step was to define the earliest application of the term to mean the simplest and oldest form of biology that could be shown to have formed on Earth. Other terminology also had to be clarified: The word Earth (with the initial capital letter) would refer only to our planet. Without the initial capital letter, it would mean the ground on which we walk, or in which we dig. The expression on Earth would include not only resting on our planet, but also in its Ocean, in its atmosphere, and under its solid surface. Earth has one Ocean, covering most of its surface, and is also therefore capitalized in mentioning the Ocean.

Astronomers generally believe that our Earth formed into a rough sphere about 4.55 billion years ago, but a roughly Mars-sized entity collided with Earth about 200 million years later, scattering a portion of Earth fragments into a nearby collection of orbiting fragments, which then gradually assembled into our Moon. Little is confidently known about Earth during this limited time. Since then, some astronomers and physicists have supposed that asteroid bombardment of Earth kept the potential Ocean from forming, and Chapter 18, page 214

Heyer Saga even questioned the formation of tectonic plates in the immediately following period. As noted below, recent research in Australia tends to disprove the former, and other information also tends to disprove the latter. I conclude that as the Moon formed, Ocean and tectonic plates at its bottom did so also, although the extent of land above sea level away from Australia remains unclear. The next question was to determine of what substances this first bion must have been composed. This is a practical problem. What substances, existing on Earth, must necessarily have been included in the simplest bion? When I was born, no one knew. Indeed, within my life there was a period when no one knew what a virus was, using that term (meaning poison) for precisely that reason. At first, scientists tried to feed viruses as they had fed single-celled biota (bacteria), but without success. Also, the microscopes of the day were unable to display this tiny biota, and one experimenter concluded that viruses were not alive (again with no definition or sound reason) because he had succeeded in crystalizing one, and assured his readers that a crystalized entity cannot be alive. Today, virologists have no difficulty in distinguishing live (able to reproduce) from dead (unable to reproduce) viruses, and, with more advanced types of microscopes, are quite able to recognize (and reproduce) viruses with those tools. We also should remember that some writers have assured us that water is the enemy of the simplest biota, but in fact, actual research has shown that the simplest biota today not only succeed in surviving in both the Ocean and in Earths soil, but outnumber all other forms of biota in both of those surroundings by about an order of magnitude (roughly ten to one). The next question was: What are the most basic and essential elements that biota require on Earth? Those who have watched most of the Star Trek series (and those who have studied chemistry) are aware that one such element is CARBON. By definition, carbon makes any molecule in which carbon is present organic. This terminology was adopted before the nature of the origin of Chapter 18, page 215

Heyer Saga Earthly biology was known, so, by itself, it does not prove anything about the need for carbon in a biological entity, but in fact carbon is required. Besides carbon, which is present in our atmosphere, Ocean, and on land, hydrogen and oxygen (prerequisite to water), and nitrogen are necessary for biology on Earth. All of these four elements are present in our atmosphere, and seem to have been so for at least a few hundreds of millions of years before Earth biology arose. While all of these are necessary, and conceivably may have been enough for a time, at least two more elements are also necessary for further progress, and may have been necessary even before the first four. While those elements mentioned above could be obtained from atmosphere or Ocean (or both), the other necessary two are adequately available only from the deep sea, and especially from deep-sea spouts of upwelling, molten rock from under the Ocean, along lines of separation among tectonic plates. (I have read contrary assertions written by individuals who ought to have known better, but those sources are in fact present throughout most of the world, and produce the remaining two elements needed for biology to get going on our planet.) Those remaining two main elements are phosphorus, which is actually vital for Earth biology, and sulfur. The last was not initially vital for Earth life, but is produced along with phosphorus (which is vital), and sulfur also provides easy connections among various elements mentioned above. Hence these six initial elementsfour from Ocean or air, and two from beneath the Oceanare the minimum basic necessities for biology on Earth to begin. After these are incorporated into a simple bion, a bion once established can add further elements as needed and available. What, then, were the first bions on Earth? Apparently, they were what I have called Proto-bions, which arose from these beginnings, and left behind themselves what are still today the most numerous of all biota. Some call them viruses. They originally had, and some may still have, the ability to reproduce by copying themselves without assistance. Many now

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Heyer Saga reproduce with the aid of other biota. Individually, each one is called a virion. Once I got this far, I was not at first sure how the next steps could be completed, but it soon became reasonably clear. Each progressive step was whatever was easiest at that point, through adding items that were then in currently the shortest supply, adding new abilities one by one, through repairs; building or capturing, creating, and saving sugar; and later building lipids (oils), until finally a lipid could be made into a sort of bubble surrounding a whole system of included functions. This was the beginning of cellular biology (Bacteria and the later discovered Archea). At the time I wrote about this process (in much more detail), I was unsure that any of this step-by-step developing process would ever be found (since no one was seeking it), and recognized that the interim steps might later have been exterminated. In recent years, however, some oversized stages in this process have turned up by accident (especially including the so-called mimi-virus and mama-virus (and a still larger one more recently, but I dont recall its name), retaining the ability to act as virions, but also having acquired some of the abilities of several different kingdoms of single cells. After the rise of the proto-bions and later the (single) cells, all other biology has arisen, by small steps occurring over the next few billion years. For a time, a few writers argued that biology probably arose only once, somewhere off Earth, and gradually spread through all other populated planets, but no evidence has ever actually been reported of any such process, and the nature of biology on Earth shows clearly that all biology on Earth arose from the one basic process described above. Thus, in my opinion, the first three (super) kingdoms on Earth were these three named above: The original Proto-bions (including viruses), the Bacteria (for which other names are also used), and the Archea. One wellknown writer prefers to combine the last two into one kingdom, but, since these two differ more from each other than most kingdoms differ from each other, recognizing these as separate is more reasonable. Chapter 18, page 217

Heyer Saga Both of the latter two (super) kingdoms are composed of single-celled organisms, also known as Prokaryotes. They are composed of cellular organisms only about a tenth as common as Proto-bions, but far more numerous than the larger, more complex biota, which again are an order of magnitude larger in size and fewer in number. No one has proclaimed a view consistent with my thoughts on the Proto-bions, but some writers seem to be drifting in that direction. Probably another generation will pass before that view is generally accepted. I believe Diana has the original version of my scribbles on the Proto-bions, and I have written a little on the next three steps, but my volume III has not been completed, and likely will not be, as age and other demands catch up with me. The reader should be aware that these opinions on early biology are the results of my own speculations and research, which I have not published and do not intend to publish. Further research, however, has been done, and further progress is possible. b. An Odd Side Trip For three generations, individual writers asserted that biology on Earth has been essentially unchanging throughout most of Earth history, but periodically made widespread, essentially magical, and finely coordinated great leaps forward. No evidence has ever been reported which supports this view. The lead author of this view was different in each of those three generations, and each of those lead authors used a different term for the process. With the clearer aid of more research, that idea seems no longer to be mentioned. On the other hand, another odd assertion has arisen, skip-ping the origin of biology set forth above and substituting for it the idea that Earth biology arose from a magically formed lipid bubble, in which all biology then developed. No plausible evidence has supported this assertion, and efforts to create such a new bion have not succeeded.

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Heyer Saga c. Management Although my duties have sometimes put me in charge of other persons, offices, or regions of the nation, I have never thought of myself as an attorney after leaving the private practice of law. I did complete a correspondence course on organizational management, or some such title, through University of California Berkeley extension. The course covered the planning, selection of functions, and other factors in creating an organization, and distribution of functions, their coordination in forming the organization, analysis, and periodic improvements of its progress, etc. On another occasion, my agency assigned me to take a class in middle management. Only two parts of it remain meaningful to me: 1. After five days of miscellaneous assignments to the trainees, one idea stood out, though never directly stated this way every undertaking is a learning experience, and should be analyzed and remembered. (They just said, That was a learning experience!) 2. On the last day, the five teams being trained all gathered in a large room, directed to produce a number of small objects assembled from ordinary Legos, and follow the standard organization lines of authority, command, control, etc. Each team worked separately from the others. A central station assigned the specific items to be made and all communication was confined to written form. Some static was introduced (misinformation), but I do not know whether this was part of the basic plan (it probably was) or just an individuals mischief. We all worked at the project for a few hours. At the end of this exercise, my team was the only one that completed even one of the required products! Clearly, the rigid chain-of-command, in-writing-only approach, so widespread in large corporations, military, governmental, and other Chapter 18, page 219

Heyer Saga organizations, are poor substitutes for more flexible, but still coordinated, systems. This was clearly a memorable learning experience!

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Heyer Saga

CHAPTER 19: HOW BIOLOGY AROSE ON EARTH

While the study of biology began to make great leaps forward in some areas after the initial discoveries of Crick, Watson, and Franklin, opportunity arose for a more thorough study of the origin of biology on Earth, and for a broader and more accurate understanding of the process. Some of what was published in this area was patently absurd; the field was a powerful magnet. Someone proposed that life came from elsewhere in the Universe to settle on Earth, but no supporting evidence has ever been presented. Research up to now shows the exact opposite. All Earth life arose on, in, or over Earth, started from a minimalist origin, and is closely interrelated, even though other possibilities can be imagined. At least three other writers have proposed that biology proceeds from stationary stages to great, magical leaps forward, involving vast magically interrelated coordinations, and back to stationary again, although, again, no evidence supports those assertions. It seems to have been the result of too little understanding and inattention to lengths of time. This idea was proposed by three different individuals, using three different descriptions, over three different generations, but seem now no longer to have any followers. Some writers have differed on what they mean by life, yet others want to try to identify it on other planets before they have agreed on what they mean by that term even here on Earth. All of these approaches are useless. a. Preliminary Considerations What, then, should we do to begin to understand the problem and its solution? First, we need to take a broad look at how Earth biology has evolved over as much of its history as we currently know reasonably well Chapter 19, page 221

Heyer Saga (and correct in accordance with new discoveries as they occur). Generally, what we see is that Earth biology has slowly progressed from smaller and simpler (one minimal mutation step at a time) to ever more complex (with some minor, occasional departures leading to modest retreats in complexity), and also that, from time to time, some line or other of previously successful biological growth fails to progress and dies out. Sometimes the cause of the latter is inability to compete against the rise of a newer and more advanced form of biology. At other times an unusual change in temperature or other conditions, such as volcanic eruptions, tectonic plate collisions, or even large meteor collisions can (directly or indirectly) destroy some category of biology on Earth. Once some form of biology has become extinct, it never appears again, although times do occur when another form adapts to fill the gap left by the earlier extinction. After a number of years of trying to get a picture of this field and of how to clarify the origins of its earliest stages, I recognized a further need: Because different biologists hold different views on what is included in Earthly life and what does not, and because at least some of the differences seem to be both irrational and therefore not directly correctible, the need seemed to arise to adopt a neutral term for this idea. My choice was the previously unused term bion, to refer to any biological entity on Earth, previously known or later discovered, with no built-in biases or prejudices. Some writers had previously used the term biont for what they regarded as biological, but others declined to use the term if they did not choose to believe that a particular entity was indeed life, so I chose not to use that term, for clarity and consistency. The term biota already existed as a plural for any species of Earth biology, so that word still has its uses in the right context. Hence, we see that elucidation of the origin and original nature of Earth biology requires use of proper, unbiased terms, examination of the most primitive bions that we can recognize, and thus discover (if we can) Chapter 19, page 222

Heyer Saga the minimum requirements of bio-logy that Earth bears, or has borne. What are those? b. The Minimum Earthly Bion The earliest serious ideas on this issue were proposed by the Russian A. I. Oparin and J. B. S. Haldane in the1920s. From what I have been able to piece together, Oparins idea was that a microscopic or submicroscopic collection of unstated but distinct substances might join together to become the origin of Earth life. In English, the name of that collection was a co-acervate. The idea seems to have remained quite vague, but apparently the preliminary co-implied a cooperative compound of divergent parts. The idea seems to have been reasonable enough, despite its odd name, but quite vague. Haldane regarded the air or early atmosphere of Earth to have lacked free oxygen, i.e., it only had oxygen chemically combined with other elements (in contrast to todays air, which does contain some about 21% free oxygen (if we ignore the increasing pollution from various mostly human dominated sources). Stanley Miller tested the Haldane idea by running water, methane, and ammonia through a glass container, heated by electricity (to simulate lightning). The heat raised the temperature of the water, converted the compounds into various different compounds typically found in meteorites and useful for primitive life forms. The heat also evaporated the original jug of water and other chemicals, pushed it out through a tube and into a different container, where it was later allowed to cool and examined to determine the contents. Some of the products were nucleotides, chemicals of which RNA is made, but seemingly too little to be useful. Other chemicals were included, but these seem to have been the most important for the issues here. Hence, according to this research, lightning, rain, the Ocean, and meteorites, before any bions, could have produced some compounds crucial for some relatively early stages of biology yet existed. On the other hand, some* geologists thought (and still think) that collisions between Chapter 19, page 223

Heyer Saga asteroids and Earth prevented the formation of Ocean, or at least of dry land, or even melted Earths crust, in the last two million years before four billion years ago. Geologists generally believe that Earth became an approximately spherical celestial body about 4.55 billion years ago, with much of its heaviest elements [iron, silicon, and heavier} concentrated in its core, surrounded by much of its modestly lighter material (magma) in a quasimolten state and moving about under various influences, all enclosed, at least ultimately, in an outer crust of still lighter material, including less heavy stone, lighter minerals, and more scattered but still available minerals that are otherwise more concentrated in the core. Outside these three heavier layers are the Ocean and, beyond it, the atmosphere. Recent studies in Australia, however, seem to indicate, to the contrary of the some geologists marked by an asterisk and mentioned three paragraphs above, at least part of Australia was, indeed, covered by above-Ocean crust existing before any of the biological developments proposed below. Life requires at least three minimum conditions for its occurrence or existence: The presence of a suitable physical environment (weather, heat, cold, source of energy, etc.); The proper, minimum set of chemical elements; The ability to reproduce itself or something similar, directly or indirectly; All of these conditions must be adequately able to interact with each other to a sufficient degree.

Evidence has shown that conditions do exist and interact on Earth, and that all known life on Earth has arisen from them here on Earth. Not all Earth biology has been discovered, thoroughly studied, or reported. Earth biota are newly discovered frequently, so there is much yet to be discovered. Chapter 19, page 224

Heyer Saga

CHAPTER 20: CALIFORNIA AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

a. California As you all know, I was born, raised, and spent my life in California, and have always felt much attached to it. Technically, the chapters on U.S. presidents are not biographical, and neither is this chapter, but my life is only meaningful in the context of my country and my state, so the prior and present chapters are included in my memoirs. Fortunately, this one is relatively brief. There are several versions of the origin of the name California. One is derived from a novel Las Sergas de Esplandian, written by Spanish author Garcia Rodriguez de Montalvo, published in 1510, about a mythical island of Amazons ruled by Queen Calafia. Since an extant version of this novel exists, this is most likely the correct version. Some details of this novel are set forth in a book titled California: A History (Modern Library Chronicles) by Kevin Starr, published in 2007. At any rate, in 1533 Hernan Cortez sent an expedition to what is now the southern tip of Baja California. The Spaniards gave the name "California" to the peninsula and to the lands north, including both Baja California and Alta California. The latter region became parts of the present day U.S. states of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming. A goal of both Spain and the United Kingdom was to place their respective nations in control of the Americas, but their methods differed. In general, both countries mostly wanted control of land, trade, and natural resources. Outside of California, the Spanish concentrated on related metals, while the English focused on agriculture and furs in America for the benefit of the United Kingdom. Trade with non-British colonies or foreigners was Chapter 20, page 225

Heyer Saga forbidden. English merchants in England were protected against American colonials competition. Otherwise, the British approach seemed irregular, planless, inconsistent, and haphazard, while the Spanish approach was generally more rigid and consistent. Priests, however, were generally regarded by the Spanish as more trustworthy than others, and therefore were given more leeway. Just as the English had established thirteen colonies spread thinly along the east coast of North America in the two centuries before the American Revolution, a Spanish priest, Father Junipero Serra (born Miguel Jose Serra) undertook to establish a string of Catholic missions along the west coast of what he called California. He dispatched an agent to search out and identify suitable sites for each Mission, as well as the best route to connect each one to the next. This was the beginning of the present state of California. In 1769, during the time of various events leading up to the American Revolution (such as the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, and the First Continental Congress), Father Serra established the first of these missions at the present site of San Diego, California. These missions are named: San Diego de Alcala, San Antonio de Padua, San Buenaventura, San Carlos Boromeo de Carmelo, San Francisco de Assisi, San Gabriel Archangel, San Juan Capistrano, San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, and Santa Clara de Assisi. After Father Serras death in 1784, Father Lasuen established twelve more missions between 1786 and 1803. Father Jose Altimira established the final Mission, San Francisco Solano in 1823. Father Serra died after the end of the American Revolution, but still before the adoption of the United States Constitution. During his life, the missions were all built and most still stand. He also tried to civilize, according to his eyes, the inhabitants of this narrow strip of coastal land, to educate, train, and guide them. Other Spaniards came and settled in this strip, and in time built haciendas, established ranches, and came to hold large swaths of land, as Chapter 20, page 226

Heyer Saga did a Swiss man and an American. The natives in this part of the coast, the Ohlones, had a simple, quiet, relaxed culture, fought no battles, and in time were overwhelmed by the change in circumstances. They reportedly wore no clothing, covered their bodies with mud in winter, and burned off dried grasses and weeds annually to enhance new growth, but in time this practice no longer sufficed. From early in California history, Reina de Los Angeles (Queen of the Angels) had been the center of Californias population, as it still has for over two centuries. The Spaniards in California began calling themselves Californios, regarded themselves as separate from the Mexicanos of Mexico, and maintained a separate but somewhat simpler social and political system. Of course, all that ended with Sutters discovery of gold in 1848! For a century after the Gold Rush of the 1850s, Southern California paid most of the taxes and bills for the state, but received little benefit and had no power in the state. That changed when I was a young adult. b. The American Revolution The reasons for, and the purpose of, the American Revolution are revealed by the fact, the nature, and the progress of the struggle itself, and by the Declaration of Independence. The motion picture 1776 offers information that is pertinent to the foregoing. These circumstances make clear that the colonists were trying to free themselves from the efforts of the English King George (actually a German) and the parliament to force on to the colonists, various impositions, never approved by the colonists, and taxes, restrictions, and other burdens on the colonists. The goal of the colonists was to establish their own nation with freedom and justice for all. This idea of freedom, fairness, and separateness was fundamental. Many English and even a few colonists took the view that those goals were trivial and the empire would do better by continuing to include the U.S. colonies. One member of the Continental Chapter 20, page 227

Heyer Saga Congress (as portrayed in the movie 1776) and one American I met personally took this view. I cannot agree. If the English argument was partly that it had founded and helped the colonies, which was a lie! The truth was that, with the possible exception of Jamestown, NO English King or Queen ever spent a single farthing on founding, assisting, or protecting any colony on the eastern coast of North America. Instead, two types of wealthy or prominent people expressed an interest in founding colonies on the east coast of North America. The first group consisted of courtiers and the second group was prominent merchants. The courtiers sought royal favor by hanging around royalty in search of potential benefits, such as profitable assignments. For example, handling a property deal for the Crown at a remote location. Jack Horner of nursery rhyme fame, who, in the course of his assignment, pulled out a plum (stole part of the Kings proceeds, and presumably lived to regret it when the truth came out.) (Jack Horner was a real person.) One of these courtiers, Sir Walter Raleigh, was the first to propose that Queen Elizabeth grant him the right to establish a colony. Presumably he was required to pay her a fee for this privilege, as was the practice in later cases. He named the colony Virginia, as a courtesy to the Virgin Queen of England. The goal of some of the prominent merchants was simply to increase their personal wealth by establishing colonies in North America, as in the case of Carolina, named after King Charles. A third group of applicants were interested in North America for a different set of purposes, namely, to assist certain groups of English people to establish themselves in America. These groups had goals and reasons for leaving England based less on enhancing wealth than on improving their lives, such as the so-called Pilgrims, Catholics, Friends (sometimes unkindly called Quakers), and Puritans. For most of this group, the objective was wider religious freedom for themselves. In these cases, however, this objective could only be reached with the aid of a supporter whose interest was humanitarian rather than Chapter 20, page 228

Heyer Saga financial, but this angel had to be sufficiently wealthy to be able to buy from the Crown the right of founding a colony, and often to provide the initial physical resources necessary for a new colony to become established. In one case, there was no fee, because the sponsoring benefactor had already lent substantial funds to the Sovereign and induced the Sovereign to grant the land rights as a way to pay off the Sovereigns debt. It is true that, much later, the British government sent naval ships and an army to drive the French out of the American colonies, but never to benefit the colonists, only to expand royal power. Thus, it is clear that the settlers in Eastern North America totally provided for themselves and lived or died accordingly, and therefore saw no benefit to themselves from the unwanted connection. The colonists determined efforts against worse than ten-to-one odds through a long, costly struggle shows the necessity of their action. (John Adams referred to a three-way split in views among the colonists: favoring independence, staying with England, and neutral. A few individuals interpreted this three-way split as indicating that the three groups were of relatively equal sizes, but this is clearly nonsense. No polls were conducted in those days, the population was widely scattered, and Adams never went farther south than Pennsylvania in his life. He could not rationally have supposed he could judge the nation from his narrow experience in New England and Pennsylvania. He must have meant merely that there were three views. Furthermore, even if he had believed that the population was divided, it could not have been. When Britain invaded Boston, the following limited control there was soon replaced by overwhelming determination from the whole of New England to drive the British out. This was no one-third effortit was virtually universal in New England. The British army of invasion and suppression was forced to withdraw entirely from New England and never returned. Chapter 20, page 229

Heyer Saga Likewise, after leaving New England, even though British military power, equipment, organization, etc., cost the continentals heavily, George Washingtons army largely kept the British invasion force confined in or near New York City (because its Dutch residents knew their role was too small to be able to take sides). When a second British army came down from Canada, again the upstate settlers overwhelmed the new invading force and crushed it. Once more, except for the tiny City of New York, the rest of the colony overwhelmingly insisted on freedom. Virginia was certainly no easier. After that, the British forces remained confined to New York City, while yet a third army came to the southern end of the colonies, and caused much havoc in an area already deeply divided within itself before the Revolution. Yet even that army was gradually lured northward until it, too, was crushed. The struggle was essentially over; fighting was ended, with the British confined to tiny, Dutch New York City. The war did not formally end until the Peace Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, between Great Britain and the United States of America and its allies, but the U.S. and its allies had firmly ended British rule of the thirteen colonies. The inference from this short review of a very long war is that a basic foundational principle of our nation is the idea that a nation is entitled to its own independence and its own institutions. Hence, Americans have generally been opposed to empires and imperialism, and thus have inspired Spanish and Portuguese America, parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, as well as other parts of the former British Empire. It follows that Americans who try to invade, conquer, and swallow up other countries, except in the process of defending ourselves from such attacks, are violating our founding principles, misleading us, and are not worthy of any public office. Such persons thus cannot be great, or even acceptable American presidents. They include: James K. Polk, William McKinley, and Theodore Roosevelt.

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Heyer Saga

CHAPTER 21: TRULY GREAT U.S. PRESIDENTS

In the course of study of U.S. history, I have come across a wide range of opinions and many assertions of various people who seem to reveal no sign of any credible understanding of the subjects on which they expound. In most cases, the explanation is that the statements are not based on genuine understanding or perception, but upon private goals of the writer, for his own commercial or political benefit. Therefore it seems prudent to provide a brief review of this nations truly great presidents, of whom, in my opinion, there have been only four out of all 44 that we have had to date. These are as follows, for the reasons mentioned: 1. GEORGE WASHINGTON We have had 44 U.S. presidents to date (2012). Any such group of people inevitably include some that are better, some average, some worse, some great, some mediocre, some outright villains. What should be our criteria? One writer based his case on the formal education of his subject, but that is irrelevant. The greatness of a president arises from what he has achieved AS PRESIDENT, in accomplishing lasting improvements in the lives of his people, regardless of achievements at other times or in other capacities. Also, such president must NOT have done anything that undermines, contradicts, or weakens the principles, foundations, or purposes of our democratic, free, and independent nation. Being the first president is not enough. Every nation that has any president must have had a first president. That is just an accident of fate, and is irrelevant to his greatness, if any. One generous admirer called George Washington first in war, first in peace, and first in t he hearts of his countrymen. The war, however, ended long before Washington became president, so his service in war was not relevant to his greatness in the presidency. One writer asserts that Washington was a great president because construction of the White House and Capitol building were so Chapter 21, page 231

Heyer Saga impressive that it increased the standing of the United States in world affairs by impressing the foreign government representatives who came to the U.S. The truth was that the Continental Congress chose Washington to command the new Continental Army, not because anyone regarded him as a brilliant military genius, but because the Congress knew that Washington was eager to have the position, was the richest and most prominent Virginian, that Virginia was the oldest and most populous colony, and relatively near the middle of the thin string of 13 seceding colonies in the new nation. Washington thus had to be the commander: no one else could hold together and manage a continental army, which might become (as it did) a unified organization throughout the 13 colonies. No one else could hold all 13 colonies together. (As to the impressive official buildings, the reality was that American delegates to foreign countries were, in those days, always relegated to the BOTTOM position among diplomats everywhere, and foreign diplomats sent to the U.S. were also always at the bottom of the diplomatic list. The reason in both cases was, of course, that, independent or not, the power, standing, and influence of the U.S. was at the bottom of the list of countries having foreign diplomats.) No, George Washington was not great for any of those reasons. He held office for two terms, and then announced his intention not to return to that position. He urged the government not to become divided into factions, and went home. Why did either of those facts matter? In the end (so far), his admonition did not matter, because it was not consistently followed. It was a worthy try, but apparently more than many Americans have proven unwilling to accept. But his decision not to seek another term was a dramatic and crucial act. Why? Because the American Revolution introduced the ideas of freedom, justice, equality, national and social independence, and other egalitarian principles, which spread to many nations afterward. Many of Chapter 21, page 232

Heyer Saga them chose presidents. Unfortunately, many of these presidents (not always the first one in a particular country) chose to hold on as LIFELONG presidents, thus effectively changing elected presidents essentially into kings. The fact that Washington DID NOT do that, has stood as a permanent symbol that such behavior is NEVER democratic, and therefore never acceptable. Odd though it is, this is the greatness of George Washington as president, and entitles him to rank as a truly great president. 2. THOMAS JEFFERSON (After Washington, John Adams of Massachusetts became president, to no ones surprise, and got through most of his first term without any significant achievements or mishaps. Then the arch-conspirator, Alexander Hamilton, who had immigrated to the mainland from a British island in the Caribbean Sea, and was at this time Secretary of the Treasury, seems to have played an unclear part in a strange set of maneuvers involving a Napoleonic envoy who was claimed to have been trying to arouse in the United States an overthrow of the current government of the U.S. government for Napoleons benefit. Immediately the Congress was called upon to create a so-called Alien and Sedition statute to prevent or suppress this supposed internal revolution. The new law passed, although no revolutionary or incendiary was ever found, revealed, named, prosecuted, or otherwise mentioned, nor was the Napoleonic envoy ever either arrested or prosecuted for his supposed interference in American internal affairs. He was, in fact, allowed (invited?) to stay in our nation indefinitely. All of this would make no sense at all except for a few outrageous aspects to it all: Hamiltons obscure roll in this typically Hamiltonian maneuver; The Alien and Sedition laws were then actually used entirely by Adams as an excuse for jailing indefinitely every private citizen who operated a printing press and published views on national policy differing from those of John Adams! Chapter 21, page 233

Heyer Saga (Whatever the public writings of the time may have said, in fact of course the nation rejected this outrage and elected Thomas Jefferson as the third (next) president when the appropriate time came.) Despite Adams outrageous behavior, Thomas Jefferson immediately proved to be a truly great president. The Alien and Sedition laws were promptly repealed, and have never fully returned to plague the free press. Napoleon sold Louisiana to the U.S., with Jeffersons approval, at a trivial cost compared to its value, and Jefferson sent Lewis and Clarke to explore the new territory (as large as the preexisting U.S.), and up the Missouri and on westward to the Pacific Ocean, which they did and returned. Some adventurers talked about separating the nation into two separate pieces, separating Louisiana from the rest of our nation. One writer figuratively wailed at Jeffersons failure to divide the nation further by starting a war against the adventurers, but Jefferson chose the wiser course of expressing the view that unity was better and safer, but that, everyone agreed, he would not stand in the way of the potential separation. Of course he knew the two leading adventurers, and that, if he had tried to mobilize some new-armed force to attack them, they would have joined forces and caused a war dangerous to the unity of the nation. He also knew that they were self-centered, ambitious men, each of whom wanted to head this potential new nation. His gentle, non-threatening announcement led them to be more concerned with outmaneuvering each other than with him, and accordingly they ended up at odds with each other, with one finally arresting and imprisoning the other. Thus one was eliminated as a threat to the nation, the other gave up his delusions of grandeur and retired, and the United States became firmly established as the largest and potentially most powerful nation in North America, able to expand further if needed within that scope, and all without, at least from the point of view of Britain, France, and the U.S., firing a single shot. Jefferson led Congress to repeal the unconstitutional Alien and Sedition laws, freed all the jailed newspaper editors, reestablished freedom of speech and press, and left behind a tradition that prevented the Chapter 21, page 234

Heyer Saga complete repetition of any such outrageous Adams-like violation of human rights again, despite some not-quite so blatant attempts later. He also initiated a difficult but determined effort to enlarge availability of the right to vote, far more citizens than had ever had that opportunity before, more than most had until many years later. Formerly, voters had been limited to wealthy persons with extensive landed property. Thomas Jeffersons change extended the right to vote, so that every adult male citizen had that right, making the nation many times better, more democratic, fair, just, and balanced than it had ever been. This was a finer and more valuable great leap forward than anything else accomplished anywhere in the following half century. Jefferson also influenced his successors, presidents Madison, Monroe, J. Q. Adams, and Andrew Jackson to continue to broaden opportunities, improve justice and equality, and otherwise improve the nation. (Toward the same end, the last of these men, Andrew Jackson, took an unusual step. His rural, previously divorced, and pipe-smoking wife had been looked down upon and not well treated by the wealthier and more stylish wives of his cabinet members. When it came time for Jacksons term to end and a new candidate to be selected to replace him, Jackson chose his unmarried vice president, Martin van Buren, rather than any of the cabinet members, as that candidate. Hence the U.S. then acquired its first president with a Dutch surname! Up to that time, all presidents had English names. The next broadening was a Scots name (William McKinley) about a century later, but a step nevertheless. Though a tiny step, the trend has slowly continued, with two more Dutch names, an Irish one, a Catholic president, and an American with roots from Africa. It is a slow and still small trend, but still it broadens, enriches, and balances us.) (According to Hendrik Willem van Loon, (Van Loons Lives, 1942), Thomas Jefferson was the greatest American who ever lived, and dispensed with all . . . formalities (in) the White House, abolished the official titles of Excellency (for the President), Honorable (for high Chapter 21, page 235

Heyer Saga officials), Lady, allowed Sir, never smoked, avoided whiskey, and grew his own vines for his own wine.) (Separate but relevant: Only recently I have learned that when the nation first seceded from British rule and the colonies gave themselves names such as state and commonwealth, New Jersey granted the right to vote to its adult women. I never heard that before, but it comes from a credible source. Sadly, for unworthy and totally personal reasons, an official in that state later sabotaged this early step toward womens suffrage and had it repealed, but every citizen ought to know about both the states forward-looking initial action and the backward-acting follow-up. A few western states made progress later, but national womens rights to vote did not take effect until 1920.) 3. ABRAHAM LINCOLN Most Americans are fully aware of President Abraham Lincolns history, nature, and accomplishments, as well as his assassination. Probably more approving stories have been told about him, and told by more different persons, than about any other U.S. president. Perhaps next in line would be Washington, but nearly all the stories about him came from the pen of one schoolmaster, who made them all up from his own imagination. I cannot vouch for all of these stories, but it is clear that Lincoln did not, as sometimes joked, build the log cabin in which he was born! Abraham Lincoln was as economically poor in his childhood as Washington had been wealthy. Even so, he became the best-known and most successful attorney in Illinois and sought public office and influence. He recognized and publicly pointed out that slavery was unjust and that this nation [could] not survive half slave and half free. The majority agreed and elected him president. Most of the states with slavery undertook to secede; they attacked an army base, created their own army, chose a chief of state and some generals, and undertook the so-called Civil War, which proved anything but civil when the rebels indulged in mass murder to exterminate a group of black soldiers even after they had surrendered. Chapter 21, page 236

Heyer Saga This crime immediately led to the end of the perennial previous niceties of war. The result was long, painful, and costly to both sides. One state tried to insist on neutrality, since it faced opponents from opposite sides, but this effort was sabotaged by another seceding state. Feelings ran high, inevitably leading again to another set of outright murders at the end of the war, including that of President Lincoln. In the process, other high U.S. officials were attacked and wounded, the vice president assumed the presidency, the nation was at least theoretically reunited, the fighting mostly ended, most surviving former soldiers returned home, some were assigned to establish and maintain law and order, and the nation began to try to rebuild its shattered self. Lincoln had consistently proven himself to have determination to hold the nation together, to seek justice, fairness, and reconciliation, to free the former slaves, and to minimize the rigorous consequences of war to the extent that he could. He was a true humanitarian, as most open-mined people of nearly every nation recognized. I have met many foreigners who enthusiastically volunteered as much. And of course, as we know, he gave that last full measure of devotion to his nation and to us all. He was surely a truly great president. The villains among the former slave holders and other racists of course remained villains no less, and many still do a century and a half later, but I trust they are far fewer now than they were even in my earlier life, and perhaps there is still hope that they, too, will come to think more rationally than they did. After the Civil War, the nation has to a considerable degree learned to understand better, to learn and grow more, to improve further our nation, and to allow fairness, equality, and justice to become a greater part of our lives. The former slaves have in theory obtained freedom and the right to vote, but obstacles have been reintroduced to impede and delay this process. More than a century after that most costly of all this nations wars, real progress finally began, again at great cost to many worthy people. Not all the wrongs arising from the unconscionably evil wrongs of slavery have Chapter 21, page 237

Heyer Saga yet been eliminated from our country, but progress has occurred. We still have more to do to complete the task. FOOD FOR THOUGHT The previous references to Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln inspire us with admiration and gratitude for their contributions to our nation, but they also reveal that some of our national history is clouded by negative events within the course of our history. We need also to be aware of these three dark clouds as a reminder that not only must we seek improvement in our society, but we must also be careful to avoid some of the errors, which have entered it. First, the expulsion of the Cherokees from their ancestral lands in southeast North America a third of the way across the continent to Oklahoma, plus the partial genocide imposed on a significant number of the previous inhabitants of what is now the United States is definitely a dark cloud in our history that must not be repeated. Secondly, slavery was an unconscionable and unacceptable institution in American history, which has plagued us, directly and indirectly, for centuries. It seems somewhat corrected now, but we must never allow that mistake to be repeated. Finally, in more recent times the United States has involved itself in two inexcusable declared wars of conquest, one against Spain and one against Germany in World War I and two coups dtat against Hawaii and Columbia. These wars and coups (undeclared aggression) do not enhance our national standing in the world and should never again be indulged. We must be on the alert for such misbehaviors in high power in our country or similar behaviors, which can only be harmful to ourselves and others in the future if countenanced. 4. FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT was the third of the three American Presidents with Dutch surnames. He and his family were relatively prosperous. He was able to graduate from university, become active in Chapter 21, page 238

Heyer Saga politics, popular among those who knew him (as had been true of the other great American presidents), and he was appointed Under Secretary of the Navy in World War I. He always retained a great attachment for the Navy, and in later years influenced additions to it, with new battle ships, early aircraft carriers, etc. In 1920, after World War I ended and then-President Woodrow Wilson suffered a disabling stroke, Roosevelt ran for Vice President in the next presidential election (alongside the Democratic presidential candidate, James M. Cox) supporting Wilsons proposed League of Nations, which the wartime allies (Britain, France, etc.) joined, and he urged the U.S. to do so also, in the hope that such an institution would help avoid or minimize further such catastrophic conflicts. The Republican presidential candidate, Warren G. Harding, also promised to join the League, but of course, once Harding was in power, Republicans broke that promise, with the catastrophic consequences that followed. In my opinion, Franklin Roosevelt was the greatest of all this nations presidents up to now. He is the only U.S. president whom the American people trusted enough to unhesitatingly reelect for four successive terms, and lead us successfully through the most dangerous series of crises in the history of our nation, with a highly satisfactory outcome. During the course of Roosevelts presidency, he undertook the greatest endeavor to repair, rebuild, and reorient the nation in the history of the World, succeeded as long as he lived, and after he died, his successor, Harry S. Truman, loyally carried these endeavors on closer to completion, with an accompanying long-term improvement in the condition of our nation, and of much of the world. The nearest comparable effort could be identified as the building of the Great Wall of China, but that was not a project arising from careful, logical, and creative foresight like Roosevelts great plan, but a collection of more local, short term projects, that were only tied together later as an afterthought.

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Heyer Saga a. Background: The Dutch in Europe had long been a modest country, sometimes swallowed by more powerful and aggressive nations, and always surrounded by larger and more dangerous neighbors. Nevertheless, they were industrious, ambitious, imaginative, and, when circumstances permitted, they traded widely with neighboring lowlanders, up the Rhine to Switzerland, across the North Sea to England, etc. They planted a small trading colony in eastern North America south of New England and north of Virginia. To protect themselves from potential overland attack from New England, they built a wall across Manhattan Island. These were the Dutch traders who settled in America and became the ancestors of later Americans, including the Roosevelts. Later, when Britain and the Netherlands, normally allies against the French and Spanish, fought each other over valuable islands off Southeast Asia, the Dutch wound up with those islands, the British settled for taking over New Netherlands, and the colony became New York. The defensive wall, now otherwise useless, became the present site of Wall Street in New York City.) b. Economy In the period from the end of the Civil War until after 1900, the U.S. population, its wealth, prominence, immigration, and productivity grew strongly, to make this country the leading industrial nation in the world. There were some strange setbacks resulting from unjust court decisions and a deliberate attempt by the Republican Congress to shatter the economy when Grover Cleveland had been elected to one of his terms as President. According to my wall chart (SRC Century-Plus Chart of Investing and Economic History, published by Securities Research Company), roughly from 1906 to about 1924, the DOW Jones Industrial average (DJIA)

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Heyer Saga remained mostly flat. Thus WWI appeared not to have significantly affected the U.S. economy, although, of course, it really had. Then the DJIA rose steeply to nearly 400 (from its original 100 in 1890), and then fell precipitously to a low of 40 (!) by early 1932. Thus, these wild swings had lost 90%--nearly allof the value gained since the DJIA was first invented. Essentially, the economy of the world had been shattered! Presidents Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover had failed to get the U.S. into the League of Nations, failed to take any timely or effective action to avoid the Great Depression, or do anything else worthwhile for our country. Perhaps Harding realized early that he was in over his head. He took a trip to Alaska, where he then died. One claim was that the cause of death was bad seafood. Some claimed that his wife deliberately poisoned him, but Ive seen no convincing version. Vice President Coolidge succeeded Harding, but contributed no value to the nation. President Herbert Hoover, who succeeded Coolidge, tried to combat the Great Depression with volunteer efforts, public works such as construction of Boulder Dam on the Colorado River, tariffs such as the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, increase of the top tax bracket from 25% to 63%, as well as increased corporate taxes. It was too little, too late, and, in the case of the tariff, aimed in the wrong direction. c. Taking Office When the U.S. Constitution was adopted in the late 18th century, it provided that a newly elected president (in effect, though not in these words) could not take office until at least five months after the election. Back then, that was reasonable. Roads were poor, distances were great, transport was by horseback, carriage, or water, and population was barely a million, spread in a narrow line from Georgia to what is now Maine. By 1900, the population was about 100 times greater, railroad trains crisscrossed the nation, steam and water transport was widespread, and, despite people from coast to coast, border to border, and off to distant Chapter 21, page 241

Heyer Saga island holdings, all presidents lived east of the Mississippi (except perhaps Hoover). Even a few automobiles and a sort of blimp existed. The big guns of major warships by then had made urgent the prompt inauguration of new presidents, especially because the U.S. Capitol was (and still is) virtually on the ocean. Action should have been taken long ago to move the capitol farther inland. Even so, it still has not been done. Franklin Delano Roosevelt could not take office until late March, 1933, by which time he was inundated by a gigantic mass of problems, crises, threats, and misfortunes far beyond any faced by any other historical leader of whom I am aware. Perhaps I am biased because he was the only truly great president of our nation during whose terms of office I have lived. Roosevelt had been stricken by poliomyelitis, more severely than my father, but he had served as governor of the state of New York, and collected a group of young, educated, brilliant, and creative advisors in various fields to help him deal with the many crises, which he faced. Yet he was always in charge. He sought information and advice widely, but made his own decisions. He came to Washington D.C. ready for his task. Within his first month in office, he issued invitations to unemployed artistic painters to submit sketches for potential murals to show U.S. workers doing their customary tasks. The artists whose proposals were accepted were then hired, provided with the necessary supplies of the task, and set to work painting murals in various public locations. Because the major banks throughout the country were facing virtually immediate collapse, he promptly declared a bank holiday, during which the entire nationwide banking system was restructured and reorganized to enable the system to reopen quite promptly with a degree of organizational soundness including a fee required of every bank to help protect every other such bank from the consequences of any kind of run on any such bank. All of this was accomplished expeditiously and effectively in the early

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Heyer Saga days of his first term. This system provided protection to both bankers and customers from banking collapses and crises. Also in the early days FDR (as he quickly became known in the newspapers) rapidly created an array of national agencies to deal with a vast range of needs, well recognized in Europe, but never previously faced in the U.S. Multiple public works projects were created, providing paid employment and valuable services to the country, such as roads, land improvements, dams, and a myriad of other steps that saved our nation and permitted it to start getting back on its feet and to rebuild itself. Some of these agencies were the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps), WPA (Works Progress Administration), PWA (Public Works Administration), TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority), etc. Unemployment (job loss) insurance was created, workers compensation (pre-existing) was improved, and social security (common in Europe) was created in the U.S. Abusive child labor practices were outlawed. The Constitution had referred to the common welfare, but previously, the nation as such did not concern itself with that problem, leaving it to the states. The wealthier states could, the poorer states could not. With the depression (Hoovers germ, to make it sound like a state of mindthe previous term had simply been crash or panic), none of the states had the needed resources, so the national government had to step in, and with Roosevelts leadership did so. Roosevelt adopted the new medium of radio to make personal fireside chats enabling any citizen to listen anywhere in the country. I listened carefully to these as a child. That was far too long ago for me, now in my 83rd year, to remember much of the wording, but his voice and delivery remain unforgettable: no loud political harangue, as I heard on commercial radio, but instead, calm, simple, straightforward conversation, clear, cogent, and understandable even to a child. These addresses had no schedule: they came on air at irregular times, lasted only several minutes, and then were off most of the time. Chapter 21, page 243

Heyer Saga People with too much money and power kept the courts tied up in the effort to block the Presidents measures, proposals, and efforts for most of his first term in office. Hence most of his long-term projects could not help the nation when they were most urgently needed. FDR utilized the services of his friend and confidante Harry Hopkins, who traveled around the U.S. and abroad to examine and report on circumstances about which the president was concerned, but which time did not permit FDR to learn directly for himself. FDR also called on his creative young unofficial experts mentioned earlier, who came to be called his kitchen cabinet in contrast to the standard official cabinet members. With regard to the latter group, FDR was the first U.S. president to appoint to the presidential cabinet, a woman, Frances Perkins, as Secretary of Labor, sometimes called Ma Perkins. FDR also initiated legal controls of stock market behavior to end the various previous continuing abuses and problems, and strengthen enforcement of regulations in that previously wild field. The new Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins, helped him to establish protection of workers and labor unions against the violence, thuggery, police brutality, and other problems that had plagued the nation for decades without any responsible correction. Because FDR had researched and studied deeply, and perceived broadly and soundly at least as early as 1910, he came to recognize the needs of his nation, including recognition of broad and often unnoticed trends and changes with which the nation was not yet ready to recognize or deal. Therefore he was able in his first 100 days as President, despite the obstacles and obstruction to move the nation farther and faster toward improvement than had ever previously been accomplished in a comparable time. His first 100 days have been famous ever since then. A further problem faced by FDR in his first term was that the aged and narrow-minded U.S. Supreme Court at the time, dominated by outmoded view points, began to reject a series of necessary improvements Chapter 21, page 244

Heyer Saga in the nations legal structure. In time, he decided to propose to Congress a potential correction of this national defect. He suggested that the President should be authorized by law to appoint one justice to the Supreme Court for every justice who did not retire by age 70-1/2, with a maximum of five justices added. The Republican Party and the Republican press (essentially all the press since long before) pretended to be outraged by this attempt at what they called court packing. This effort therefore failed. The attorneys who worked on legal matters on behalf of the President therefore returned to the task of trying to reword some of their proposals. It appears that at the same time some of the members of the Supreme Court were somewhat concerned (because of the popular response against their obstructionism) in a period of such national crisis. Consequently, a little more diligence by the Presidents lawyers and a little more flexibility on the part of some of the Supreme Court Justices somehow together magically began to modify the previous obstructionism. Thus, although of course some obstruction continued, some of it also was overcome, and the Court delays gradually were overcome with genuine progress during FDRs first term. (In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court had first been packed when John Adams, having been defeated for reelection to a potential second term in the Presidency, called his lame-duck legislators back into session, created a vast and overwhelming number of new judgeships throughout the country, and appointed Federalist judges in all of them. This massive court packing had never been fully undone thereafter, with many astoundingly perverse court decisions resulting. The few younger and more responsible existing members of the U.S. Supreme Court began to see their influence in the Court gradually increase, and, in time, the Court eventually did become a responsible public entity. Sadly, it seems in recent decades to have sunk back to even lower levels than before. Hopefully, this too, may in time be corrected.)

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Heyer Saga c. Progress, Outreach, and New Threats As our nation slowly and painfully made new progress toward better economic and social conditions, FDR next set out to improve relationships with Latin America, as he had proposed decades earlier. His older relative, President Theodore Teddy Roosevelt, had worried Latin America through adoption of imperialism. FDR announced that the U.S. would henceforth be a good neighbor, with friendlier and more trusting relationships, with countries south of its border. Although the League of Nations had been established, failure of the U.S. to join the League in 1920 had been followed by the Italian adoption of fascism and imperialism, which spread to Spain, and the rise of Hitler in Germany. FDR tried to encourage Hitler to take a less aggressive stance, but immediately recognized the hopelessness, at that point, of undoing the damage of the 1920s and early 1930s. The U.S. could not yet think of foreign wars, and the Republican Party still could only think in terms of fighting FDR. He therefore took another route, offering the cabinet position of Secretary of War to a Republican. The Republican Party wanted to terminate the War Department, push General MacArthur (their WWI favorite), etc., so the deal was made. This step weakened Republican resistance to improvements in military organization, training, and modernization. FDR, himself, passed over a number of higher standing officers to appoint General George C. Marshall as over-all strategic head of all U.S. armed forces anywhere. The wide scope, wide perception officer proved to be the most effective officer in the world throughout WWII and the most effective rebuilder of Europe in that century after WWII ended. The U.S. had passed a Neutrality Statute to make clear that the U.S. was not committed to and did not plan to favor or participate in any foreign war. This was intended both to avoid participation in the perennial shortsighted European wars and also to avoid potential internal wartime

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Heyer Saga favoritisms or antagonisms within a nation that generally felt it had been duped into entering WWI and chose to avoid a repetition. FDR was well aware of this need at the time, but recognized that ultimately we might have no choice. Germany was pushing Czechoslovakia. Italy was seizing bits of Southeast Europe and North- and East- Africa. Japan had been for years trying to nip off bits of Korea, Manchuria, etc., and these three would-be world conquerors signed a three-way Axis Pact undertaking to join forces on any occasion of resistance against any one of them. FDR, who had believed for decades that the U.S. should have permanently kept an adequate universal military training system, as most major nations did, set about to recreate such a system in the U.S. At that time, the U.S. Regular (fulltime) Army was less powerful and less well equipped than that of tiny Belgium! Despite some objections and resistance, Congress adopted this approach in the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, which was the first peacetime draft in U.S. history. The first step was to require every American male between certain ages to register for Selective Service training (the draft). Local draft boards were established throughout the nation to administer the new system involving blind lotteries, so that neither wealth, influence, nor other improper influences could affect either who was called for such training, the order of their being called, nor any other aspect of their service. About a million men were called into service in the first year of this program, not all at one time, but gradually. At the same time, the President called into national service (military duty) the entire U.S. National Guard (i.e., the state militias of every state) and the small U.S. Army Reserve. Thus, by supplementing the regular fulltime army with the smaller National Guard and a still tinier Army Reserve, FDR managed to collect about a million at least reasonably well-trained soldiers to serve as sergeants to train the first batch of draftees and thus double the size of the U.S. Army within one year. Chapter 21, page 247

Heyer Saga At first, equipment was in short supply because of years of neglect (FDR, however, managed to increase production, and arranged to induce newspapers to show recruits training with trucks. The trucks had large visible labels with the word tank on them to identify them as tanks for purposes of the training exercises. For effective control of the allocation of crucial national resources, FDR created yet another agency to direct such resources, in proper proportions, and to the most critical needs. This approach proved far more effective, efficient, and productive than the old fashioned practice of government trying to induce individual corporations to do government work at undependable prices over dependable periods of time. In this way the nation was able to direct what was needed by the nation on a higher priority basis than the preferences of purely private interests when necessary. This approach resulted in rapid increases in production of what was needed most urgently and brought productivity forward to levels far beyond anything ever previously achieved in the nation. Changes in the U.S. Navy had to move more slowly than in the Army because ships obviously take longer to build than do tanks, trucks, and jeeps. FDRs prior service as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in WWI influenced his realization that new kinds of vessels, including modernized aircraft carriers and some other lighter but more flexible and rapidly deployable craft were needed. The Navy was still building battleships, destroyers, etc., but the need for aircraft carriers became increasingly vital because of Japans heavy use of them. As the situation in Europe became more dire, efforts in the U.S. to raise productivity led to increasing trade with Britain, especially after war broke out in Europe between Britain, France, Poland, and Belgium on one side and Germany on the other. Hitlers Germany had previously gained control of Czechoslovakia in a deal that was supposedly a compromise to end German expansion, but shortly thereafter, Hitler seized Danzig (called Gdansk in Poland), bombed and invaded Poland, and rapidly gained control of the more populous part of Poland. A pitiful Polish cavalry charge against the Nazi invaders proved disastrous against powerful German Chapter 21, page 248

Heyer Saga tanks. In accordance with a secret deal between Hitler of Germany and Stalin of Russia (then known as the Soviet Union), the latter, at the same time, seized the eastern less populous part of Poland. Despite the British, French, and Belgian declaration of war against Germany in response to the Nazi attack on Poland, the three remaining allies sat on their hands, as the expression went, making no serious response against Hitler except to declare a blockade. Aside from the Los Angeles Daily News and a few other small newspapers, the large U.S. newspapers called the next few months the phony war, as if nothing important had or was going to happen. In fact, Hitler was sending his attack forces westward across Germany to invade Western Europe. Britain and France took no effective action against Germany while the latter was swallowing up Poland. The result was a rapid collapse and surrender of the Belgian and French armies when Hitler did attack, as well as the seizure of the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway. The fighting extended into several countries, but the most crucial part of it was Germanys attempt to fight its way through France to Paris. Only Britain and its Commonwealth survived, although great numbers of Western Europeans organized resistance to continue the struggle against Nazi Aggression in many various ways. d. Cooperation Although the U.S. was not yet able, either physically or psychologically, to enter directly into open war against the Nazis or the Fascists (Mussolini of Italy, once the Germans had crushed France, declared war on France to grab a desired bit of it), and despite a discouraging (some said defeatist) U.S. envoy in England, FDR and the new British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, arranged an ocean meeting in the Western Atlantic. This meeting changed the world. The two Atlantic heads of state agreed to a number of crucial cooperative steps: Chapter 21, page 249

Heyer Saga 1) Lend-Lease: The U.S. lent 50 over-aged destroyers to the British (for use in fighting against German submarines, which were seriously threatening British food and equipment supplies), and in return, the British leased to the U.S. a considerable number of strategically placed Western Atlantic bases then owned by the United Kingdom. By leasing these bases to the U.S., Britain became able to devote more of its human and other resources to fight Germany and Italy, while the U.S. could better protect itself against foreign threats and intrusion. 2) Arsenal of Democracy: In the course of their mutual communications thereafter, the two North Atlantic heads of state also agreed and publicly announced that the U.S. would henceforth be the Arsenal of Democracy by directing massive national resources and production to supply the United Kingdom with the resources it might need to prevail in the war against the Axis Powers. 3) Anti-submarine Warfare: Because the U.S. already had by far the most destroyers of any nation in the world and the United Kingdom, despite its huge fleet, had far too few, even after lend-lease, the U.S. would, for the rest of WW II, assume the task of protecting U.S., British, and other convoyed merchant ships by escorting them for a specified distance from the U.S. to the U.S. ports and back out to sea to the same distance again. Thus, the U.S. was actually taking on combat risks in the Western Atlantic Ocean to protect ocean shipping between the U.S. and the United Kingdom. The Neutrality Act ceased to be in effect, and U.S. sailors lives were at risk. Still, war was not yet declared by the U.S. against any nation, nor did any nation declare war against the U.S. Increasingly, outright war appeared likely to come soon, but no one wanted to precipitate it yet. Finally, a German submarine torpedoed and sank an American destroyer within the destroyers designated range from the U.S. shore, producing heavy loss of life. Even so, no one issued any proclamations or declarations.

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Heyer Saga In the meantime, however, the U.S. Army and Navy continued to complete the recruitment, expansion, and training that was readying the U.S. for any eventuality, as war in Europe extended to North Africa. FDR announced to Japan that, after a specified date, neither the U.S. nor Britain nor the Dutch-owned islands of the Pacific Ocean would provide Japan with any further oil unless Japan withdrew all its armed forces from China. This public announcement was a clear and obvious ultimatum to Japan and its leader Prime Minister Hideki Tojo. Obviously either Japan would have to abandon imperialisma huge shift in its national policyor Japan would declare war and attack. Japans history suggested that if it, attacked, the attack would be a surprise launched without warning against a crucial enemy naval base. Negotiations ensued for a few months. Then the main Japanese fleet disappeared from Tokyo, obviously on its way for serious business. Immediately, FDR, through General George C. Marshall (Chief of Staff with overall strategic military command), ordered the three highest ranking armed forces officials in the Pacific: Admiral Husband E. Kimmel (Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet), General Walter C. Short (Commander of Hawaiian Island Army base in Oahu), and General Douglas MacArthur in the Philippines (Commander of U.S. Armed Forces in the Asia-Pacific region) to place their forces on the alert and be ready for any eventuality. When attack did not occur on the first Sunday warning in November, the U.S. Strategic High Command in Washington repeated the warning to avoid any unsafe relaxation of the alert. The same repeated warning was transmitted on the third Sunday, December 7, 1941. Also around this time, a few other events occurred: 1) The largest squadron of U.S. long range bombers (made by the Boeing Corporation) was sent to the Philippines, presumably to enable General MacArthur, in case a Japanese attack should occur anywhere in the Pacific region, to respond forcefully and effectively Chapter 21, page 251

Heyer Saga by bombing the attacking Japanese ships, bases, or Japan itself (which these bombers, from the Philippines, could do, having the longest range, heaviest armament, and greatest bomber capacity of any aircraft in the world.) MacArthur informed the press that he had all the resources (including these new aircraft) to deal with any eventuality. A new instrument, later known as Radar, had recently been installed at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, which enabled its operators to detect incoming aircraft. The military officer in charge of the Radar failed to assure its continuous operation, but instead operated it only during limited hours. Even so, the crew chief of the Radar station reported in-coming unexpected aircraft, but the higher officer dismissed the warning, with ultimately serious consequences. Around the same period, a U.S. destroyer commander notified his supervisor that he had detected and destroyed an unidentified submarine trying to slip into Pearl Harbor in violation of the harbor rules and international law. Here, too, the higher officer dismissed and otherwise ignored this second warning. By this time, the newly enlarged army had become reasonably well trained and began to recruit a third million new potential soldiers, and, though it still was far too few for combat in Europe, nevertheless it was building the groundwork. By now, the U.S. Navy was becoming a true two-ocean reality. For years it had already had the largest destroyer fleet, it now had unquestionably the largest battleship fleet, its cruisers were numerous, and its aircraft carriers, though still outnumbered by those of Japan and mostly smaller, did include a first-rate, modern carrier and an outstanding carrier commander, Admiral Bill Halsey. Showing more initiative than the Pearl Harbor admiral, Halsey took his modern carrier and smaller, older ones out to sea to try to find the still undetected Japanese navy.

2)

3)

4)

5)

When the Central Command sent its third weekly warning to be on alert against Japanese attack, Admiral Kimmel and General Short, top officers at Pearl Harbor, and General Douglas MacArthur in the Philippines Chapter 21, page 252

Heyer Saga should have been sufficiently warned and ready to respond effectively. They had adequate experience. Unfortunately, all three failed shamefully, apparently overwhelmed by their racial prejudice, along with plain incompetence. In light of decades of experience, the Army defensive aircraft should have been ready, fueled, and prepared immediately to take off and respond to any air attack. Instead, these aircraft were bunched together in the center of the air base, where they were all destroyed by the initial air attack. Why? Because General Short assumed that the Japanese Navy would not dare to attack Pearl Harbor, but he was more concerned with the risk of sabotage by the large number of Japanese immigrants then living in Hawaii (while most of these residents were actually there to seek a better life, and Ive never heard that even one of them attempted any harm to the U.S. during the war). General MacArthur made essentially the same error in the Philippines, thereby wasting all the powerful and costly aircraft that had been sent him and therefore allowing the Japanese troop transports to arrive and quickly conquer the Philippine Islands. Admiral Kimmel, the Hawaiian Naval commander, made most of his blunders before the Japanese attack, failing to pay attention to the successive warnings from Washington, again because of his blinding racism! The two Pearl Harbor commanders lost their positions, as they deserved. MacArthur, however, was rescued by submarine from the Philippines and then put in charge of the Pacific War. Later, during the Korean War, his excessive ego and several additional major and dangerous blunders finally required his removal from command to avoid a land war with China and possibly Russia. After the Japanese attacks on Hawaii and the Philippine Islands, WWII was definitely a worldwide war. The U.S. declared war on Japan, Germany declared war on the U.S., Italy declared war on the U.S., the U.S. returned the favor, and the final steps were taken to fully mobilize al l resources to enhance efficiency and improve war production, eliminate Chapter 21, page 253

Heyer Saga private automotive production, restrict waste, assure access to war work regardless of race, creed, color, gender, etc. With MacArthur in charge of the Pacific Ocean, a regional commander was sought for Europe, and the U.S. sent another general to help Chinas Chiang Kai She to train and organize its military forces. American volunteer pilots (The Flying Tigers) and their aircraft were sent to China to fight the Japanese. The U.S. regional commander in Europe (and part of the Near East) was an experienced, former aide to MacArthur, Brigadier General Dwight Eisenhower. Ike, as he was known, was appointed with a relatively low military rank and rapidly promoted to raise his status to at least equal in rank to the prominent British, French, and other allied military commanders in Europe. His military rank during this period: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) Oct. 3, 1941, Brigadier General (1 Star) Mar. 28, 1942, Major General (2 Stars) July 9, 1942, Lt. General (3 Stars) Feb. 11, 1943, General (4 Stars) Dec. 20, 1944, General of the Army (5 Stars)

Eisenhowers task was to become acquainted with these foreign officers, collect needed information, and plan and carry out a coordinated North African regional destruction of all German and Italian forces in and near Libya. Of course this would require the U.S. to send an army to North Africa. After the research, planning, and negotiations were well under way, this first U.S. expeditionary army of WWII was sent to Algeria, then a French controlled territory ruled by the Vichy government that had surrendered to Germany. For this still inexperienced U.S. Army to attack in Europe would have been suicidal, but by seizing Algeria, Eisenhowers young U. S. Forces could get themselves established in N.W. Africa, behind the German-Italian armies then in Libya. At the same time, a British Army based in Egypt was Chapter 21, page 254

Heyer Saga carrying on a campaign to drive the Axis forces westward out of Libya. (The latter forces, though British, consisted largely of Australians and New Zealanders.) Despite some worrisome moments in the first WWII U.S. Army venture, this combined forces pincers movement to expel the Axis powers from North Africa succeeded, and the status of French General Charles de Gaulle rose from dependence on the United Kingdom, and the myth of Nazi invincibility was broken. By now, U.S. war production and leadership among the allies were clear. U.S. troops and naval forces, despite tough struggles, protected Australia and New Zealand, stopped the Japanese southward advance and began to push them back, and doom for the Axis powers became steadily clearer. Hitler chose to attack Russia, which the U.S. and the U.K. then set out to assist and supply from both the North (from the U.S. to northern Russia) and from the South through Iran. While Hitlers surprise attack on Russia (then known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) drove deep into Russia and looked threatening, as Nazi forces approached Moscow, smashed the main Russian southern army, and headed southeast toward vital oil centers, but the Russian winter blocked further progress. From this point on, the final phase of the war was in effect. In the Pacific region, although the Pearl Harbor debacle had cost many lives and rendered useless two outdated battleships, the shallow harbor and efficient production and repair operation brought the better battleships up to effective use again. More importantly, the U.S. aircraft carriers had escaped harm from the original attack and were now playing increasing roles against Japanese warships. Repulsed in the South Pacific, the Japanese Navy made distracting seizure of Aleutian Islands near Alaska and a second attack on

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Heyer Saga Hawaii. Better anti-aircraft defense this time, plus the growing U.S. carrier fleet, shattered the attacking Japanese carriers. From then on in the Pacific, the U.S. steadily closed in on Japan proper, bombing it, until two nuclear bombs forced surrender. Having expelled the Axis from Africa, Eisenhower and his European allies pushed northward into (Italian) Sicily. The official plan was for the slow-moving British commander to capture the next big obstacle farther north in Sicily. A very efficient but sometime erratic General George Patton moved faster on a different route, seizing the obstacle first, providing morale boosting pride to the young U.S. soldiers, and bringing the allies to where they could attack Italy itself, this time from two sides. This new southern front slowly slogged northward up Italy toward the Alps, the Italians rebelled against Mussolini and executed him, and switched to the U.S., leaving the Nazis to fight on alone. Eisenhower was then ordered north to Britain, to prepare, organize, and launch an allied invasion of northern France and the conquest of Germany. As the Commander of the Allied Forces in the European Theater of Operations, Ike had to coordinate and provide for the multiple intended procedures and actions, and to determine where, when, and how the forceful entry of Allied Forces into Europe was to occur. Russia managed to stop Hitlers advance and slowly began to drive Hitlers forces westward. FDR, by now, was guiding the Allies against Hitler and Tojo, meeting with other allies at times to negotiate and plan for the world, planning and activating his proposed United Nations organization (U.N.O. for a while, later shortened to U.N.) to replace the failed League of Nations, guiding the continuing war effort, and working out how the victorious allies would govern Europe after peace would be reestablished. This process included some in-person conferences with other allied heads of state, including roles for the U.S., U.K., France, and the U.S.S.R., such as the deal that provided

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Heyer Saga for Russia (then NOT at war with Japan) to attack Japan after Europe was fully pacified. Russia did so. When Eisenhower led the invasion of northern France (fighting Germans with help from various allies), the U.S. Army was fully developed and ready to undertake its task. Ultimately, the U.S. raised ten million servicemen and a number of non-combat women in military womens auxiliaries, and sent seven million overseas. Some Republican spokesmen have pretended that FDR failed to make the right decisions about how much conquered territory should be allowed to whom, in his last meeting with Stalin and Churchill. In fact, the Russian Army in Europe at that time and in the pertinent area was larger than the American Army in the same area. Moreover, upon surrender of the remaining remnant of the German Army (surely soon), Russia would no longer have any enemy it would have to face. The U.S. would still have Japan to defeat, possibly requiring an invasion of Japan, probably at great cost, judging by prior experience in the Pacific (battle toll deaths), and perhaps Japanese Army retreats into nearby Manchuria (now North East China), as expected by many experts, still further followed by American pursuit, and necessarily more loss of life. FDRs deal was, We (the U.S.) should stop where we are, make no further advance, and you (Russia) help us by attacking the Japanese in Manchuria (western side), while we push Japan from the east (Ocean side). Stalin agreed, and in due time, lived up to his promise. The nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki eased the Americans way to Japan, a result not certain or clear in advance. The Russians had no such short cut, but their advance was overwhelming, as revealed by information in a military museum in Khabarovsk, near the Amur River and the East Coast of Russia (I had visited there during my 1998 Central Asia tour mentioned elsewhere).

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Heyer Saga e. Brief Summary of FDRs Accomplishments Roosevelt, intended, after serving out his fourth presidential term, ending the war, and helping Europe back on its feet, to go abroad and work for the improvement of other countries, but suffered a stroke that ended his life on April 12, 1945, just months before the end of the war. In the course of his presidency, Franklin D. Roosevelt accomplished more of lasting value for his country and its people than any other three presidents in our history, if not more than all of them together. He raised his country from ruin in 1933 to recovery, glory, and restoration by the time of his demise. Both before and throughout his career in public life at least from 1910 onward, FDR thought and perceived unusually deeply and perceptively, and acted conscientiously and wisely in a continuing effort to help his fellow humans to recognize that ultimately, every human must depend on and assist every effort, directly or indirectly, in order to allow all to survive and improve their lives. Herein, I could mention only a tiny fraction of what he accomplished in his life in that noble effort. He rescued his nation from agony, poverty, fundamental irresponsibility, outrageous injustice and widespread oppression, drought, waste of resources, and ultimately the threat of foreign conquest. He steadily mobilized, reorganized, equipped, trained, rebuilt, and reoriented the U.S. Armed Forces, so that, in the end, he changed the U.S. from a trivial power militarily (about 800 active soldiers) to about 10 million on duty, including 7 million in the U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, WACS, WAVES, air transport flyers, etc. He enabled the U.S. to supply its allies and with them to crush the dictators and restore humanity, overcoming innumerable obstacles in the process. One of FDRs scores of major national upgrades in rebuilding sanity, fairness, and balance after the 1920-1929 insanity was improvement of the local system bearing on labor-management negotiations, thus ending the 1920s auto industry practice of hiring thugs to beat up workers that sought Chapter 21, page 258

Heyer Saga improved wages or working conditions, and also to end the use of sweat shops and police thuggery. f. WWII Women in the U.S. Armed Forces In early 1941, FDR signed a bill establishing the Womens Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), later converted to the Regular Army and renamed Womens Army Corps (WAC). By 1942, other military service branches also recruited women: 1) 2) U.S. Navy, WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) U.S. Army Air Corps, Womens Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron). In 1943 it was folded into the WASP, Womens Air Force Service Pilots. U.S. Marine Corps Womens Reserve. U.S. Coast Guard Womens Reserve (nicknamed SPARS). FDRs Second, Third, and Fourth reelections

3) 4) 1)

In FDRs second campaign for reelection in 1936, the public desire to keep FDR in the White House became so great that the Republican candidate, Alf Landon, lost all but two states, Maine and Vermont. Wendell Wilkie, FDRs Republican opponent in his 1940 third reelection campaign, did better than Landon had, but still lost. Willkies outlook seems not to have differed as much from FDR as his other opponents had. Willkie traveled to Britain and the Near East in 1941 as FDRs personal representative and, in 1942, visited the USSR and China in the same capacity. In November of 1944, Roosevelt won reelection to his fourth term of office and was inaugurated on January 20, 1945. On April 12, 1945, just months before the end of WWII, a major stroke ended his life in Warm Springs, Georgia, where he was recuperating from the exhaustion of the Yalta Conference with Churchill and Stalin on February 18, 1945. Chapter 21, page 259

Heyer Saga Not long before his death, despite his long public service as U.S. Navy Under Secretary, Governor of New York, and election to four terms as U.S. President, FDR expressed his intention, after ending the war and completing his term of office, to travel abroad to help Europe back on its feet and to provide further public service to ailing foreign nations. Like Lincoln, FDR truly gave his last full measure of devotion to his country.

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Heyer Saga

CHAPTER 22: NEAR GREAT U.S. PRESIDENTS

Woodrow Wilson Grover Cleveland sought the presidency three consecutive times and each time received a higher popular vote than before. He was elected on the first and last tries, but opposition manipulation kept him off the middle term. He was quoted as saying, famously, that public office is a public trust. In that period of widespread chicanery, that was a worthy expression of sound principle, but it does not reach the stature of greatness, or even near greatness. 1. Woodrow Wilson was a university professor who was promoted to University President, and became so prominent in that position that he became the Democratic candidate for president in the 1912 election, winning against Theodore Teddy Roosevelt (who was seeking a third term as president) and former friend and supporter, William Howard Taft. Both Republican candidates ran in the same year because the party had nominated Taft, expecting Teddy to retire, since he had initially supported Taft, but he later decided to be his own flashy Bull Moose party. During the campaign, someone shot and wounded Teddy, so Wilson offered to halt his campaign until Teddy was back on his feet. Teddy declined the offer, and received more votes than the Republican Party nominee. Wilson, however, won the election and served two terms as president. Wilson had published, before his election campaign, a deeply perceptive analysis of congressional policies and practices. He was thus, I believe, the only American president to reach that position by being a scholar, but of course the unusual election played a significant role. As president, Woodrow Wilson improved the economy by (1) reducing the tariff, (2) helping to establish the Federal Reserve Banking system in 1913, (3) and trying to avoid involvement in World War I from Chapter 22, page 261

Heyer Saga 1914 to early 1917. Even so, public pressure, British propaganda, the loss of American lives in the sinking of an allegedly peaceful unarmed merchant ship by a German submarine, and other factors led to a declaration of war against Germany on April 6, 1917. He (4) famously defined the war aims of the U.S. in his famous Fourteen Points, (5) proposed the formation of the League of Nations, and (6) recruited nations to join by going to Europe and campaigning, invoking great enthusiasm for the League. He then returned to the U.S. to press for U.S. membership in the League. In 1919, the 18th amendment (total prohibition of alcoholic beverages in the U.S.) passed despite his veto. Certainly alcohol abuse was widespread and had been harmful, but experience since then has shown that total prohibition made the situation far worse, rather than better. Though overruled at the time, his veto proved to have been the sound choice. (FDR ended the 18th amendment rules as rapidly as possible when he took office). Years later, old archives proved that the ship-sinking that led the U.S. into WWI and that had cost so many lives had actually been so costly because the British ship had been filled with explosives, in addition to the U.S. passengers, contrary to the accepted Articles of War! That is part of why some Americans were hesitant to help the United Kingdom in World War II. President Wilson supported Womens Suffrage, the universal right of U.S. women to vote in all U.S. elections (a few U.S. states had already allowed that within their own borders). While still campaigning for the U.S. to join the League of Nations, Wilson suffered a permanently debilitating stroke. In my opinion, the six outstanding accomplishments of President Wilson entitle him to be recognized as one of the nations finer presidents, certainly near great. Being overruled by Congress on joining the League and by the nation on prohibition, however, we have to accept that even the most valiant Chapter 22, page 262

Heyer Saga attempt, which he certainly made, was not a lasting improvement. Hence I refrain from calling him one of the four truly greats. We can recognize him, though, as a near-great president. Harry Truman 2. Harry Truman, as FDRs vice president, succeeded the great warrior, as FDR was remembered after his demise. Truman felt that succeeding FDR was a heavy and daunting burden, but he set about promptly to carry on FDRs methods, plans, and goals, getting the G.I. Bill effectuated, the United Nations founded, WWII brought to conclusion (almost immediately in Europe, but months longer in Asia), working out the details of post-war occupations in Europe and Asia, etc. He also officially ended discrimination against African Americans in the armed services, and called on General Marshall, the over-all architect of the entire worldwide strategy in WW II, to create and manage a program of economic, social, and geographic recovery throughout Europe, outside the Russian-controlled area. Britain, the U.S., and Russia (then the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) had agreed on joint control of Iran, sufficient to assure free flow of goods, supplies, and weapons to Russia during WWII. The goal had been successful, but, with the war over, Truman did not want to continue the arrangement. Yet Britain and Russia distrusted each other with reason, because they both wanted control of Iran, as Britain had had before the war. (Russia wanted direct access to the Indian Ocean, and the United Kingdom wanted all the Near East. Truman insisted that all three intruders leave, and that is what happened. All U.S. armed forces experts have long agreed that geography dictates: The U.S. should never become involved on the Asian mainland.) Perhaps the toughest issue was nuclear war. It had not happened, but, at Albert Einsteins urging, FDR had authorized research and action to assure that the U.S. would be able to use it before Germany did. This process led to nuclear testing in the U.S. Chapter 22, page 263

Heyer Saga Military experts inferred that the fight-to-the-death approach of Japanese troops during the long, slow conquest of Japanese held Pacific islands would even be worse in case of invasion into the main islands of Japan itself, and warned that even the conquest of those home islands themselves might not end the war, because their army might withdraw into adjacent Manchuria, where they could fight on. Harry Truman considered the alternatives, learned that a test had looked favorable, that a nuclear bomb was completed, and that another bomb was to be completed as soon as possible. He then warned Japan to surrender immediately or expect unidentified dire consequences. They did not surrender. He then ordered an atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima, a city on the home island, which occurred on August 8, 1945. The result was devastating. The Soviet Union, in accordance with its Tehran and Yalta Conference promises to the U.S. and the United Kingdom, declared war on Japan on August 9, 1945, and invaded the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. On that same day, Truman ordered a second atomic bomb attack, also on the main island, against the city of Nagasaki, with comparable devastation. The Emperor now intervened, ordering the Japanese Supreme Council for the Direction of the War (the Big Six) to accept the Allied terms to end the war. President Truman appointed General Douglas MacArthur as Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers in Japan. Occupation of Japan by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers began on August 28, 1945, and the official surrender ceremony was held aboard the U.S.S. Missouri battleship on September 2, 1945. On June 25, 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea. Because of the urgent situation and the remoteness of other available armed forces, the United Nations Security Council, on June 27, recommended that member nations furnish assistance to South Korea to repel the attack and restore international peace and security in that area. Then on July 8, 1950, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff advised President Truman to appoint General Chapter 22, page 264

Heyer Saga Douglas MacArthur as commander of the United Nations forces in South Korea. After a time, however, further overstepping of authority by MacArthur finally led Truman to replace him. After completing FDRs fourth term, Truman sought and received another term in his own right, despite a confident announcement by a major newspaper that his Republican opponent, Thomas Dewey, had won. Most people trusted the combined five terms in the presidency (FDR and Truman) that achieved so much against such great odds. In the end, Truman achieved in his own term a number of important, progressive steps, and certainly must at least be regarded as a near great. Some count him a truly great, but, since most of his accomplishments were the fulfillment of FDRs initiative and insight, I must demur. I must add, though, that it seems to me just, that after Kimmel and Short were cashiered from their positions for their irresponsibility in the Pearl Harbor attack of 1941, MacArthur, who had been equally irresponsible on the same occasion, should finally join them, when a bow to political necessity was no longer necessary. John F. Kennedy 3. John F. Kennedy (JFK), second son of Joseph Kennedy mentioned earlier, was elected to the U.S. presidency and took office in 1961. His elder brother Joseph had been the familys choice for the position, but he had lost his life in WWII. JFKs election, even before he did anything, broadened his nation by his being both Irish (by surname and ancestry) and Catholic. (One of the 13 colonies had been created as a refuge for Catholics, but none had previously been elected president.) JFK convinced the U.S. Senate and a fearful public to support the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and the Alliance for Progress Treaty. Elected at age 44, his youth, physical and social attractiveness, and the elegant language of the White House couple immediately made them celebrities beyond any White House couple before or since. In this respect, perhaps only Dolly Madison came close. But none of that is relevant to Kennedys achievements as president. Chapter 22, page 265

Heyer Saga When Russia gave Cuba nuclear weapons, President Kennedy immediately blockaded Cuba and cut it off from any seaborne contact with Russia. Both the situation and the adversaries were tense and a major war close to home was feared. Figuratively, young JFK stared down the Soviet Union, the threatening missiles were removed, and no outright RussoAmerican war has ever occurred, unless one counts the pointless WWI attempt to induce Russia to rejoin a hopeless struggle against Germany. The next major issue was the civil rights struggle that arose between African-Americans and their mostly southeastern (formerly Confederate) oppressors. For the first time, since efforts to establish justice in that part of the country had been discontinued by President Hayes in 1877, President Kennedy took steps to civilize the former actual and would-be slave owners. New national laws were adopted, troops were brought in, segregation by color was outlawed, and the President himself toured the south to try to calm the tyrants. The traditional response of the Deep South (Mississippi, Alabama, etc.) was murder. JFK was murdered in the third year of his first term in office. So this forward-looking, bright young hero, too, gave his life for justice in his country. JFKs courage, good will, accomplishments, and valiant efforts entitle him to be recognized as an outstanding president and at least a near great. In his time, I believe, many people counted him as truly great, and I would like to agree, but the standard set forth early in this chapter does not support that view. Again, as before, his was a valiant and noble effort, but it failed to produce a blossom in his lifetime. Before we leave young President John F. Kennedy, we should remember his short but sound admonition: Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. When every American mentally, physically, and financially able to support him- or her-self, has adopted this philosophy, then the U.S. will be truly a great nation.

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Heyer Saga Lyndon B. Johnson Although JFKs political staff (brother Robert and other Cabinet members) distrusted Southern Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, a Near Eastern assassin murdered Robert Kennedy. Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as president after the death of JFK. He was elected to a full term in 1964 and continued JFKs efforts loyally, and ultimately, was largely successful. President Lyndon Johnson served out the remainder of JFKs term and worked hard to achieve the late President John F. Kennedys goals and dreams, through some combination of these and other factors, by the time President Johnsons term ended. By this time the U.S. had become a more civilized place, African-Americans could vote, earn decent wages, and mostly receive justice. This was another long delayed, but ultimately secured, leap forward. The job is not done, but Kennedy and Johnson, between them, brought meaningful progress. When progress occurs, there is hope for further progress. Here, as before, we have a near-great president. Johnson is not, however, a truly great president, because his consensus seeking also led him to support an invasion of another nation which did not attack the U.S. first. That is a violation of fundamental principles of our country, as noted in other cases above. It is also a violation of sound military policy for our country, as all wise military experts have always known. The U.S. cannot swallow Asia! That would be like the proverbial Frog swallowing the Ox (in a famous story). It cannot succeed in the real world. 5. The Other Roosevelt, Theodore, like George Washington and FDR, was wealthy and self-confident. He engineered a coup to separate the province of Panama from Colombia to gain control of the new nation (of Panama) in order to build a canal across it. A French company had previously tried, but failed, to build such a canal. Teddys action was meant Chapter 22, page 267

Heyer Saga to increase the power and prestige of the U.S. and provide a shorter route for ships sailing between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. As a result, the canal was built a little sooner than by negotiating an agreement with Columbia. Teddys actions further damaged U.S. standing in the Americas and the world, even worrying Russia about U.S. aggression. More importantly, it violated the fundamental foundation and nature of the U.S., making it an aggressor and foe of freedom, independence, and separateness of nations and the right of each nation to determine its own government. He did also, however, accomplish some worthy achievements, including: regulating trusts, corporations, and railroads. He undertook irrigation and reclamation of arid lands, creation of forest reserves, inland waterways, and accomplished passing of the Pure Food and Drug Act as well as taking a few other steps useful to the nation. Hence, these factors preclude a judgment that Theodore Roosevelt was a truly great president. He was, however, a near-great president, on the basis of his last mentioned achievements, but not of his imperialistic ventures. All of chapter 22 may be summarized in the following four sentences: 1. 2. 3. 4. The U.S. has had 44 presidents to date. (2012) It has had four truly great presidents. It has had five near-great presidents. It has had many average or unsatisfactory presidents, and a few downright evil ones.

This is the typical case of most collections of humans, and would fit my impression of all the people I have ever met: most are good, honest people doing what they should, some unusually able or conscientious, some less able, a few dishonest but not dangerous, and a tiny number downright vicious!

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Heyer Saga It is still too early, as I write this page, to know whether Barack Hussein Obama, our first American president known to have some African ancestry, will or will not be a truly great or near-great president. He certainly has been, and still is, attempting to give this nation an improvement in health care access, fairness, and opportunities, and greater educational opportunities. For the first time in three decades, the U.S. Supreme Court supports this effort, but the Irresponsibles, who dont really care about justice or fairness to all our citizens, but only care about their own special interests, are out in force. We shall see. ONLY TIME WILL TELL . . .

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CHAPTER 23: THREE STATE GOVERNORS AND A U.S. SENATOR

Three outstanding state governors and a special U.S. Senator 1. DeWitt Clinton

Some great, near-great, and other U.S. Presidents have been mentioned in the previous two chapters above. Our nation has also produced some outstanding state governors. Probably the best known of these is a governor of the state of New York, DeWitt Clinton. Despite opposition to Clintons Folly, construction of the Erie Canal began in 1817 and was completed in 1825. Clinton proposed, pushed, initiated, and carried to completion the construction of the Erie Canal, connecting and greatly improving transportation from the Atlantic Ocean up the Hudson River northward, and ultimately westward, to the Great Lakes, and finally Chicago, thereby greatly increasing the populations and prosperity of both New York State and the Old Midwest. At the time, this was probably the most ambitious public works project in the history of the United States, all done by one state. 2. Pat Brown

Edmund G. Pat Brown is the father of the present California governor Jerry Brown. He acquired the nickname Pat after the delivery of the stirring words, originally spoken by Patrick Henry, ending with the words, Give me Liberty or give me Death. I believe this was from when he was a college student. That Governor Brown was Californias first (and, so far, only outstanding state Governor). He managed, against all odds, to induce both Northern and Southern California to cooperate in establishing a system in Chapter 23, page 270

Heyer Saga which the Northern counties could avoid regular annual floods and the Central Valley and Southern counties could gain a more adequate water supply. Dams were built in the North, farmers gained in the Central Valley, and Southern California, always the most populous of these three parts, has grown to become the major portion of one of the most populous states in our nation. 3. Sam Houston

Texas also had an outstanding governor, Sam Houston. He led the Texans in Texas lone war for independence from Mexico, and by capturing the Mexican General Santa Ana, secured Texas brief independence. He thwarted a desire of some other Texans to murder Santa Ana. His later effort to prevent Texas secession in the Civil War failed. 4. Carl Schurz

A fourth outstanding U.S. patriot, though not a governor, was Carl Schurz, pronounced Shirtz, U.S. Senator from Missouri. (There may well have been others, of whom I am not aware.) He was born in Germany in 1829, died in 1906, and came to the U.S. after the failed liberal revolutions in Germany. In 1855, he first settled in Watertown, Wisconsin, where he immediately joined the new Republican Party and the anti-slavery movement, and spoke on behalf of Abraham Lincoln during the Lincoln-Douglas debates (mostly in German to German Americans). His wife, Margarette, was instrumental Kindergarten system in the United States. in establishing the

Schurz was admitted to the Wisconsin bar and practiced law. In an 1859 speech, he attacked the Fugitive Slave Act, arguing for States rights on this issue. He failed in efforts to become Lieutenant Governor, and the

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Heyer Saga governor of Wisconsin. In the 1860 GOP National Convention, he represented Wisconsin. Lincoln sent him in 1861 to Spain, as U.S. Ambassador. There, he quietly dissuaded Spain from supporting the secession during the American Civil War. (Heads of state in Britain and France did try to intervene but their own people objected, and Russia sent a squadron of ships to further discourage such intervention.) Schurz also persuaded Lincoln to appoint him Brigadier General in the Union Army, and later was promoted to Major General, took part in major battles, headed a Corps of Instruction (i.e., teaching), and finally returned to combat with General Shermans army in North Carolina during the last months of the war. He resigned from the Army when the war ended. Andrew Johnson, new President upon the murder of Lincoln, sent Schurz to study conditions in the defeated secessionist states, but Schurzs reply and advice was ignored (1865). From 1866 to 1868, Schurz moved, edited some eastern newspapers, hired Joseph Pulitzer as a cub reporter, revisited Germany, interviewed Otto von Bismarck, proposed repudiation of war debts, and supported the gold standard. In 1869, Schurz became the first German American Senator (representing Missouri), where he earned a reputation as a speaker, advocating fiscal responsibility, anti-imperialism, and integrity in government. He broke with the Grant administration, starting the Liberal Republican movement in Missouri. He also was a member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, opposed Grants Southern policy plan to annex Santo Domingo, and took part in investigation of arms sales to (and cartridge manufacture for) the French Army by the U.S. during the FrancoPrussian War (late 1800s). In 1872, Schurzs Liberal Republican Party Convention departed from his own preference, Charles Francis Adams. Thomas Nast, a political Chapter 23, page 272

Heyer Saga cartoonist of the time, regularly attacked Schurz for his independent views. In the 1876 election campaign, Schurz supported Hayes for the presidency. Hayes, in turn, appointed him Secretary of the Interior and followed his advice on other cabinet post appointments. Schurz reformed his department, blocked Shermans attempt to transfer the Office of Indian Affairs to the War Department, ended previous political patronage in his office, and the use of Indian Reservations for personal enrichment. He also instituted wide scale inspections, dismissed several officials and imposed civil service reforms based on merit! Later he also promoted a policy of assimilation of Native Americans into the larger society. When anti-Semites in Germany opposed erection of a statue to honor poet Heinrich Heine, Schurzs activism aided in the transfer of that statue to New York. He himself followed to New York in 1881, managed two newspapers there, and left in 1883. After starting out in the U.S. as a member of the new Republican Party to support Lincoln and the anti-slavery movement, Carl Schurz had shifted to his newer Liberal Republican party and back, and now in 1884, he became a leader in the still newer Independent or Mugwump movement against James Blaine and for Democrat Grover Cleveland (public service is a public duty). He then became president of the National Reform League until July 1901, and spoke for the anti-Tammany Hall ticket in New York City. He opposed William Jennings Bryan once but supported him later against imperialism and opposed McKinleys annexations of Spanish territory after the Spanish-American War. In 1904 Schurz supported the unsuccessful Democratic presidential candidate. Thus we can see that, though never a state governor, he was always a great patriot devoted to his country and to principle, and to his fellow humans, as every citizen should be. He was intelligent, wise, perceptive, sincere, and influential. He became the first German-American National Senator and later the head of a federal cabinet department. Chapter 23, page 273

Heyer Saga Carl Schurz deserves to be remembered and emulated. He kept his relationship with the German-American expatriate community and in 1893 said, He is not worthy of the old fatherland who is not one of the most faithful citizens of the new. He mentioned the great composite nation of the new world, and pointed out that the rule of honor . . . for a power so strongly situated . . . as this Republic is . . . not to pocket real insults, but also not, as our bullish jingoists wish to do, to swagger . . . among the nations . . . shaking its fist. Avoid hysterics. Be slow to take the offense. Be the peace power.

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CHAPTER 24: SHAKESPEARE AND THE LAWYERS

After passing the California State Bar examination and becoming a member of the State and Federal Bars, I regularly received their respective periodic journals, reporting changes in the law, proceedings of national and various state bar associations, various specialized subjects, penalties imposed by selected volunteer Bar officials for misconduct by members of the Bar, etc. I read every issue thoroughly. The California Bar Association, because of its large size, was able to offer its members life insurance protection up to age 80 (through private commercial corporations at reasonable cost), a potent boon to our family. Two different items appeared in the National Bar Journal that especially caught my eye. The first was a short series expressing a diversity of opinions by a number of attorneys who submitted their opinions on who really composed the works published under the title, Selected Works of William Shakespeare. At the time, it seemed odd to indulge in such a debate in a legal journal when the outcome could not have any legal significance, though at least one person tried to manufacture one. Years later, however, my son, Jeff, lent me a book written by J. Thomas Looney (rhymes with Sony) (18701944), originator of the Oxfordian theory regarding the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. The conclusion was that William Shakespeare of Avon could not, for a number of reasons, have been the actual author. Although his name was Shakespeare, seemingly spelled in every imaginable and some surprisingly odd ways, he left no writings but a weird will, leaving to his wife his second best bed. His only other plausible two writings relate to mundane local quarrels and are sloppily and inelegantly composed. The style, if one can call it style at all, was incompatible with that of the real Shakespeare, who wrote the beautiful Chapter 24, page 275

Heyer Saga sonnets and plays so beloved among so many literate English-speaking people. After reading the book, I decided to read the typical writings of various people suggested as the true Bard. After spending years reading decisions of other ALJs, recognizing and comparing writing styles made it easy to recognize who wrote what from that style. Every person uses pet words, phrases, and constructions. No one mistakes Julius Caesars terse style for Ciceros longwinded and flowery style, or my style for that of my father, brother, sister, mother, or those of any of my colleagues, children, or grandchildren. A few paragraphs written by the Bard could never be mistaken by a person attentive to style, for any of the several persons asserted by the Bar Association attorneys to have been the Bards, nor to the one who couldnt spell. It could only have been one man: the 17th Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere, a Catholic supporter of Queen Elizabeth, would-be conqueror of Spanish oppressors of the Dutch, and a person whose life in many ways paralleled that of Miguel de Cervantes of Spain. They both lived around roughly the same time, both thought in medieval terms, but in a world that was done with medievalism and moving toward early attempts at modernism. Reading a few paragraphs or stanzas of the Bards writings and a few paragraphs of any of the usually supposed bards quickly makes clear that not only their writing styles, but also their grammar and sentence structures are, although all English, utterly distinct. For example, the real Bards archaic grammatical constructions display different usage from all other writers of the time. [Perhaps part of the reason for this is that de Vere was born in a generation earlier than the usually proposed (Bards), but also because the real Bard (de Vere of Oxford) had a very different outlook and was much brighter than the bard of Avon person.] Chapter 24, page 276

Heyer Saga De Vere, Earl of Oxford, aside from being the highest ranking earl in the country, was thoroughly educated, studied and wrote Latin, published a translation of works by ancient Romans, and became recognized for this ability when he was still a youngster. Various passages from his early works are repeated verbatim in some of the Bards later productions. The modern standard view, at least in my youth, was that the Avon man wrote the great works, but in some cases started from older versions and improved them. But a great writer, as the real so-called Shakespeare was, certainly would not have built his greatest works on the efforts of a child, but rather, have started from his own adult inspiration. Even if one ignores the stylistic and linguistic differences mentioned above, such a course would certainly seem extremely unlikely. Instead, the child, using a number of comments from childhood, would have used the same passages in the adult version, when he reached adulthood. Finally, several passages from the Collected Works of Shakespeare make no sense at all, unless the reader or listener is aware of their connection with the life of the Earl of Oxford. For example, in the play Hamlet, this young orphaned Danish nobleman pretends to be insane in order to avoid being murdered by his new custodian, the new King of Norway and the actual murderer of Hamlets father (as Hamlet knows). Yet on one occasion, because Hamlets sweetheart Ophelia, is becoming unhinged by concern over Hamlets seeming insanity, he tries to assuage her concern obliquely, by declaring, I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw. Thinking only of the characters in the play, and that the real people they portray were long dead, and that this statement would be nonsensical, so the Bard could have no reason to insert it. He nevertheless did so precisely because his contemporary audience knew that de Vere, himself, had invested repeatedly in sea adventures endeavoring to reach and use a supposed Northwest Passage from England across the Atlantic Ocean and farther north and west, north of Canada and from there around North America to the wealth of East Asia. All these efforts had failed, at great financial cost to de Vere and the Chapter 24, page 277

Heyer Saga audiences knew that, so inserting Hamlets comment into a situation that, in the real time of Hamlet, would have been far in the unknowable future, must have been a natural and easy way for the author, de Vere, to get a good laugh from the audience. The odd hiding of all this until recently has arisen from the feeling among the powerful Britons of de Veres time, especially including de Veres official (effectively royal) custodian, that concealment was required because, like Hamlet, de Veres own father had died before de Vere reached adulthood, and that high-ranking nobles like de Vere should not be publicly acknowledged for having any role in such a non-noble field as writing plays, however much they were enjoyed by other nobles!

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CHAPTER 25: WORLD PEACE THROUGH LAW

World Peace through Law Conferences and Other Travels a. World peace through law I took special interest in the aforementioned National Bar Journal, of an effort by the retiring president of the American Bar Association to create a new program called the World Peace through Law Center. There already had been a Bar Association section focusing on the principles, rules, nature, processes, etc., of international law. The new proposal, however, was to create The World Peace Through Law Center, to persuade the Nations of the World to accept more treaties and conventions, so as to expand the network of transnational law and legal institutions, thus fostering the development of a World of Peace with Justice in all areas of international contact of Peoples and Nations. The founder and president of this new organization was Charles S. Rhyne, retired former president of the National Bar Association, and his office served as headquarters of the WPTL Center. It held international conferences every two years for a considerable number of years. The passage of time and my advanced age blurs my recollection, so I can only report in vague terms. Early conferences were held in Washington, D.C., Greece, Ivory Coast, Yugoslavia, Burma, Switzerland, and Thailand. In those days neither our finances nor the ages of our young children would have been compatible with overseas travel, but biennial reports on topics, locations, and proceedings of conferences proved interesting. The eighth conference was held in Washington, D.C. in 1975. I did attend that, met a number of interesting attorneys from numerous countries around the

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Heyer Saga world, and seemed to see a genuine desire and hope for reasonableness and rationality in the world among many of the attendees. I attended the next six WPTL conferences held in Manila, Philippines (1977), Madrid, Spain (1979), Sao Paulo, Brazil (1981), Cairo, Egypt (1983), West Berlin, Germany (1985), and Seoul, Korea (1987). I was invited to, and did attend, the 1979 conference in Madrid, Spain. (Before World War II, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy had assisted Fascist General Francisco Franco in destroying democracy in Spain and making Spain a Fascist land. Franco remained in power throughout most of WWII, but avoided direct participation in that war. On Francos death in 1975, the relatively young King Juan Carlos I, who attended (briefly) the ninth WPTL Conference when I did finally replace him). From Spain, I also took a one-day side trip from Gibraltar to Tangier in Morocco just across the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea. After returning to Spain, I took the Eurail (an inexpensive way to travel in Western Europe) to Germany to visit Bchenau in the state of Hesse (also sometimes called Hessen), from which our Heyer ancestor, Johannes Heyer, came. After that, I attended and wrote papers for every biennial conference, until 1989, when the peaceful protests and ultimate massacre occurred in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. Martha Rose, who had been studying the Chinese language for some time, and I had planned to attend the World Peace through Law (WPTL) conference that year, but changed our minds and cancelled our trip. The WPTL announced its official cancellation of the conference by then. My son Jeff had accompanied me to the WPTL conference held in Cairo, Egypt, where he sat in on sessions. While there, we visited the Great Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops) at Giza, outside Cairo. Although I was too claustrophobic to go inside, Jeff went all the way in to the Kings Chamber. The height of the passageway was 47.3 inches and the narrow ledge was only 41 inches wide, with the solid stonewall on one side and a drop-off on Chapter 25, page 280

Heyer Saga the other side with no guardrail. Visitors entering and exiting shared that same narrow passageway. On that occasion I was offered a ride on a camel, but I declined because I had reached the resolution not to ride on animals. I dont recall whether Jeff did or not. We also visited the Cairo Museum of Antiquities. b. Trip to England From Cairo, we flew to England to visit my daughter Diana, her husband John Gainer, and their children, Eileen and Ethan, who lived in the small village of Bury St. Edmund in West Suffolk. My memory is not clear on the sightseeing we did while there, so Ive asked Diana to mention some of the sites. She responded as follows: . . . the village was officially called, West Stow and Anglo-Saxon Village because it was next door to a living village (West Stow) and was a reconstruction of an actual Anglo-Saxon village that had been excavated by archeologists at some point. We never saw anybody like a park ranger there. I know we went to the Tower of London because we got a great photo of him standing at attention in the little booth used by one of the Beefeaters (the guards in their medieval dress who were still around, although no longer doing any guarding). We went to the ruins of the abbey at Bury St. Edmunds, since that was nearby. I know one of the times we went there, mother ducks were swimming in the ponds (or streams or whatever) with lots of little baby ducks. The outdoor market was at Bury, too (well, so was the indoor market, for that matter, but we usually went to Bury on Market Day for the fresh stuff which was all outdoors). We usually took visitors to Orford Castle, which was really just one round tower that remained from an old and originally much larger castle. It had winding staircases in it that always made me a little nervous because you had the stonewall on one side, but then nothing on the other, no rail, no wall, no anything but the sight of the stairs winding up and down. You could Chapter 25, page 281

Heyer Saga go up to the top and look out over the sea, because Orford was on the coast. The other castle we usually took visitors to was Framlingham, which was kind of the opposite of Orford. Framlingham was inland and the whole middle was gone -- it was just the so-called curtain wall. So from the outside it looked very impressive, as if the whole thing were there. But then you'd go through the entrance and it was a big empty field inside. They did have stairs so you could go up and walk around the whole thing, up high and looking over the parapets (which scared John's poor Mom terribly because she had an awful fear of heights). This walkway and the stairs too were modern additions. About the only thing I remember about this castle besides that bit is that during the Victorian era it was used as the proverbial "poor house." We went to see some stone circles too, because Jeff was especially interested in those. One was called "Nine Ladies" so there were probably nine stones in this circle. They were little stones, unlike Stonehenge. These were small enough you could sit on them or stand with one foot on top. Somebody modern had thoughtfully carved his name into one of the stones -- somebody with a very dull name like Joe Schmoe or John Jones. The other stone circle had very large stones but they were all lying flat. It wasn't because they had fallen over either. It was always like that. It seems there was one stone all by itself in one area and then the circle a fair distance away. At the moment I can't remember what this one was named. It also seems like at least one of the stones had a lot of fossils in it, like maybe trilobites or something coiled that is reminiscent of the way a snail's shell is coiled, but it was originally a sea creature. If my brain were functioning, I'm sure Id know the real name of this critter but it refuses to come forth just now. I do recall Dad telling me -- maybe when we were looking at this stone -- that Neanderthals collected fossils like that once upon a time. It's also possible that he told me about the Neanderthal collectors some other time.

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Heyer Saga I know the kids were very small at that time and so we got babysitters for them when we'd go to these places -- except for local spots, like Bury, and sometimes West Stow and Anglo-Saxon village. I know we went some places with the kids when Dad and Jeff were here, because some time later, Jeff sent some pictures of Rachel with a hand drawn speech balloon in which he had her saying, "I have a bad taste in my mouth!" I don't know if you remember, but she got carsick whenever we drove anywhere and this was what she'd say just before she threw up. She got so used to saying this when she was in the car that after a while, she'd say it as soon as we were in the driveway, getting ready to get in the car. In fact, I think she even announced this when we were still in the house getting the kids jackets on them -- that time Dad and Jeff were there -- and they laughed at her because the car wasn't even in sight yet (and she did not like being laughed at). I also remember Ethan trying very hard to play with those big Legos and struggling so hard to make them go together that his little fat arms were actually vibrating with the effort (he didn't know yet about aligning the holes and pegs). And Jeff came over to help him, calling him, "little fella," but Ethan didn't want help. He wasn't two years old yet and could hardly say any words at all, but he was very much into, "I want to do it myself!" That's what comes to mind at this moment. What an odd collection! Oh, John just came through and mentioned we took you to Saxtead Mill. It was a working windmill that you could go up in. You went up because it had stairs or else a very wide ladder and you could see inside all the different parts, like a giant cogwheel with not very many cogs. Oh, I also just remembered one of the neat pictures we got when we went to Bury. There was a museum there and one of the exhibits was a mantrap. It was a very nasty type of trap that the nobility used to lay in forests so as to catch miscreant commoners who went to the forest to hunt deer (or rabbits or firewood). The nobles considered the forests theirs exclusively. The trap was fiendishly designed to break a man's leg. It had big, nasty teeth. And Jeff posed so that it looked like he was caught in it Chapter 25, page 283

Heyer Saga and he let me take his picture with him making this terrible face like he was really caught. I recall that I also had him pose next to a particular suit of armor in the Tower of London, this particular armor once having belonged to very tall man. Jeff [who is six feet tall] stood beside the case the armor was in to show just how big that guy must have been. Without a person in it, the armor was a little smaller than it would be on the man. And even at that, this armor was several inches taller than Jeff! (Then I posed beside the armor that was specially made for a very, very small man who I think was Henry VIII's official fool -- showing that this little guy was even smaller than I, which suggests he probably didn't really need armor). c. Central Asia Tour The only other overseas trip I took was with a tour group in 1997, from San Francisco to southern Alaska, Russia, and Uzbekistan. A shaky Russian airplane landed in Khabarovsk, in Eastern Russia, relatively near the Russian east coast and adjacent to the Amur River, which runs southward to the Russian seaport of Vladivostok. A couple of female members of our tour group introduced themselves to a retired English professor and me, and our tour guide. Although I did not recognize her at first, one of the women turned out to be the widow of my old supervisor from the California Unemployment and Disability Insurance Appeals Board! The professor and I at one point took a day trip on a riverboat to travel south an hour on the Amur River and back again. While in Khabarovsk, I visited a military museum, which, among other things, had a prominent depiction and description of the Russian attack on the Japanese army in accordance with the agreement made between Franklin Roosevelt and Marshal Stalin, as previously mentioned. Another museum had panoramas of stuffed animals common to that area. Our tour guide next took us to an old Russian Orthodox Church, where we went inside. On the way out, an elderly lady followed me and expressed, in Russian, her appreciation of my visit to the church. She appeared to be bubbling over with pleasure and gratitude. (This was during the period when religion in Russia was still an insecure institution. I am not Chapter 25, page 284

Heyer Saga sure exactly who she thought I was, but perhaps my beard suggested to her that I was some sort of religious official.) Next, the tour guide boarded herself and the four of us on the eastern terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railway. From there we travelled across most of eastern Russia to Urusha, a small town with rail yards, log houses, a cemetery, automobile, a motorcycle, a cow, and a man trying to hawk a skirt in a plastic bag. Our first stop in Siberia was the city of Novosibirsk, known as the Paris of eastern Russia. Most Americans think of Siberia as including all of Russian Asia except in the Caucasus, but to Russians, it is separate from the Russian Far East. From there, we flew to Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan, where we were joined by several additional tour members who came from different directions. A local Russian male tour guide met us all and gave us a brief tour of the city. From that point, our original tour guide from Khabarovsk arranged for us to travel by bus from Tashkent southwest across arid ground to Samarqand (one of the famous ancient cities along the Silk Route), with one rest stop at a fruit stand out in the middle of what appeared to be desert. Against the advice of the tour guide, the professor and I chose to buy some luscious looking melons of a type unfamiliar to me. We enjoyed it immensely! We suffered no ill effects in consuming these or any other local foods. In Uzbekistan, we met another local Uzbeki guide, who showed us around her town, described the history of various ancient structures there which had only been unearthed in recent years, and answered a few questions that I asked. Her approach was open, honest, and straightforward, in sharp contrast to the original tour guide, still with us, who, like many of the ugly American visitors, constantly denigrated any non-Russian persons whom we encountered, such as the Mongols, Uzbekis, etc. I bought souvenirs to take home to my family, but dont remember details anymore. Our original tour guide left us to return to the east and we Chapter 25, page 285

Heyer Saga flew from Uzbekistan to Moscow to catch a plane west across Europe to the United States. Supposedly, a local Moscow tour guide was scheduled to show us around Moscow, but no such person ever appeared. One of the members of our tour group who spoke fluent Russian made lodging arrangements for us for the night. On the next day, we were taken back to the airport to catch our plane, but apparently either fuel was insufficient for a long trip or some other obstacle delayed our departure more than half the day. It was not practical, however, to use the time to go sightseeing or for any other purpose, because we had no way of knowing when the aircraft would be able to leave. Finally an aircraft became available and we all set off westward to cross the rest of Europe and the Atlantic Ocean, on a noisy, shaky, Russian aircraft that felt definitely undependable to me. Nevertheless, we arrived alive, scattered in various directions, and I flew the rest of the way to complete the global circuit to California and to my family. Thus, we had flown, in stages, westward from San Francisco to southern Alaska to Eastern Siberia, ridden and flown from Eastern Siberia to Novosibirsk, then south-west to Tashkent, south to Uzbekistan, northwest to Moscow, west again across Northern Europe to the U.S. east coast, and from there, the three of us onward once more to California, a sort of circumnavigation of the northern part of the earth, but not a true circumnavigation of the World, because we had not traversed the longer route along the equator.

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Heyer Saga

CHAPTER 26: WISDOM?

In Volume I of this series, one of my ancestors was reported to have expressed his aging regret that he could not pass his wisdom on to his children, but I must disclaim any wisdom to pass on to my children or grandchildren. Of course, many humans throughout much of the world have recognized, experienced, or discovered circumstances, tendencies, generalizations, patterns, or events, which seemed memorable or significant enough to report, record, or publicize. Humans have found these practices to be useful, and we have all read, seen, or heard many of the resulting slogans, fables, proverbs, old saws, and other sayings, such as: A stitch in time saves nine. See a pin and let it lay, bad luck youll have all the day. All that glitters is not gold (German version is, alles gelt ist nicht Gold). Do not pretend to be what thou art not. A word to the wise is sufficient. Do not put all your eggs in one basket. Waste not, want not.

All such aids help us learn or remember. They are learning experiences, as most experiences can be, if we pay attention to them, but they can also be traps for the unwary. In this role, they are what has been called, wisdom on a stick. One example is the neat slogans or villains wisdom often used by a certain supervisor. (A more religious writer might have called them, the devils wisdom). These included such expressions as, Rank hath its privileges, which amounts to, having power without scruples, I am free to

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Heyer Saga run roughshod over less powerful or more responsible citizens. Another was, Life is not fair, meaning the same thing. In reality, of course, Life and Fairness have no direct connection. Life, however defined, refers to either the ability to reproduce or the fact of having been reproduced. Fairness, on the other hand, relates to how humans treat each other. Another example of a trap for the unwary in the uses of wisdom is that what is discovered or proven at one time may be found to be incomplete, misleading, or erroneous in a later time. (The learning experience provided by a day of Lego lore has been mentioned earlier.) A further example of Villains Wisdom is provided by two famous ancient Greek philosophers, Socrates and Plato. The first left no known writing, so the modern reader is forced to rely on Platos description of what Socrates said. This description mainly focused on Socratic reasoning, in which Socrates would ask one of his disciples a considerable list of sequential questions, one at a time, until the disciple gives the ultimate answer that Socrates sought. Theoretically, such an approach can make a reasonably sound presentation of a viewpoint, if honestly conducted. In practice, however, in every example presented by Plato, Socrates actual approach was subtly to shift the meanings of the words that he used, so that the result was inevitably to trick his disciple into saying and thinking what Socrates wanted. Hence the whole exercise was a deliberately dishonest trick. No honest wisdom here! A third and sounder step in Ancient Greek philosophical progress was Aristotle. He studied Socrates and Plato and became familiar with Greek culture generally, but he also was the son of a physician and thought more broadly and more deeply than his predecessors. He actually conducted experiments to better distinguish plants from animals in doubtful cases, depending in part on the texture, taste, and tactile feela budding pre-

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Heyer Saga scientist. His efforts greatly influenced later Christianity and even still later, Islam. After Aristotle, individual Greeks began to cease following some sage, and instead, turned to individual speculation on the possible existence of atoms, the size and nature of atoms, the size of earth (even approximately calculating it), etc. Even astronomy, and a bit of physics were examined by about two millennia ago. By the nineteenth century, a relatively widespread level of scientific progress had spread across Europe, the U.S., and a number of other countries. Toward the end of this period, two outstanding women became important in the area of scientific discovery, a new phenomenon in the world. One was Madame Marie Curie, (1867-1934), who researched in a new and quite unfamiliar field involving relationships among atoms and structural changes which happened within and among them. The other was Beatrix Potter, (1866-1943), who made the brilliant discovery that plants are biologically distinct from fungi, and that these two biological entities interact and depend on each other to a great degree. Madame Curie was widely recognized for her contributions to science, but dominant male colleagues in the field of biology ignored Beatrix Potters achievements. Potter later changed occupations and became a famous and highly successful writer of childrens books, always interspersed with, or supplemented by, particularly accurate and scientifically sound drawings of the various plants and fungi which filled her books without mentioning their biological significance. Years later, my granddaughter, Rosa, was enjoying the Ramona stories, written by Beverly Cleary. Included in those stories was a reference to both, Ramonas sister, and to an aunt named, Beezus. Could these two references refer to a young relative of, or to Beatrix Potter herself, or to a memory of her? Still later, a third important and creative woman scientist, also British like Potter, played a crucial role in the world-shaking breakthrough that revealed the crucial nature of the double helix in biology, but again, as in Chapter 26, page 289

Heyer Saga the case of Potter, British biophysicist and X-ray crystallographer, Dr. Rosalind Franklin did not receive proper professional recognition within her lifetime for her important contribution. Dr. Francis Crick (English molecular biologist), and Dr. James Watson (American molecular biologist), worked on the same project with their colleague, Dr. Rosalind Franklin. The 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, recognized the accomplishments of Crick, Watson, and their adviser, but not those of Rosalind Franklin, whose contributions were crucial. Dr. Watson later wrote, regretting this slight. It is sad that these two brilliant and outstanding women scientists, Beatrix Potter and Rosalind Franklin, did not see the benefits of their conscientious and important contributions, but fortunately, in more recent years, women scientists are now properly recognized for their vital contributions. The last I heard of the crucial relationships between plants and fungi, was within my youngest daughter, Roses gift to me of Paul Stamets book, entitled, Mycelium Running, which describes his multiple years and discoveries covering this subject. It was extremely revealing. At this point, we must temporarily change directions toward a related but slightly different direction. Even though when early in the sixth grade, I felt that my generation was obligated to try to eliminate or sharply minimize the recurring cycle of wars and threats of wars that have plagued humanity throughout its existence, our teachers introduction to us of the honey bee species aroused my fascination for that little insect, leading first to research at the local library about the closely related genus of all kinds of bees, ants, and wasps, and on to all insects, including the huge beetle family, and to related biota, like mites and spiders. This beginning naturally led to even the invisible biota, (so-called microbes), discovered and proven by Louis Pasteur to demonstrate the existence and role of this category of biota in the problems of protecting Chapter 26, page 290

Heyer Saga and improving the French wine industry. Far more significant, however, was his further discovery, leading to his invention of the pasteurization of milk, which saves the lives of many children. One college professor, who characterized his course in one set of words but actually dealt with an entirely unrelated subject, also proposed that the writings of a certain famous Spaniard conveyed important examples of, wisdom. Unfortunately, this concept of wisdom was grossly in error and totally out of place for the period in which it was introduced to the victims of this course. Part of this outcome was that the so-called wisdom was based on a series of unstated but nevertheless obvious ideas about the appropriate place and role of the various subjects of Spain. Perhaps the most absurd of these pronouncements was that, although Europe, through its invasion of the Western Hemisphere, had influenced these colonists, any ideas coming from the Western Hemisphere back into Europe could not be influences on Europe, but could only be an example of ref-luence! The basis of this assertion seems to have been that, while Europe can influence Western Hemispherists, Western Hemispherists could not possibly teach Europe anything, despite the American Revolution, which clearly and forcefully proved that the West had a newer and more persuasive outlook than Europe. After my introduction to bees and other aspects of biology, leading to my signing up for a high school year of biology, (which turned out to be incredibly and shallowly presented), I sought information through deeper sections of the textbook ignored by the instructor in two separate presentations on adjacent facing pages. On one side was the astonishingly outdated official version that said that biology consists of the plant and animal kingdoms (!), but ignoring all later discoveries. (This is following Aristotle). On the opposite page, none-the-less, was a list of a whole series of well-known biota falling obviously outside the old two-kingdom list, including bacteria, a number of other kinds of germs, some infectious Chapter 26, page 291

Heyer Saga agents, and even viruses. I dont recall whether it included fungi, but it certainly should have. The textbook gave no hint on how or whether to resolve the utter and obvious incompatibility between the two facing pages, and even any recognition that there was any incompatibility. Only an accidental discovery during college led me to find the answer in a tiny ring-bound booklet. The explanation was simple, straightforward, and utterly appalling! The author makes clear that he and the honest scientists in the field were, and for a number of years had been, well aware of the wide discrepancies existing between the known numbers, types, and natures of a goodly list of biological kingdoms, and were quite tired of (and irritated by) the common question raised by new students to the field: is this an animal or a plant? when the professors were well aware that most were neither! The reason for this situation was that publishers of school textbooks had consistently focused more on producing textbooks, which would be saleable in all states, rather than in states that confined their purchases to honest textbooks, which bought real science books. From that point onward, I found it feasible to follow the sciences more dependably, and especially biology (chapter 19). Since then, honest textbooks have spread; science generally has progressed more rapidly for a considerable time, and especially in the earlier part of the period after discovery of the double helix. In recent decades, although progress continues, and most of my forecasts have proven true, especially in biology, still in recent years, that progress has slowed and even now seems unable to recognize either the need for clear and fundamental terminology or for analyses and integration of previous discoveries. Evidently, these steps are stuck for a few more years. Proceeding further along this track, the Greek writer, Aesop, living in Egypt during the reign of the Ptolemies, (Cleopatra and her suitors, Marc Antony, Julius Caesar, etc.), set about writing a substantial series of Fables Chapter 26, page 292

Heyer Saga which describe the activities and behavior of various familiar animals, birds, etc. I do not know whether Aesop himself went any further than that or whether his original composition still exists. A Frenchman published the earliest extant version of which I am aware, but I have not seen that version. The version that I acquired from my father was published in English, along with the consequences of the behaviors of the various birds, animals, etc., mentioned in the fables, as well as a concluding moral or bit of purported general wisdom to draw from each fable. As a child, I enjoyed reading these stories, but in later years, it became clear that some of the morals or ideals in these fables were meant to imply, never try to go beyond what your ancestors have begun or accomplished, and that view struck me as too narrow-minded for modern times and the U.S. At least some characters in these fables seemed to speak a curious southeastern dialect, and included such specific characters as borer (brother) rabbit, fox, tortoise, etc., and implied cautions against overconfidence. A more recent, kinder, and more humane moralist than Aesop, was Walt Kelly, (1913-1973), the highly perceptive creator of Pogo, a daily cartoon series character. Pogo was a male opossum, living among other animals, birds, turtles, etc. He was a non-human looking (but very human thinking, acting, and behaving) creature. These were all, as in the previous examples, intended to convey perceptions of human experience. The setting of Pogos community was the Okefenokee Swamp in northeast Florida and southeast Georgia, among his fellow creatures residing nearby. These were numerous, varied, and appealing. Pogo observed, commented on, and interpreted regular and uneven events that occurred in his neighborhood. A stork regularly delivered airmail, and perhaps an occasional infant. One character was named, Eddie Rickety Back, a reference to the actual WWI pilot , Eddie Rickenbacker. Chapter 26, page 293

Heyer Saga Another borrowing from real life was the actual Wiley Hardeman Post. And yet one more was, Churchie la Femme, (from French Cherchez la femme). These quasi-human, quasi-animal fables also revealed the human foibles and the evil of unrestrained and irresponsible abuse of power. The most famous and outrageous abuser of power was the U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy. He devoted his insane abuse of power to busily and viciously attacking the honest Americans, and to dividing the nation and to ruining the lives of many of our most valuable citizens. At the peak of McCarthys orgy of evil, Pogos comment was, I have met the enemy, and they is us! Soon afterward, the thuggish Senator McCarthy (not related to Edgar Bergens ventriloquist dummy, Charlie McCarthy) chose to attack the United States Army to push his overreaching even further, but he went too far, and his career soon ended! In conclusion, having considered all of these factors as well as numerous others, I conclude that, however convenient and helpful a discovery or other bits of knowledge may be, it dare not long be relied on in this changing world, but must be regularly retested and re-examined from different viewpoints and angles and under differing circumstances.

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Heyer Saga

CHAPTER 27: MISCELLANEOUS

a. The Hummingbird That Thanked Me Implausible as this title seems, the event actually happened, although, of course, my impression of it may well have been inaccurate. On a hot summer day, I was watering the strawberry beds out back closest to the house. The process was slow, but easymerely unwrap a few coils of the coiled hose, start at the left side of the yard with my back toward the house, lift the hose, point it toward the yard, raise and lower to drench it from the far side to close, and proceed slowly across the yard toward the right side. The water pressure system did all the work. At about the middle of this process as manipulation of the hose created tiny puddles, I noticed a humming bird using one of the puddles in which to bathe and cool itself from the hot sun. Therefore, instead of just continuing the routine as before, I focused the spray longer and more persistently in the direction of the hummingbird, but still keeping it moving slightly from right, left, and back, to avoid overwhelming the tiny beastie. After this period, I returned to the usual process to finish the job of watering. Miss or mister hummingbird then rose up in the air from the far side where it had been (about 20 feet from me) and hovered in midair precisely level with my eyes, facing me and zipped half way (10 feet) toward me, eye to eye so to speak and still well out of reach, uttered a brief vocalization of a sort of throaty (for a hummingbird) squawk, and zipped away. Of course, I can no more read the minds of hummingbirds than find truth in a crystal ball, but, at the time, I felt that my little Friend was thanking me!

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Heyer Saga It could as easily have been scolding me, but clearly its behavior indicated a sort of interaction between the minds of a human and the tiniest avian beastie that I have met. b. Five Poets 1) The Englishman, John Donne, spent much of his life in serious writing, and produced one gem: No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and, therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. These three, succinct, sound, and soaring sentences clearly portray a fundamental fact of life. Human or non-human, we are all mutually interconnected, each depending on all others, able to survive and reproduce only as a single organism. If humankind does not cooperate at least to some minimal degree, think ahead, and consider the consequences of our actions or failure to act, Earth will become a barren, lifeless rock. Donnes poem inspired a later writer, Ernest Hemmingway, to write the novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls. 2) The Scotsman, Robert Burns, wrote generally beautiful poetry. My favorite piece is, "To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough" 1785. See Appendix for a copy. This poem, despite its long title, inspired John Steinbeck to write the novella, Of Mice and Men. 3) The American poet, Edgar Allen Poe (though dismissed by my college English professor) is my favorite modern poet. It would be difficult to identify the best of his many works, but The Raven, Ulalume, and Lenore, come to mind. 4) Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, remains unsurpassed in English, but these other four poets have made their marks as well. Donne produced only one gem, but we cant all be the great Bard! I did not produce even one. Chapter 27, page 296

Heyer Saga 5) Clement Clarke Moore was born on July 15, 1779, to Bishop Benjamin Moore who headed the Episcopal Diocese of New York, and was twice the president of Columbia College and Charity Clarke, whose father, Major Thomas Clarke, owned the Manhattan estate "Chelsea" where Moore was born. This estate would later pass to Charity Clarke and then to Moore, but he grew up in the Moore family residence in Elmhurst, Queens. He was a graduate of Columbia College (1798), where he earned both his B.A. and his M.A. His poem A Visit From St. Nicholas, a copy of which is in the Appendix, I read every Christmas Eve aloud to the family. I loved the idea of the children, and even the mouse, all having a snug bed with nothing to dread. But Diana would become very disturbed when the reindeers names were listed Rudolph wasnt there! She says she was sure it was the fault of the other reindeer because they wouldnt let Rudolph play any reindeer games. c. Owls Because I frequently enrolled in U.C. Berkeley correspondence courses, I regularly received catalogs of current course offerings. As soon as one course was completed, I signed up for another throughout the period from the first (for Chinese, Latin, and Greek languages) while I was still in high school to the last one decades later. On one occasion, each course section of the catalog was illustrated by a simple, stylized drawing of an owl, traditionally a symbol of wisdom, appropriate for opportunities for learning! Every owl depiction was a similar size and style, but each was also slightly different in detail, suggestive (where practical) of the nature of the particular section offered. For instance, the owl associated with the penology section wore a black Lone Ranger style mask and horizontal black and white stripes, suggestive of a convicts attire. The ingenuity, aptness, and artistic skill impressed me so much that I kept this catalog long beyond discarding subsequent ones of more mundane style. Chapter 27, page 297

Heyer Saga My enthusiasm for, and description of, this little gem seems to have inspired our children to give me eight small ceramic figurines, a hollow wooden one, and one large cloth owl over the years. These owls roosted on top of my computer hutch for many years. From there they flew to the top of the corner bookcase in the living room and, for a while, they later lived in our sun room. From there they moved to the small bookcase at the top of the stairs, remaining there until I offered them back to our children. All have now found new homes in which to nest.

Morning of April 21, 2013: Just a few weeks ago, as the cold, dark winter began faintly to warm and come to life, the birds behind my house began to awaken, assemble, and eagerly plead, Pick me; I am the very best mate you can find! Now they have all done so, and are more steadily and easily lining their chosen nests, collecting resources, and moving more quietly and firmly toward their respective next generation.

Morning of April 26, 2013 The first volume of this series was to cover those members of our family about whom we had information, especially Old Johannes, of Bchenau in the state of Hessen, who founded our American-based life, by leaving the state of Hessen and sailing down the slow stream to the ocean and Philadelphia, and later into the interior to Nazareth, Pennsylvania, where his house still existed decades later when I visited there years ago. Besides that volume, my beloved wife Thelma put together a comparable, but somewhat differently expressed composition about her ancestors and current family, mostly by inducing them to talk about their lives and recording their responses, thus making available not only what they said but how their speech sounded and their speech nuances to the listener. Chapter 27, page 298

Heyer Saga My first volume was distributed among our children and my brother and sister and Thelmas. This current volume, urged by our daughter, Winona, is intended to cover the current members of our family and certain significant people and circumstances in our century to give a limited but fair picture of this century for the benefit of our next generation. Also, is my hope that someone or several of my family may follow up on these first two volumes with further reports or approaches, throwing light for future generations, by whatever routes, methods or approaches, broad or narrow, if any was so inclined in future decades.

Morning of April 26, 2013 (2) Our daughter Jules, around 1974-5, enrolled in an alternative private high school in Orangevale, California named Desiderata. formed as a paradisiacal society The word Desiderata is Latin for "desired things and was inspired by the famous prose poem written in 1927 by American writer Max Ehrmann. This poem was quite popular in the 1960s and 1970s and was widely distributed in poster form. In 1968, Leonard Nimoy recorded it calling it "Spock Thoughts". The school aspired to the paradisical or utopian societal values espoused in the poem. Jules met a young teacher there named Mark Janowitz, who now lives in Oakland, California. He became a major influence on her life in the following years.

Morning of April 26, 2013 (3) Rose and the Last Roundup? Around September 2004, both Kaiser Foundation Medical Center and I came to realize that my health had begun to decline rather rapidly and steeply. Kaiser was diligently seeking a solution, calling in one medical specialist after another, but my body was clearly declining. I never feared death, since it comes to us all, but I had always in adulthood had wanted to provide for all my family as well as possible. Chapter 27, page 299

Heyer Saga When I realized that I was steadily sinking, I considered the frequency of all my trips among my children, which had been seen most recently or who was the most distant and concluded that my current hope was that I could visit my youngest, Rose, the one farther away in New England, and attending the University of New England there. The tri; was a bit of an ordeal but Thelma accompanied and ultimately got me there by flights hither and yon, and we were able to enjoy our time together with our child, the autumn scenery, the appearance of her college, and other local features as pointed out to us by a long time friend of hers living in the area, and come home successfully. The flights were, again, physically miserable for me, but seeing our youngest so far away, was wonderful for me, but miserable for Thelma because of my condition. Not too long after that, Kaiser finally sicced a knowledgeable Chinese-born expert on the problem and solution from my prior history before he and I ever met. When we did, he explained it clearly and fully, and promptly had me back in the pink, as the saying was.

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Heyer Saga

CHAPTER 28: FAMILY

Section 1: Beyond Bare Survival Beyond bare survival, the most basic aspect of human life is Family. A family may consist of siblings with the same parents, in my case, a younger brother, Terry, and my still younger sister, Kathleen. Terry was born on January 14, 1935, five years and two months after my birth, and my sister, Kathy, was born on July 24, 1940, ten years and eight months later than I. Because our ages were widely separate and we had little contact with each others school, we never really knew very much about one another while growing up. We had such different age-appropriate interests and inclinations that we had very few extensive contacts while we were in school or after we left our parents home. Early chapters in this volume mention some of our interactions in that period. Beyond bare survival (1) and siblings (2), were my (3) immediate nuclear family of my generation, consisting of my beloved wife Thelma, our six children, and myself. Beyond all those were (4) our grandchildren, (5) our extended family, and, much later, our (6) great grandchild, John Michael Gainer, born August 17, 2012. Returning briefly to a quick summary of the initial preliminary aspects of my family of birth, I was born and resided in what the census taker called an apartment. Such a building was later designated as a duplex, with my family living at the back of the building, and another family at the front. This was in southeast Los Angeles. Later we moved to Inglewood, California, adjacent to my Grandmother Heyers house (next to Arbor Vitae Street). The only time I ever recall seeing my grandfather Thomas Heyer alive, he was obviously old and dying, lying helplessly in bed, but conscious. His eyes were blue. It Chapter 28, page 301

Heyer Saga was probably then, before I was three years old, that I first realized that everyone born was destined to die. The first time I saw my cousin Barbara Behrend (daughter of my fathers elder sister Florene) was very soon after her birth. She and I appear together on a lawn somewhat later in a photograph, which she kindly sent to me a few years ago. Beyond the brief comments above are, of course, other relatives, including my cousins: Barbara Behrend Rounds, Margie Behrend JayBolton, Jan Behrend Medina, and Judy Behrend Ramirez. In 2009, the year of my eightieth birthday, Winona and Glenn hosted a birthday celebration for me at which we had a reunion with our Behrend cousins: Barbara Rounds, Jan Medina, and Judy Ramirez. Cousin Margie Jay-Bolton was unable to attend. Also in attendance were Barbaras son Ron, her daughter and her spouse, Pam and Norn, Steve and his spouse Kathy, as well as Tham and his fiance Stacey. Also attending were Jan and Serge Medina with their grandson Sergito (Sergio III) as well as Judys son Carlos Ramirez. There were a number of other members of the Behrend family present whose names I am unfortunately unable to recall. My brother Terry and his wife Anni represented their branch of the Heyer family at the birthday reunion/celebration. Their daughter Celeste Heyer Peterson and her husband Scott have six children: David, Ariel, Benjamin, Nathan, Nicholas, and Matthew. Their son Valiant and his wife Joy have four children: Emily, Dori, Lily, and Samuel Joseph. My sister Kathleen and her husband John Wagner, as well as Kathys daughters Danielle Weber and Deborah Weber, attended the celebration. Kathy has three sons: Steven Weber, Michael Patrick Weber, and Jonathan Weber, who has a wife Stacey and daughter Riley. Since time no longer permits me to pursue further details of our extended family histories, perhaps someone else might take up what I am unable to pursue further. I am hoping this will lead to a long-lasting relationship through the ensuing decades.

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Heyer Saga Section 2: Family Broadly a. Thelma and I a. Thelma and I, well before we married, agreed that we wanted to have six children, and ultimately selected six male and six female first names, wishing to avoid running out of names, regardless of how many males or females might be born. However, regardless of the numbers of one gender or the other that might be born, we both intended to have six children. The first three births were Cindy, (September 6, 1953), Diana, (December 25, 1954), and Jeffrey, (August 28, 1956). The next child born to us was Julie Faye, on March 26, 1958, after we had moved to the larger house in Fontana. Julie later changed her first name to Jules and dropped the surname Heyer. Winona April was born on December 27, 1960, and Martha Rose was born on February 2, 1963. Martha Rose later chose to use her middle name, Rose, primarily. b. 1953: Cindy was born on September 6th After having worked through most of the 1952-1953 school years in Fontana, I notified the draft board that I waived all exemptions from military duty. I also notified the school principal that I was available for military duty. He told me that he would arrange an exemption for me on the ground of critical work (as teacher) if I wished, but I declined, because I felt it was time for me to do my part in military service. My draft notice arrived not long after the close of that school year in June. [See details in chapter 7, Military Service.] On my first leave from Army Basic Training at Fort Ord, California, I rode south with a fellow recruit from my company, named Willie, who started off in the wrong direction, heading northward on the winding coast highway, then recognized his error and headed southward, arriving quite late. He dropped me off in Gardena at the home of Thelma's parents, Carl and Rosa Sims, close to midnight, just as the family was preparing to take Thelma to Centinela Hospital in Inglewood for the delivery of our first child,

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Heyer Saga Cynthia. Thelma's younger sister, Wanda, broke into tears when I arrived! That response seemed quite moving to me. At the end of two weeks of processing and 16 weeks of basic training, Uncle Sam released me for a week's leave, and directed me to return to Fort Ord for eight weeks of "leadership training; basically a preparation for becoming a higher NCO rank. Completion of basic training also produced a small raise in pay and grade to private first class (PFC). I went back to the Sims house for that week, and couldn't bear to be apart from Thelma and baby Cindy any longer, so, when I returned to Fort Ord, I rented a two-room apartment for them in nearby Salinas. Thelma's brother, Clarence, drove her and baby Cindy up to the apartment in Salinas. After completing that training, I was assigned to the Triple-A Artillery Training Center at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. Fort Bliss was named after Lieutenant Colonel William Wallace Smith Bliss, who had served in the Mexican war from 1846-1847. At first, I had felt that living in El Paso was not a good environment for my little family, so Thelma and Cindy had remained in Gardena, California, with her parents. Because we couldn't bear the separation for long, the two of them traveled by train to join me in El Paso in March of 1954. We rented a two-room apartment in a large house that had been converted into several apartments and rented out to different young soldiers working at the base, and their wives. The proprietor in El Paso was a middle-aged Lebanese man from Sierra Leone, Africa, whose relatives lived downstairs in the apartment across the hall from our rooms. His niece, Angel Harb, collected the rent and managed the rentals. Angel was a young college student whom I tutored in chemistry for a semester. She shared the apartment with her brother, Meled, and an elderly Lebanese lady, who apparently did not speak English. We were never sure whether she was Angel's mother or grandmother. Meled owned a very noisy and dissatisfied chimpanzee that he kept in a large cage in the screened-in back porch of the house. The Chapter 28, page 304

Heyer Saga chimpanzee occasionally got out of the cage and ran madly up and down the wide hallway hooting loudly. The tenants kept their hallway doors shut when he was loose. On one occasion, Thelma told me that there were rats in the house. I collected four large cans, filled them with water, and put the feet of Cindy's crib in them, to ward off any rat. At first I thought the offending beasts were likely only mice, but seeing one showed that they were clearly rats, so between us, we cornered one, which I killed, but it turned out not to be the only one, so Thelma reported it to Angel, who put out rat poison. Within a few days, we detected a repulsive smell in the apartment, which became strong enough to lead us to a low baking shelf in the stove, which we had not needed to use. On this shelf, when I opened it, we found a largely "melted" (deteriorating) dead rat, presumably killed by the poison, but still present "in the air". Fortunately, we never had that problem in any other house. Another dead rat turned up later in the Harb's apartment. After Cindy mastered walking, the three of us sometimes walked around together in the neighborhood. On one of these occasions when she was not yet two years old, two teenagers walked by in the opposite direction and Cindy spun around and followed them. We quickly grabbed her and set her on the right route again, but somehow that event stayed in my memory. Apparently she had been watching our feet and had been confused and misled by similar feet walking in the opposite direction! c. 1954: Diana was born on December 25th In March of 1954, Thelma and Cindy had joined me in El Paso. Early on Christmas day of 1954, we welcomed our second child, Diana May Heyer, born at the hospital on base. We returned to California when she was not quite six months old, after my enlistment ended in June of 1955. Although we had lived on the edge of our resources, as described earlier, using a gift silver dollar to eke out each month in my first year of teaching, and my service income was also modest, we never-the-less never again were quite that low on cash. I bought an old "Reo", an

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Heyer Saga automobile model then no longer produced for many years, for the trip back to California. Because we had acquired a few more possessions for our now-larger family, I also bought a small utility trailer for the trip. d. Crossing the Great American Desert Although we were aware that population density and availability of services by this time were far better than in the days of the pioneers, care and caution still seemed the best policy. I hitched the trailer to the little car, driving across our route without any problem, resting only during the daytime. The journey consumed three days. I drove mostly at night, stopping at motels along the way each morning for some hours of sleep. Thelma watched the children while I slept. We made sure that all members of the family were kept adequately shaded and hydrated throughout the trip. After a brief visit with our parents in Southern California, Thelma, 22month-old Cindy, six months old Diana, and I moved to a public housing complex at Hunters Point in southeast San Francisco for the duration of the summer session of the University of San Francisco law school. In California, when Diana was learning to walk, we discovered she had a problem in one leg and foot, which turned inward toward the other foot, so the doctor placed it in a cast to correct the problem. I worried about that, since she was just learning to walk. Contrary to my concerns, although the cast made a noisy "clunk" with every step, it did not slow her progress or determination in learning to walk in the least, to our great relief. I do not recall any of the other children having health problems so early in their lives, but of course all children are subject to various health risks throughout their lives. e. 1956: Jeffrey was born on August 28th Our third child, Jeffrey Thomas Heyer, was born at Kaiser Hospital in Fontana on August 28, 1956. As a teacher at Fontana High School, I was entitled to enroll my family in the Kaiser medical system, a step I eagerly took as soon as eligible, and have maintained ever since when possible. Chapter 28, page 306

Heyer Saga My effort to induce the school district to count my Law courses as a further degree, and entitling me to a larger salary rate, was dismissed by the Superintendent; so I enrolled in a 1957 summer program called the California Bar Review Course, led by several very well-informed and specialized law-school instructors. Hence, once again, Thelma, Cindy, Diana, two-year-old Jeff, and I traipsed away from Fontana for the summer, staying with Thelma's parents in Gardena. Thelma's sister Wanda offered to let me study at the nearby apartment that she shared with a friend, which I gratefully accepted. f. Jeff & Anni Heyers father When Annis parents came from Germany to visit Anni and Terry in the U.S., they all drove up to Citrus Heights, near Sacramento, California, to visit us. Although Jeff did not speak German and Annis father did not speak English, at the end of their visit with us, young Jeff, on his own initiative, presented one of his favorite toys to Annis father as a gift. He courteously accepted the gift and expressed to us his deeply moved appreciation for this childhood gesture. g. Julie was born on March 26th After admission to the California State Bar in 1957, I had developed an unexpected but actual law practice. I decided to leave full time teaching to focus on the practice of law, since the Superintendent of Schools declined to allow a raise on the basis of my law degree and admission to the Bar. A few months before the end of the 1957-1958 school year, I therefore notified the school principal that I would not return to work at the high school after the end of my fourth school year of teaching at Fontana High School. I opened a local office and hired a former student to answer the phones and perform office duties for a time. In addition to maintaining my small office in Fontana, I bought the practice and office equipment of an elderly retiring attorney in nearby Riverside, California in 1959. I hired an older lady named Troy, who had

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Heyer Saga worked for the retired attorney, as my office staff. I had only a little work for her, but she was a charming older lady. Business continued to come in to both offices in the two cities, including defending persons accused of crimes, for which payment came from the county, in lieu of a public defender at the time. However, the income was not really sufficient to support my family and meet the overhead, although we had enough money to continue a while longer in hopes of improvement. I worked briefly for another lawyer in San Bernardino, but his first paycheck to me bounced. It became clear that he was a hopeless alcoholic, so I notified him of my resignation. Julie, who later chose the name Jules, exhibited the most enthusiasm and zest in play. When she was about four years old, for instance, our little family visited a small carnival in the parking lot of a shopping center in Fontana. I took the four older children on the Ferris Wheel, while Thelma stayed on firm ground holding baby Winona. Each time the Ferris wheel reached its peak, Julies exuberant peals of laughter filled the air. h. Winona was born on December 27th In 1960 I applied for a position as an attorney for the San Bernardino County Counsels office. I remained in that job for the next three years. One recollection about Winonas early years was the crisis when she somehow got a plastic Easter egg stuck in her mouth. I was at work but learned about it later. When Thelmas efforts did not budge the egg, she sent one of the older children next door for help. The neighbor calmly inserted her index finger in between the egg and the inside of Nonas cheek and popped it out. Some years later, after our 1963 move to Citrus Heights in Northern California, I drove down to Southern California to consider an offer to join a friends private law firm. I decided against accepting the job offer but, while there, I saw a newspaper ad offering a pregnant goat for sale. On my return trip home, I stopped by to see the goat in question. Our two youngest Chapter 28, page 308

Heyer Saga daughters, Winona and Martha Rose, were then members of the 4H Club. Winona raised rabbits and Martha Rose raised chickens. Because of their 4H membership, I thought they might enjoy taking care of a goat, so I therefore bought the goat, a large Toggenberg with horns. The goat was part of a herd with a number of nannies and one large billy. The ranch hands there, although they presumably fed and were often in view of the goats, which were enclosed in a corral, set all the nannies in rapid motion by entering to pick out the crucial one. I couldnt believe they would do the task so stupidly, in such an absurd way. To help in catching her, the ranch hands picked up a large, gate-shaped wooden structure to trap the nannies in a corner of the corral. The billy, seeing this, waited patiently and still, until the crucial moment, when he butted the structure over, allowing the nannies to escape the attempted enclosure. After a few more circles, the hands finally caught the desired nanny and put her in the back of my station wagon, which I had rearranged by folding down the two back seats to give her all the space behind the driver's seat. They told me she would settle down on this floor as soon I started driving. She did not do so at all. Although I do not remember noticing it, one of the ranch hands must have tied a rope around the goats prominent horns to control her during the process of putting her in the car. I set off northward before noon on the newly completed and opened U.S. Highway 5, a number of miles westward from the former main route. Because of the newness, the highway had few other vehicles on it and no stops for servicing, food, gasoline, etc. The tank was full, however, and the weather (midsummer) allowed a long, steady, unbroken trek back home. The goat remained standing throughout the journey, until I arrived home after dark. Since the goat did not settle down, but remained standing the entire time, I felt that she was uneasy, and since this was a brand new highway and seemed almost deserted, no one was around to see or hear me. So I sang to her the whole way. When I got home, I led her into the garage, the most easily accessible place I had at hand for enclosing her, and perhaps

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Heyer Saga tied the rope to something to keep her from running off. I then went into the house and invited the family to come out to the garage to see "something". I thought the two youngest children would enjoy her, and they did. We took her up to the country (we had about three acres, and considered buying a fourth) with the two youngest. It took them a little while to master milking, but not very long, Nona first, then Rose. I was very impressed at her appearance, shape, and agility during the "chase." I thought she seemed more like a gazelle than my previous concept of goats, so I named her Zella. I was also impressed that she came to me on her own initiative during that very same introduction in our garage, leaning her head gently against my stomach or chest and waited in that position. I interpreted that behavior as a request to remove the rope. She immediately became virtually a member of the household, and remained so for the remainder of our time in Citrus Heights and even after we came to our present home in El Granada (so called to distinguish the unincorporated town from another Granada near the northern interior border of California). i. Martha Rose was born on February 2nd After my unsuccessful campaign for the California State 72nd Assembly District in 1962, I applied for a position with the state and was hired by the Department of Professional and Vocational Standards in the state capitol, Sacramento. During the early months in my new job in the Department of Professional & Vocational Standards, I searched for a house suitable for my family, which was still in Fontana. The new area was fairly populous, being at the state capital, so it took a while, but I finally found the house I favored and a few others to compare, both in Sacramento and its suburbs. As the due date of our sixth child neared, I tried to get off work early on Friday, February 1, to drive home to see Thelma and the children. I was a new employee on probationary status, so permission was denied. The delivery date was imminent, so I was particularly anxious to go early, but

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Heyer Saga getting on the way took more time than I expected, and the trip was long. I drove as rapidly as feasible from Sacramento to Fontana, but still did not arrive until after the birth of Martha Rose. Ive always regretted that I could not be there for her birth. When Thelma felt up to traveling north to view the houses that I was considering, she left the children with her parents and flew to Sacramento. We looked at a few houses, and chose the two-story, white, totally new house with rooms enough for our large family in the suburb of Citrus Heights, northeast of the city. A recent local economic decline had pulled that house down to a price we could manage. No plants were growing on the clay soil in our yard, but the yard was large enough to permit such growth, after considerable work. Like many children, Rose, when learning to walk, also tended to climb. On one occasion, she climbed onto the piano bench, and fell to the floor, accidentally biting her tongue. I worried that this injury might interfere with her learning to speak accurately, but it did not. On another occasion, somewhat after this one, she wanted something on the kitchen sink. Rather than ask anyone's help, she climbed up the drawers beside the sink, until she had her upper torso on the sink top, but could make no further progress either up or down. She then spoke the first complete sentence that I recall ever hearing from her: "Get me down!" (Which of course I promptly did). Thelma was eager for the house lot to be improved. The first step was installing a lawn in the front yard, then the planting of an Italian cypress tree in front of each of the two end pillars at the front of the house. Then we created a second lawn behind the house, extending perhaps a fourth or more of the distance to the back end of the yard. With considerable effort, a shallow ditch was dug across the lot and behind the back lawn. This was to separate the lawn area from what was to be farther back, and also to encourage water runoff to outside the yard, instead of toward the house or close to it, as occurred during the first winter we were there.

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Heyer Saga Next, we installed a wandering "yellow brick road" (a la Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, but actually it was cement, colored with yellow dust) from the back door to the cross ditch. To this we added a curved wooden bridge across the ditch for convenient and attractive access to the farther back yard. Thelma planted yellow Gazania flowers and pink oxalis at the edge of the back lawn next to the trench, and from time to time we added trees and other plants near the outside fences (which we hired someone to build and install). We added two small magnolia trees near the front of the front yard. I built a wooden playhouse on cement piers with waterproof roofing, for the girls and a wooden fort (no roof, but internal foot-holds) for Jeff, on opposite sides of the far back yard. Below those buildings, near the ditch, I erected giant wooden flatware: a fork, a spoon, and a table knife, separating the potential vegetable garden (and a limited open space) from the ditch and lawn. The garden was divided into six sections, with one assigned to each child, for growing vegetables. I also planted grape vines along a portion of the back fence and constructed a cement fish-and-frog pond just beyond the ditch near the garden. I planted a very prolific apricot tree beyond the playhouse, and erected a metal tool shed near the back fence. Some later time, a strong wind carried the tool shed THROUGH the back fence to the bottom of the slope behind our property! Later, at Thelma's urging, for the children's benefit, I installed an aboveground swimming pool on the back lawn behind the eastern part of the house. All this consumed a considerable amount of time, so, when ultimately it became necessary to move, I was very reluctant to give up that house. j. 1976: Moving Again After reporting for work as head of the Regional Social Security office in San Francisco, I stayed at motels in the various bay area communities on weeknights and drove home to Citrus Heights on weekends until we could find a home nearer work. Someone in the office suggested a location east of San Francisco Bay, but commuting to work across the Bay Bridge Chapter 28, page 312

Heyer Saga every day was unappealing. San Francisco real estate was too expensive, and living in Marin County would involve a daily commute across the Golden Gate Bridge. Thelmas Aunt Ocie suggested Pacifica, on the coast south of Daly City. The houses in Daly City itself reminded me of the Malvina Reynolds song about little boxes made of ticky-tacky A chance view of a sign mentioning Half Moon Bay led me to drive a little farther south of Pacifica to check out homes in that direction, and concluded that the area immediately south of Devil's Slide (the narrow coastal road accessing the area along Half Moon Bay) looked like the best prospect yet in our search. I tried staying at various motels in that area during weeknights, then suggested to Thelma that this seemed a good place to search. We finally made the choice, and we have lived in unincorporated El Granada continuously since March 31, 1976. (The "El" was oddly attached by the post office to avoid confusion with another "Granada" in the north central end of California.) When Thelma, Winona, Rose, and I moved to our new home in El Granada, no other members of our family still lived with us. Winona was in the ninth grade of high school and Martha Rose was in seventh grade of middle school when we relocated to El Granada. Winona enrolled at Half Moon Bay High School and Martha Rose at Cunha Middle School. While we were still living in Citrus Heights, Cynthia had completed two years at Sacramento State College. She then arranged to take her third year in Tel Aviv, Israel. After graduation from Sacramento State College she set out on her own to find work, and no longer lived at our home. She works as a technical writer for a cell phone company. Diana had completed high school a year after Cindy. She then moved to Southern California to help her grandparents, Rosa and Carl Sims, because Carl was dying of cancer. She enrolled in the Licensed Vocational Nurse training program at the nearby El Camino Community College and

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Heyer Saga worked in a local nursing home for a time1. After Carls demise she moved back north to attend the University of California at Berkeley, where she earned a Bachelors Degree in Linguistics. Later on she moved back south again for graduate work at UCLA. She then met and married John Gainer, and moved to Texas to live with him. She taught ESL (English as a Second Language) classes in Texas for a number of years. Jeffrey was enrolled at the nearby American River Community College, at the time of our move to El Granada, so he stayed behind and later transferred to Sacramento State College. Ultimately, he attended U.C. Santa Cruz, where he attained a Bachelors Degree in Theater Arts. After high school, Jules (formerly Julie Faye) moved out on her own to seek a different path from other members of the family. She moved to San Francisco, where she became a letterpress printer, an occupation she enjoys to this day. Winona trained as a CAD, Computer Assisted Drafting, and draftsperson and worked for NASA at its wind tunnel near Menlo Park for a number of years. Later on she earned her B.A. in Art (Studio Practice) with a Graphic Design Emphasis and Specialty in Photography and went on to attain a Masters degree in Space Management. Rose earned an A.A. degree in Economic Geography while living in Massachusetts. She also trained as a CAD draftsperson and presently works in that capacity for an architectural firm. k. Family experiences

Editors Note: Diana says she both liked and disliked the work. She remembers it was attending mostly old people in the nursing home a Finnish man who would belt out happy, Finnish folk songs that nobody understood, being in Finnish; a wooing man who took a fancy to one of the elderly ladies and kept trying to push her wheelchair into his bedroom, and a chewing lady that insisted upon chewing all her food thirty something times for each bite, including soup, with help from the nurse, since she was unable to hold a spoon or fork. Since Diana was the new person on the team, she was given this difficult task since it took so long for the lady to finish a meal, and each nurse had a roster of duties that must be completed by the end or her shift.

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Heyer Saga Of course, like most parents, I would love to write about each of my children at length, remembering the achievements, mishaps, struggles, pains, etc., but a parent's memories or viewpoints may not coincide with those of their offspring. What seems cute or poignant, etc., to the parent, may be regarded quite differently by the offspring. I have written in this Volume 1 on the lives of my ancestors, who did not leave any descriptions of their lives (as far as I could discover). We gave copies to all of our children, our brother and sister. Now, it must be our job to record for all of our grandchildren and great-grandchildren (one so far, John Michael). In this volume on my generation, I have touched on the lives of my children, but as members of the next generation, they should be the first to report on their own life experiences. Therefore, I encourage my children, if able and choosing to do so, to write their own view of childhood family experiences as well as on those experiences of later on in adult life. If they do not, then perhaps their children will do so, and the next, if they choose. What I can say, though, is that all six of our children, as adults, have proven themselves to be loving, responsible, considerate, public spirited, diligent, concerned, creative, artistic, intelligent, conscientious, and loyal individuals. Thelma and I are impressed and proud of their qualities. I would add that these are their own qualities and achievementsI claim no influence for making them that way. l. A Preliminary Caution When with young children, always remember to never assume anything until you know how much and what they have learned. My mother, although she spoke English at least through elementary school, high school, and a year of college (at UCLA, when it was new) and the same was true of my father, and though both she and he as well as I regularly spoke English at home, work, etc., whenever excited she would always shout heiss at me when she thought I was too close to our stove. Chapter 28, page 315

Heyer Saga (Heiss is German for hot, and I was familiar with it in English, but perhaps she considered a loud heiss as more authoritative than a loud hot was.) m. From One Generation to another

My parents had always encouraged me to become educated and informed, and in later years to further enhance my education. When my father decided to learn about the Henry George theory of Progress and Poverty, as taught by the Henry George course, I joined him in attending the classes, learning the principles, etc. The subject seemed clear enough and was recognized in our own state of California (southern part) and at least as far away as Europe, especially in Denmark, where the theory had great influence in that small nation. Years later, my mother enrolled in college courses with the new El Camino Junior College (later Community College) and still later simply El Camino College. The classes were held at Inglewood High School after high school closed for the day. I was still a student in the Inglewood High School at that time, hence, what I had learned earlier in response to my parents example, I could choose to assist in furthering their progress in my turn, and naturally later tried to do again to encourage my own children, in hopes that studying, learning, developing, and enhancing their perceptions of the world would assist them throughout their lives. n. Cynthias early venture. When our daughter Cynthia was quite young but had learned to walk and was beginning to talk, our second daughter Diana perhaps did something that led Cynthia to think that Diana was thirsty, or perhaps Cynthia had been thirsty, got up, gave herself a drink, and then thought Diana wanted one. At any rate, Cynthia brought a drink of water (in a small plastic tumbler) to Diana. I do not recall when or how I learned of this venture. At one time I thought that my beloved wife Thelma had requested the venture, but she Chapter 28, page 316

Heyer Saga said no. At any rate, Cindy delivered the water and the tumbler but infant Diana was not yet up to sitting up and handling a tumbler. Consequently, infant Diana spilled her drink, soaking herself and leading her to weep! This started courier Cynthia also to begin to weep! o. Diana One day when I came home from work at Fontana High School where I was employed teaching Latin and other subjects; apparently it was at an earlier hour than usual, because the sun was still high and the weather warm. When I entered the house, Diana, still very young, small, and a bit smudged from playing in the dirt earlier, was inside and the first person to see me arrive home. She promptly gave me a big, but shy, smile. I dont recall anything more about that moment except that she seemed very alone, small, and fragile. Each of our children, from time to time, helped each other (or us). When smaller, younger children fell into holes, cut their selves by stepping on misplaced tools, etc., others often rescued or otherwise aided them. When Diana had been looking forward to overseas trips, she instead moved south to help her Grandma Sims in caring for Grandpa Sims, who was dying from cancer. Probably because of that sad experience, she then also enrolled in the Vocational Nurse training program at nearby El Camino College. After completing that training, she worked for a time in a nursing home engaged in the care of aged, disabled, or otherwise impaired adults. She then retired from that field and enrolled at U.C. Berkeley, where she completed her Linguistics major. After that she married John Gainer and moved to Texas, where she entered postgraduate studies in sociology at Eastern Texas University (now retitled Texas A&M University in Commerce, Texas). They have two children, Eileen and Ethan. Ethan majored in music and later married Mary York on May 25, 2011. They now have a son, John

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Heyer Saga Michael Gainer, named after his two grandfathers. He was born August 18, 2012. Eileen pursued a double major in music and journalism. After several years in Seattle, she moved to San Francisco, California, where she and her companion, Travis, now live. Not long after the birth of Eileen and Ethan, Johns employer transferred him to England. Diana and the children accompanied him to England, where the family managed to explore and familiarize themselves significantly, as reported in Dianas description mentioned in this chapter. p. Jeffrey Our third child is Jeff, who was also the quickest to display an active sense of humor. I recall an occasion when he was still quite young, at the appearance of a couple of ceramic cookie jars with separable lids designed to resemble a cow and a rabbit, Jeffs face lit up, he displayed a wide, enthusiastic smile, and immediately set out to switch the two container tops, thus giving the cow head to the rabbits body and vice versa! Also memorable a little later (when we moved to the new, bigger house in Citrus Heights), was little five-year-old Jules expressive, enthusiastic play, complete with peals of thrilled screams of joy! q. San Diego Zoo From time to time as opportunities arose, our still modest family travelled from wherever we were living at the time to Thelmas parents home, with a brief visit at my parents home. During the latter episodes our children always enjoyed exploring the storage drawers under the bunk beds, which Terry and I had slept in while growing up and in which were stored various toys. We conversed briefly while at my parents home and then traveled on to Thelmas parents.

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Heyer Saga There our children examined and enjoyed the available amenities. They also enjoyed playing with their cousins, who lived in the area as well as two children who were cared for by Thelmas mother, Rosa Sims. Not long before one of these occasions, we had added a new member to our family, Jules, and by this time, although still young and small, she was old enough to speak. During this visit, a decision was made (I no longer recall by whom or on what basis) that Thelma and I and our three older children would travel together to visit the San Diego Zoo. The zoo provided a slow moving vehicle for observation of the various sites. Cindy and Dina rode with Thelma and me on this vehicle, but Jeffrey chose to run on foot alongside the vehicle. I no longer recall whyit seemed an unsafe thing to do looking back, but perhaps he wished to do so and the speed was slow enough to make that practical. I dont recall much about the zoo itself. Either later on that occasion or on some other occasion we also traveled farther south across the international border to Tijuana where the girls bought dolls and Jeff purchased something else. Upon our return, I became aware for the first time that Jules had been told that we had gone somewhere but she had insisted that we would not have gone and left her behind. These words were heartbreaking to me. I made up my mind that none of our children should ever again be left behind on any occasion, and they never were. r. Winona When Winona was a toddler, somehow she managed to get half of a plastic Easter egg stuck in her mouth with the closed end protruding. Thelma could not get it out; so she sent one of the older children next door to get help from the next door neighbor, who calmly stuck her index finger in along the side of the plastic egg until she could slide the whole thing out. It was a real crisis for Thelma, who was panicked.

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Heyer Saga s. Rose The youngest and last of all our children to be born and arrive in our home lives, and hearts, was Martha Rose Heyer, who later became known as simply Rose. She was born on February 2, 1963. That date has traditionally been known, in at least one American town as Groundhogs Day, on the basis of the supposition that on that date each year, a local groundhog known as Punxsutawney Phil, comes out of his hole, checks the weather, and, if he sees his shadow, determines that there will be six more weeks of wintery weather. If he doesnt see his shadow, there will be an early spring. This idea seems to have been invented and maintained in one town for local economic convenience. Since Rose was the youngest and then smallest, and therefore usually had to struggle the hardest of all our children trying to keep up with the rest until most had moved away, it seems only fair that she should now be the first to be recognized at this point in the present Volume. t. Family Outings Beyond mere classes, courses, and ideas, we also tried to expose our children to a considerable range of places, exposures, views, directions, discoveries, locations, themes, conditions, structures, etc. These included day visits north to experience the snow, up Interstate Highway 80 toward Auburn. Later, in another period, we spent many weekends at The Property, fifteen acres that we purchased south of Placerville off highway 50. We sometimes visited various movies, some sights, such as Knott's Berry Farm, the Nut Tree, Lion Country Safari, Disneyland amusement park (Anaheim, California), Shell Beach, Carmichael Park, Fairytale Town, Sutters Fort, Angel Island in San Francisco Bay (where Wanda, Thelmas sister, and Ralph Betts and their family lived there). We also visited the Rosicrucian Museum in San Jose, California. I believe our daughter Rose particularly enjoyed the special parts of that

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Heyer Saga museum. We also undertook other ventures, visits to zoos, grandparents, and other unique occasions. On the other hand, besides formal education, visits, and other introductions to experiences, and a few introductions at home to various birds, animals, projects, insects, management of projects, and other undertakings, I always tried to avoid setting out any specific occupation, choice of work, place of work, field of effort, or focus, or direction. Growing up I would not have wanted anyone to force me into (or to refrain from) my own preferences of direction or choice, so I never attempted to force any such burden on any of my children. Eventually, it became time for Cynthia to face that choice. She examined the field that most interested her, and arrived at her preferred choice. She then came to me, explained her choice, and asked whether that was okay. I do not recall my exact reply, but I think it may have been either yes or okay. After that, I do not recall a similar later presentation by any of my other children. Each made his or her choice, and then each pursued it at that persons time and choice, as I had hoped.

v. Our Grandchildren + Great Grandchild Children are wondrous, unique, irreplaceable Gifts! Although the absolute numbers of our grandchildren are the same as those of our children, our grandchildren are spread a little farther apart. We had six children from Cynthias birth on September 6, 1953; to Roses birth on February 2, 1963, altogether covering nine years and five months. Our grandchildren include, in order of birth: 1) 2) Eileen Rachel Gainer, May 4, 1981, Ethan Christopher Gainer, April 17, 1982,

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Heyer Saga 3) 4) 5) 6) Rosa Noelle Heyer, July 24, 1985, Vanessa Mae Soma, December 10, 1986, Erica Ashley Soma, July 8, 1989, Kyle Evan Soma, September 13, 1991,

Altogether this covers a total of ten years and four months between first grandchild born and last grandchild born. Apart from all of these descendants of ours, Dianas son Ethan and his wife Mary York Gainer, have become the proud new parents of our first great grandchild, John Michael Gainer, who was born August 17, 2012, at 12:19 p.m., weighing eight pounds, 11 ounces, 21 inches tall.

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Heyer Saga

ROSES MEMORIES
This section is reserved for Roses childhood memories. Shes placed first of the childrens sub-sections as a counterbalance to appearing last in so many family lists, having been the last to be born. Roses Memories (b. 1963):

ABOUT ROSE FROM DAD: The Black Thing (a memory of Dads) At Citrus Heights, our largest home, I began to switch our childrens sleeping arrangements around from time to time, so that each would ultimately have slept in all available different rooms or different places, as necessary and practical, to encourage a sense of fairness and unity. On the other hand, because Jeff was the only male, that fact imposed certain limitations after the earlier years. At a certain point, our youngest child, Rose, was bunked with Jeff. Rose was eager to talk directly with him, but he was more inclined initially, to sleep. Later, however, he found it convenient to encourage her to join with him and a friend of his, Brian Luke, in developing and acting out various imaginary experiences. Many of these experiences were enacted over a considerable time, ultimately leading to Jeffs career in drama. In these early moves toward that career, their name for the role that she played was, Super Baby. On one evening, when the children were all upstairs and presumably asleep, while Thelma and I were downstairs, Rose seemed to be seriously upset about something. When I went up, it was obvious that she was very upset, so much so, that she could not speak, though she had long since learned to carry on long conversations fluently. Since she could not speak at the moment to explain, I picked her up, held her, and carried her around, Chapter 28 - Rose, page 323

Heyer Saga in hopes that this procedure would help her to calm down more easily, but it was still not within her capacity to do that, so I carried her outside, in hopes that the brisk, dark night air would be of some assistance. After a considerable time, she did seem to be able to calm down a little bit, enough so that she wasnt weeping, but she still could not speak coherently. After she calmed enough that I could settle her down and go to bed, we all went to sleep The next morning, I asked her what the problem had been and she was well able to give her reply, which was simply, the black thing. Since she was still in bed, I looked around to see what black thing this might be. It was, in fact, a spider web attached firmly on the ceiling directly above where she was sleeping. I explained to her what it was, then afterwards, (either Thelma or) I swept it down and eliminated its presence. It had been a dramatic crisis briefly for all, until the problem was resolved. Plains, Trains and Automobiles (Roses Memory as told to Diana) Rose used to visit Jules often when Jules lived in Sedro-Woolley. This town used to be two towns, Sedro and Woolley, and they merged, which explains the double name. Rose doesnt remember how many times she visited. There were so many, she lost count! The first time was during a cross-country trip with Steven, in 1995. Jules and Chris first moved to Sedro-Woolley in May of 1994. Rose visited in the winter of 1995. Both she and Steven were very impressed with the place. They left the east coast and drove straight across the U.S., then north to Washington to visit Jules, headed back east and then south to Texas to visit Dina, and then headed straight for home in Massachusetts. Somehow they missed the Arizona relatives. It took three days to get across the country in the first leg of the journey, driving almost constantly, just stopping for a short sleep. The rest of the journey took about 10 days, with short stays along the way. In Texas they saw Greenvilles Cotton Museum [now the Audie Murphy American Cotton Museum]. Eileen and Chapter 28 - Rose, page 324

Heyer Saga Ethan also entertained them by showing home movies they had made, a kind of puppet Star Trek adventure with stuffed bunnies playing the parts [called BunTrek]. As a teenager, Rose saw Jules often in San Francisco. It was here she developed a fondness for La Cumbre, a restaurant. They had great burritos. Jules took Rose to a womens event during one visit and Rose later did a painting of it. It was the Take Back the Night march that ended up in Dolores Park. Rose thought that was great. She did the painting, depicting the final part in the park. And she wrote about it in English class. Her teacher was not too thrilled. Being enthused, Rose wrote much more than what was assigned and the teacher didnt really want to read that much. But that teacher was not one of her favorites anyway. The teacher had really enjoyed high school and teaching was her way of staying there. This was the opposite of how Rose felt --- let me get out of here and do something interesting! Rose went to Washington on the train, the Amtrak Starlight Express. It took 24 hours. Some people paid extra for the sleeper car, but Rose just had the seat. Groups of passengers were taken to the dining car for meals. There were just random collections of passengers at the tables, so she met lots of interesting people. Before that trip, she had taken the bus across the country from Vermont. Both were adventures but the train was better. She got to have conversations with people from different areas; it was interesting, they were happy to chat in this low-pressure environment, with no worries about involvement. Everyone knew theyd probably never see each other again. Plus it was a good way to pass the time, so it was always fun. Rose had told about the time she flew up to Washington and then drove back with Jules. They were going to visit Crater Lake on that trip. It was winter and as they drove up the mountain toward the lake, it got icier and icier. Finally Rose said they were not going to make it and they turned around to come back down. But they didnt make it down either. They had Chapter 28 - Rose, page 325

Heyer Saga to call a tow truck, though neither she nor Jules remembers how. They didnt have cell phones back then. The tow truck was probably just passing by. The tow truck drivers took both of them back into town, then left Rose there while they drove Jules back to the car (because they were towing somebody else originally). Rose began to wonder if she should have let this stranger drive off her with sister. Jules was beginning to think the same things was this such a good idea after all? Did we think this through? Perhaps not! But then Rose reasoned that if they were going to kill Jules, they wouldnt have left Rose behind as a witness. And in fact everything was fine. But they never saw Crater Lake. The road sign said Crater Lake this way, making them think it was just down the road. But they drove and drove and five hours later were still wondering, Where is it?! On the way up, they stopped at Shasta Caverns. It was a big cave with a tour and Monk the dog came along. Jules asked if Monk could come on the tour and was told it was okay as long as she carried the dog. This was a 90-pound dog! So he stayed outside. Inside it was very dark, there were stalagmites and stalactites, and the tour guide explained the various rock formations and told stories of the discovery. It was a whole nother world! Jules said there was one big crystal, which came down from the ceiling and if a person knocked on it, it would make a tone. The guide said people used to come down and make music on the stalactites this way. But they didnt do it anymore because they were afraid theyd crack the rocks. Jules and Rose really wanted to hear the tone it would make. It was a good trip for an adult but it would be hard for a child because they were told not to touch the rocks. Rose still finds the geography of Puget Sound confusing, in spite of her many trips to visit Jules in that area. Shes gone every way possible by plane, train, and automobile! Each has its advantages. The train is so relaxing and its a romantic way to travel, like living a movie from the 1950s. The plane is obviously much quicker and the small airport is nice. And its close to Jules place. With the car, you have to work for it but you can make stops and have side adventures. So thats fun too.

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Heyer Saga Rose has seen Jules place in all seasons. Usually she went in the summer, but also at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and she went in the fall last year. It was really beautiful then. She probably went during the spring at least once though she doesnt specifically remember a spring trip. Shes been to Texas twice, first in the summer of 1980 and then the second trip in the winter of 95. Of the summer trip, she remembers it being very hot and everywhere they went, there was air-conditioning (she came during a record-breaking heat wave when the temperatures was over a hundred degrees every day for nearly 3 months). The winter was pleasant, comfortable. She remembers being surprised how long they took driving across Texas before they arrived in Greenville. West Texas, which they crossed before was much like Central California except much flatter. Winter in Vermont was very different. Theres nothing else quite like it. There was lots of snow. But she thinks 20 degrees was as cold as it got. Seattle gets that cold but doesnt have that much snow. One winter, people talked about it being 20 degrees below zero and she asked whether that was Fahrenheit or Centigrade. She was told at that point the two scales meet. That was not in Vermont but in Canada, in Winnipeg during a train trip across the country. She left from Massachusetts, it was cold there with a lot of snow and for college students from non-snowy places it was a new experience. She went to Montreal first, then to Winnipeg and CEEDS, a farming community, during the train trip, which she took during winter break. In Montreal she spent the night in a youth hostel where people spoke French to her. She tried very hard to understand but her 2 years of high school French just didnt cut it! The person talking to her became impatient and just switched to English. She asked whether Montreal had a Chinatown and was told every city in North America has a Chinatown! So she went. It was about one block in size, very cute. She then went on to Vancouver and south from there to visit Jules. This was January 1994 so she went to Seattle to see Jules and Chris. She and Jules printed Rose some business cards. Rose went through all the graphic elements Jules and Chris had and picked out ones she liked. One was of a farmer plowing. But, being a student then, she had Chapter 28 - Rose, page 327

Heyer Saga no fixed address or phone, so she would just write her contact info on the cards when she gave them out. After visiting Jules and Chris she went north again to Vancouver and from there to CEEDS. The little town near this was named something like 15 miles it was so rural that the towns all had names that were just mile markers. She saw elk and caribou; in fact, they had to stop the train at one point to clear the caribou from the tracks. She spent about a week at CEEDS, moving hay and feeding cows. It was cold. She was interested in milking the cows and tried but it didnt work, in spite of her having experience milking goats. People had an interesting story there. The place had begun in the 70s when lots of people came and went from a commune. They settled down into a regular community but with just a few couples. The place had been there about 15 years by then. Originally then there were four couples and some young children. Rose had seen it listed in a book and contacted them to ask if she could visit. The founder was older than the others and told stories of their original goal which was to save the Grandin potato (also called heirloom potato). In Canada potato growing is usually a very commercial enterprise and there are strict rules about potato size and shape. So these people were going to save the nonuniform potato. There was also a brazen chicken rescue at some point. There were also some native people living there although most of them were away during Roses visit. Vancouvers Chinatown was the second largest after San Franciscos. Rose visited there. It was big, less touristy than San Franciscos. There was a community center there. The CEEDS founder had given her the name of a journalist to contact in Vancouver and he showed Rose around this community center. There was a real mix of people there: Chinese, Native American, black, white, Hispanic. All were hanging out spending time, very nice. Then she took the train back home. During this trip Rose often asked Canadians what they thought about their health care system. They always said it was nice, not like the U.S., our lack of it. Jules added that one of her Canadian friends got very sick and people told her afterward, just imagine what it would have been like in America, Chapter 28 - Rose, page 328

Heyer Saga how terrible it would have been to have all those bills to pay afterward. Jules didnt have to imagine! The last time Rose visited, she took the plane and there was a woman passenger from Vancouver, which is very close to where Jules lived. They pay just a few hundred dollars a year for health care in Canada. That doesnt cover dental. This Vancouver woman told Rose she was looking for a house in the Bay Area because it would cheaper than Vancouver. Hard to believe! But in Hayward or Fremont a house is less than Vancouver. Rose went back to Massachusetts where they had an epic winter with snow, snow, snow, even in May at graduation. Then they had an epic hot summer! Very dramatic weather. Growing up in the Sacramento area, Rose always appreciated the different seasonal changes. In the east there was snow in the winter, which never lost its charm. Other people didnt understand that attitude but Rose really enjoyed the snow. And ever since Dad once took the family to Chinatown, when Rose was a child, she had found it a magical place. Wherever she went, she always visited the local Chinatown after that. While she living in Massachusetts she read about Hampshire College. Shed first heard of it in junior high or high school. It sounded like an amazing place, very forward thinking and it was part of a five-college consortium. When you were in one of the colleges you could attend any of those in the consortium. She became part of that and met amazing people who became good friends. Then she transferred to the University of Massachusetts that was less expensive and had more programs, but was still part of the consortium. So there was Smith College, Hampshire, U Mass, and La Joya?? It was an amazing intellectual adventure. The crickets she had missed hearing in Sacramento were there in Massachusetts. This year they will have cicadas (special 17-year cicadas?).

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Heyer Saga Shes seen oxygen bars. She never tried it but they were very popular for a while. Walts friend Lisa mentioned them. She works with barometric chambers. Being in one with pressurized oxygen inside is different from the oxygen bar, she says. When she was little, it always seemed like the older kids had adventures that she couldnt join in with and Dad took trips for work. Hed bring interesting presents back. One time he brought a wooden soldier and a wooden cannon that would shoot, from Virginia. Later he traveled widely around the world with World Peace through Law. From the Phil2ippines he brought back an orange, embroidered blouse that Rose had for many years. She always had a fascination with China and the Chinese language. As a child she had a storybook with Chinese tales, including the story of the seven brothers. They all looked just alike. One was accused of a crime and sentenced to death. He accepted this but said he had to go home first to say goodbye to his brothers. He was supposed to be drowned as his form of execution but one of his brothers took his place, a brother who could hold his breath a long time under water. So he didnt die. Then he was supposed to be hanged and he says he has to go home first to say goodbye to his brothers again. This time the identical brother with an iron neck takes his place. So this goes on repeatedly, each time a different form of execution tried on a different identical brother. And they never could kill him. So finally they just gave up because he was unstoppable! Another story was about a gosling on a farm who wants an adventure. He runs off, but ends up hungry and lost. A fisherman takes him in, which seems like salvation. But the fisherman puts a ring around his neck so that the fisherman takes the fish he catches. Finally the gosling gets back home and all is well. This was probably meant to teach people that theyre better off in the commune than being exploited by the evil capitalists. Rose remembers the beautiful, idealized pictures from the 60s, during the Cultural Revolution, with communal fishpond, communal harvest, and so on. Later of course Rose learned that reality was more complicated.

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Heyer Saga These stories appealed to her and Dad taught her a little Chinese. She had storybooks from all over, including one from Persia with beautiful illustrations in the Persian style. Dad wrote something to her in Persian and she thought the writing was so beautiful. The story was something like this: mischief in the palace gardens, a man goes over the wall, the princess comes out of her bedroom unhappy and disheveled Rose learned the word disheveled from this story. The story of the goat might have been from this book. In this tale, a man comes home, his wife belches, and in her embarrassment, she blames it on the goat. The man is so disgusted at her stupidity that he leaves home. But eventually he finds that people are stupid everywhere and maybe even worse, so he goes back home. As a teenager, Rose watched Chinese TV. There was a soap opera and you could get the gist of what was going on without really knowing the language. Rose also loved martial arts movies. There always seemed to be a strong female character, giving the impression that there was real equality in China. Later she found that wasnt true, it was just an ideal of recent times and not reality. So she took classes in Chinese history and language and martial arts.

May 16, 2013 Rose: Miscellaneous comments: SuperBaby I cant tell you the plot of any of those [SuperBaby] movies. I realized I was wearing a superhero cape and I may have pushed a car at one part, had a fight with a teddy bear at another. Because I was so little, the others didnt want to play with me, so making movies with my big brother, and where I got to be a superhero and a movie star at the same time was very appealing to me. SuperBaby is on film.

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Heyer Saga Take Back the Night Dad was speaking of one of the paintings in the El Granada Reiki Room, (the bottom floor room with sliding glass door to the backyard garden): I always thought one of them was supposed to be Rose, but she didnt say that. This painting, one of four in the room, was Roses commemoration of Take Back the Night, an event in San Francisco whose aim was to counter the tendency to think of the night as a place of danger to women, whether real (in which case steps should be taken, such as more street lighting) or imaginary, while men were free. Thelma said that she too thought that one of them was Rose, in fact, the two people at the bottom-middle of the picture, the only two people looking back to the viewer, were Rose and Jules. But Rose said no. Dina says that at the time of the event and its subsequent painting, Rose was in high school and Diana was at Berkeley, where she also knew of the event, but did not attend. In the painting, the people are linked hand in hand, dancing a kind of spiral. They were supposed to end up in Dolores Park.2

Editors Note: Rose says (6/1/13) that Jules was living in San Francisco and was a volunteer for the event. She says the large lighted area in the painting is not a bonfire, but a lighted stage. Dolores Park is a city park in San Francisco, California. It is located two blocks south of Mission Dolores at the western edge of the Mission District.

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Heyer Saga

Martha Heyer Day Dina was home from school that day for some reason and went with Mom to Roses school. It was in a big room like an auditorium, lots of kids were there, and there was a big banner saying Martha Heyer Day. One last group of kids came in with Rose among them. She clearly didnt notice Mom and Dina or the banner. But then one of the teachers or faculty began to introduce the occasion and they called out Roses name. Just then she looked up and saw the banner. Oh, she just beamed as she went up to receive an award. Dina doesnt remember what the award was for exactly, but it was for something she wrote. The whole school honored her that day. A photographer from the local newspaper came and her picture appeared in the paper. Its tough being little around a bunch of big kids. You can never catch up the big kids just keep on getting bigger, no matter what you do. You get all the hand-me-downs and by the time you get to do the neat stuff that the big kids were doing, its not the same and they arent doing them anymore. But you do have friends. When various Heyers (and former Heyers) get together with the Stevens family, Martha Heyer Day comes up. Tammi Stevens was there at the school and remembered the great day. Tammi is gone now, but we remember her fondly, along with her mother, Janet, Moms best friend. Her older sisters included Judy, who was about Jules age, and Rhonda who was in between Judy and Tammi. There was also an older brother they called Buddy. Was there another brother? Donny. Animals I was about 2 years old I believe, but I do remember hearing the story [of the black thing]. So when I hear the story what I do think of is how well off I was as a child. Also, since then I have become fond of spiders. My dad had a big book with lots of pictures, The Encyclopedia of Insects, with all kinds and descriptions of insects, so I loved going outside and looking for them. I got over my fear quickly. Chapter 28 - Rose, page 333

Heyer Saga Speaking of insects that I have found in our backyard, as far back as I can remember I have had a love and fascination with the natural world, that being our backyard and the empty fields around our house at my childhood age. One day I found an unusual insect. It was a black beetle with a red diamond on its back. Its markings were like a black widow spider but it was a beetle. I researched Dads encyclopedia but it wasnt there. I kept the beetle in my drawer and fed it leaves, but I never found any reference to it and never learned what it was. I named her Ruby. And, of course, there were always the roly-poly bugs. You would hold them and they would roll up into a ball. I miss the sounds of crickets and frogs. The older kids had pets but I had not, except for Ruby. I have no memory of the monkey. I think it was when I was 9 years old that Mom told me I could get a dog. Heidi was part collie, part German Shepherd, part terrier. I got her as a puppy, I cant remember where. I got Heidi and went into 4H and learned a little bit about taking care of dogs and dog training though I never learned it well how to communicate the right energy to whoever youre around. She was a sweet, fun, playful dog. I had her all through high school, I think it was maybe shortly after high school, when I was living in El Granada that she became sick and had arthritis and skin problems so eventually we put her to sleep. There were lots of other animals. There were guinea pigs at the same time we had the monkey so it was like a zoo. I got chickens, Nona got rabbits. So Dad built hutches and I would do the 4H chicken thing. And then one day Dad got back from a business trip down south, Los Angeles, and in the back of the station wagon was a goat. Zella was pregnant, so soon we had more goats. The first one was Zoe but she didnt live long. We then took Zella to be bred and later she had Zot. Like cats, when a goat is ready to be bred, they let you know in unmistakable terms. We had goat milk but I didnt like it. We tried making goat cheese and that was not successful. But we found goat milk ice cream was good. It was a fun thing we did up to the time when I was about sixteen going to county fairs doing 4H and the goats. Eventually one day when both Nona and I were going away, we found a nice farm where they had more space. By then we had bred Zella a number of times, then later sold the babies after they were weaned. I Chapter 28 - Rose, page 334

Heyer Saga tried bringing the babies in the house. Mom didnt like that. The furniture and lots of papers got chewed on plus the clean up. We sometimes brought Zot up to Shingle Springs and let her enjoy more natural scenery. We built a fenced pen, but they were very good at getting out, so they just followed us around. We had the goats both at Citrus Heights and El Granada. Shingle Springs Shingle Springs it was a long ride, really hot and wed have to roll up the windows because the roads were dirt [and no air conditioning!]. There was carsickness too. But once we got there it was wonderful the quiet, the nature sounds. I remember the water witch Dad hired a man to find water and he used a dousing rod, the water witch. We dug a well where he suggested and it did have water. It was the best tasting water! It wasnt like the wells you see in paintings. It was just a small hole with a fitted bucket that you let down and drew back up. Dianas Memories of Rose I remember one Christmas Eve, when we were all allowed to open one present, either Nona or Rose opened hers and found a teddy bear. It could even have been Jules. But when it came time to go to bed, whichever little sister it was dozed off while sitting on the toilet and the teddy bear fell in. Oh, oh, the tragedy! The teddy had to be laundered immediately which took much noise and lots of time, forever! Another of Dianas Memories of Rose I remember hearing Rose when she was sharing a bedroom with Jeff. At night shed be talking for a long time before she went to sleep. I was in the bedroom just down the hall [the half-open door of my bedroom facing the half-open door of Jeff and Roses room, so the sound traveled easily to where I was]. And I would hear Rose. She must really have loved the Birthday Song, because shed sing it for each of her stuffed toys in turn. After each rendition, she call to Jeff, Jeff, Jeff, blow out the candles! And Chapter 28 - Rose, page 335

Heyer Saga hed gamely blow, F-f-f-f-f-f-f-f! Or Id hear her call out in distress, Oh, Teddy fell off the bed. Jeff, Jeff, rescue Teddy! He couldnt sleep until she went to sleep. But I think he liked it. Being the only boy, he usually slept alone, while we girls shared a bedroom with one another. It was his form of bonding. Rose, Nona, Jules, Thelma and Robin Collaborate on Memories of Bedrooms Rose: I remember you put all three of us (Rose, Nona, and Jules) in the Master Bedroom. Cindy and Dina were older, so they shared a room. I graduated from a crib, so we got bunk beds. Jules and Nona fought over who got the top bunk. Jules was older so she got first pick, but I think we traded off. Dad: I tried to work it so everybody would have a chance to experience all the rooms, and no one would miss anything. Nona: Finally, someone would graduate to downstairs, like a promotion, to the sewing room. The sewing room, this was in Citrus Heights, and in about 1975, for six weeks, Aunt Anni and Uncle Terry, Dads brother, came for a stay. At first they slept in the living room, but that didnt work, so they moved into the sewing room. Their two children, Celeste and Valiant, were sleeping somewhere upstairs. Dina and Cindy had gone off to college. Dad and Thelma: This was a learning experience. Anni was born approximately 1938 in Hamburg, Germany, so experienced World War II as a child. Terry met her in the 1960s when he went to Germany as a Mormon missionary. Terry then had a temporary job near us in Sacramento, so they came and stayed with us. They are now in Orem, Utah, where he works as a medical librarian in a church childrens hospital. A few times we did visit them in Utah. This was usually on my way back from some trip in the east. Thelma came a few times. Anni lost a child and that was hard, so Thelma went to help her. Jules Memory of Rose - The Wounded Finch

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Heyer Saga Rose and Jules were walking beside the Mission Dolores in San Francisco one afternoon and just outside the entrance we saw a tiny finch lying on the sidewalk. I joked that it had been defrocked. But Rose took pity on it and carefully scooped it up and brought it back to her apartment on Pine street. She set up a lovely little bird cage where she tenderly placed it inside. We then went to a nearby pet shop and bought baby bird formula. Rose mixed the formulas everyday and lovingly fed the little bird until it began to gain back its strength. After a couple of weeks, one sunny afternoon, Rose took the little finch to a nearby city park and released it. She watched as it happily flew off into the trees. Teeny, Tiny Turtles When Jules, Nona and Rose were very young, we three shared a bedroom together. I remember we had a little bed-stand between Nona and my bunk-bed, and Roses little bed. My recollection is that Nona had the top bunk and I had the bottom, where my head was near the little bed-stand. There we kept a small terrarium where some very teensy pet turtles lived. They were probably aquatic turtles of some kind. Very bright green. And they never grew much bigger than a silver dollar. We fed them little turtle flakes and occasionally tried to catch flies to feed them for dessert. Sometimes we would lift them out and let them wander about the bedroom. But they never grew very affectionate with us, nor displayed any particular exciting characters. So eventually Im afraid we would lose interest.

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Heyer Saga

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Heyer Saga

DIANAS MEMORIES
On one occasion, after I had become too old and forgetful to describe independently the full range of the adventures of our children, I asked Diana to provide a summary of such as she could recall. Her summary is set forth below: Dinas [Diana] Memories (b. 1954) What do I remember about growing up? The first thing that comes to mind is our house in Citrus Heights. I do remember the one in Fontana that we lived in before (on Blanchard Street). And of course I recall the one in Santa Clara that we lived in for two years in between years spent in Citrus Heights. But I liked the big, two-story house in Citrus Heights the best. As a child, I thought having stairs was neat (Im not so crazy about them now). Plus we had a big yard with so many interesting spots to play in. I have fond memories of time spent in and around the playhouse, Jeffs fort, the garden in the back (funny looking but good tasting corn and peas), and the jungle gym. I liked picking fruit from our peach and apricot trees as well as berries from the bushes that grew wild around the place. When we first moved to Citrus Heights, the ground was bare, though, without even a blade of grass. When it rained, the soil became very sticky and to walk across the mud meant you might well lose a shoe. I vaguely remember pulling more than one small shoe out of the mud to replace on a small foot, though I dont recall anymore whose shoe and foot (Nonas? Jules? Rose was just a baby when we first got there, so she wouldnt have been getting stuck in mudyet). When we first arrived at that house, all the rooms were still empty, which made our voices echo a bit. That was exciting and it was something I missed once all our things were inside. I remember that Cindy and I went upstairs to one of the still-empty bedrooms that looked out over the backyard and we saw black birds (magpies). For some reason, we decided to caw at the birds I dont remember if we were supposed to be communing with them in their own language or if we thought we would scare them off. Well, we didnt scare the birds in the least. They didnt Chapter 28 - Dina, page 339

Heyer Saga budge from their spots in the yard. But one of our younger sisters was in the room with us and our cawing scared her. Again, I dont remember if this was Nona or Julesor even Rose. But we really spooked her and she cried very loudly. Im sure Mom came to the rescue but thats a little vague in my memory too. As for excursions, the main kind of trip I remember us making was the yearly trek down to the L.A. area to see relatives. We kids would sing in the car sometimes, to make the time pass. There was one song we especially liked, one we learned in school. It was some sort of cowboy song, with complaints about food. There were bugs in the butter and sand in the meat but I dont remember either the tune or the rest of the song! When we drove to L.A., we often took highway 5 down the middle of the state, because it was faster. I liked seeing the many rolling hills, mostly covered with yellow and dried grass since we went in the summer and a lone tree here and there. There was a single oak tree on top of one of the hills behind our house, too, which we dubbed The Lone Tree. There was another, closer to home, at the edge of the empty lot beside our house on Hammond Court and the first house on the street perpendicular to ours (the name of which I no longer recall). I remember climbing up into that nearby tree many a time, which was great fun. It was also fun to play in that empty lot, which had many small gullies, which were dug by the rain in the soft mud. When it was dry, those gullies became forts and castles and mansions in our imagination, populated by toys or our own bodies. Some summers, I remember the local kids playing softball out there, too. So, when we were driving for hours and hours, on our way to L.A., I enjoyed looking at all the lone trees, imagining adventures of climbing and castle-building that we could have, if only those trees were close to home too. Eventually, wed reach Los Angeles and as we got close to Grammas house, the streets would become familiar. The last short stretch, when we turned off the main street onto West 147th, the street that Gramma lived on, always seemed the longest part of the trip, because I knew we were almost there and could hardly wait. Then finally the house would come into view, with its thick grassy lawn, the big front window with the flowers in front, and Chapter 28 - Dina, page 340

Heyer Saga the garage way at the back of the driveway separate from the house. It was always such a joy to get there, to pile out of the car to big hugs and smiles from Gramma and Grandpa. We kids would usually play outside for at least a while, stretching our legs, and wed inevitably end up rolling around in the grass. It always made us really itchy but we never learned. Wed do the same rolling in the grass stunts the next time we came, just the same. We just grew out of grass-rolling eventually, I guess. Gramma had pop flowers (fuchsias) growing on the side of the house, which she always warned us not to touch. So, naturally, we had to find those flowers every year, sneaking around there when nobody was looking. Seeing some of the flowers still in the bud brought out the itchiness in our fingers and we could not leave them alone. We had to pop every single bud open well, why else were they called pop-flowers?! Charlotte told me in recent years that after she grew up, she bought Gramma fuchsias year after year, for Mothers Day, to make up for all the pop flowers shed ruined as a kid. Too bad I never thought of that! Wed always spend our nights at the Sims house, but we went to see Grandma Kaye and Grandpa Heyer too. After they welcomed us in, we kids always went to Dads old room to play with the fascinatingly antique toys in the drawer of the bunk bed. Although they were the same toys year after year, they were always exotic and wonderful, without a bit of plastic. I know that one year we went to Disneyland, although I dont remember much about it. I must have been pretty young at the time, because the most exciting thing, the thing that stuck with me for years, was a ride based on Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. In this ride, we went inside a dark building, with various characters from the story popping up here and there. I remember that when the witch popped up, it really scared me. Whats really funny about that is that John and I went to Disneyland just before we headed off to Las Vegas to get married. And remembering how scary that ride was, I made John ride it with me. Of course, as an adult, I didnt think it was the least bit scary. The characters that popped up were just flat, painted plywood, I guess. When we got to the end of that ride, John turned to me and asked, How old were you when Chapter 28 - Dina, page 341

Heyer Saga that scared you? Then he laughed and asked, more facetiously, Was it just last week? Knotts Berry Farm was also in the L.A. area and I think we went there once, too. I dont remember anything specific about it except that I was terribly disappointed at not getting to eat any Knotts-berries. Id seen ads for the place on T.V. and there was always a shot of kids eating some kind of berry pie. I was sure they were eating Knotts-berry pie and I was just dying to have some too! Ah well, probably tastes just like Razzle-berry dressing. I know that our family took other trips, once up to the mountains to see snow, to the beach more than once, and at least once to something like Santa Claus Land. I dont remember much about those. I can recall pictures taken when we were in the snow better than I can recall the actual event. From visits to the beach, I remember only a couple of memorable events. Well, they were memorable at the time, which must have been when I was very young. I remember being scared of seaweed, a fear that Dad tried to cure me of by cutting open a piece to show me it had no teeth. I was unconvinced. The teeth were there, I was sure, just hiding until I stepped on it. Then theyd come out and bite me for sure. Sort of like the lions that lurked in my closet, which would only come out when it was dark and no brave mommies or daddies were around. On another occasion, maybe Id conquered my fear of seaweed, because I was digging in the sand. I decided to dig really, really deep. After a while, I came upon something orange colored, which scared me even more than seaweed. Well, maybe it was more awe than fear this time. The stuff I found looked slightly curved and it had an interesting texture, but the most significant thing was that it was orange colored. This, I was convinced, was that hot stuff in the center of the earth, something I knew about from the beautiful illustrations in one of our books at home. Yes, indeed, I had dug down to the center of the earth and had found orange lava, just like it appeared in that book! For a few years, I kept to the belief that I had dug down to the mantle, despite Mom and Dads insistence that it had to be an orange peel. But what would an orange peel be doing down Chapter 28 - Dina, page 342

Heyer Saga deep in the center of the earth, under the sand at the beach? It had to be lava! We went to Mount Diablo one time, too, to look for fossils. I think this was when we lived in Santa Clara though I could be wrong about that. It was really neat that we actually found some fossils, too, some type of seashell or sea creature. I dont remember the fossils so much as the fact that I told some of my friends at school about that excursion. My friends absolutely refused to believe me. They didnt doubt that we went to Mount Diablo, but for some reason they could not believe that normal people like us could actually discover fossils. Besides, they demanded, how could sea creatures get on top of Mount Diablo? The question blew my mind because I didnt know the answer, but I knew what we found. When we came back to Citrus Heights after living in Santa Clara, we went to the Renaissance Faire more than once. That was always great fun, with lots to see, hear, and do. On the other hand, Sutters Fort in Sacramento was not all that fun. I remember that we went as a family at least once and maybe more than that. We also went regularly for a field trip, in school. When I was a junior in high school, I think it was, my history teacher wanted to take the class on a field trip. He asked us to raise our hands if wed ever been to Sutters Fort. Everyone raised their hand. He was a bit disappointed, but then perked up and asked, Well, how many of you have been there twice? Again, every single person in the class raised their hand. Not to be dissuaded, he asked how many had been there three times. Still, everyone raised their hand. This was getting ridiculous. But he was determined to have a field trip, so he kept on asking. How many had gone four times, five timesnine times, ten times? At around 10 times, one or two of the students did not raise their hand. Well then, there was our reason for going! Everyone must be able to say theyd been there at least 10 times! So, back to Sutters Fort we went. I dont remember there being anything particularly striking about the place, even the first three or four times. There certainly wasnt anything exciting by the ninth and tenth times. But, who cared? It was a field trip, which meant a day of running around instead of sitting in a stuffy classroom, listening to yet another lecture. Nobody complained about going yet again. Chapter 28 - Dina, page 343

Heyer Saga We went to Calaveras Big Trees one time. I remember that the tall trees were very impressive and it smelled like Christmas to me. We went camping, which was great fun. I liked it a lot better than the beach, although I dont recall too many specific things. I do remember Anni and Terry also went camping and Celeste was a little thing then, just walking. Uncle Terry would carry her around on his shoulders, with her gripping his hair (and him wincing). I think he and Celeste enjoyed camping as much as I did but Im not sure Anni had a good time. I think she would have preferred a nice hotel with room service. We went to the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum when we lived in Santa Clara. That was pretty interesting to me. I didnt care that much about seeing mummies (or parts thereof), but the coffins painted with hieroglyphs were fascinating. All the little birds and men among the glyphs were so appealing, it just seemed like you ought to be able to understand what was written there without trying. But it was all mysterious even so. I later studied hieroglyphs at Berkeley, but I never got good at reading them. I remember that on several of the coffins, two big eyes were painted on the side, much bigger than any of the glyphs. When I studied hieroglyphs I learned that this was Egyptian magic. The deceased would want to see out of his/her coffin, after death, so they would paint these big eyes on the side and recite a few magic spells (and maybe write them on the coffin too, for good measure) and abracadabra! The dead could see out! Too bad all problems arent as easily solved as that. I remember going sailing on Lake Folsom quite a few times, too, something I really enjoyed. It was so peaceful out on the lake, and the sound of the water lapping against the hull of the boat was hypnotic. One time I got to invite a friend to come sailing and she and I took the little Toro by ourselves. We had a great time sailing around the lake, but at one point we made the mistake of landing on a little island on the windward side. It wasnt a problem landing there but it sure was a problem trying to sail away! Since the wind kept blowing us back to the land, we were in a pickle. Finally, a guy in a bigger boat with a motor came and towed us back out into the lake. Ive always remembered that you shouldnt sail to the

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Heyer Saga windward side of an island, ever since. Not that Ive had a chance to put my wisdom to use. Going up to the property in the mountains was always a good experience too. I didnt care for the drive because Id get carsick on the winding roads. But once we were there, it was breathtakingly beautiful. The air and the water up there were so clean. It made you want to drink from every stream even though you knew you shouldnt. I remember one time when Jeff and I had wandered off together we found a porcupine. Seeing deer was neat too. Id stand as still as I could so that they wouldnt run away. Sometimes they would stick around for quite a while, but usually theyd spook and run off soon anyway. Its not exactly an excursion, but I also have fond memories of our going into Sacramento to watch silent movies. We saw several with Charlie Chaplin and some with Buster Keaton. We just sat in folding chairs and I dont think there was any popcorn. But it was fun to do and the movies were really fun too. I still wouldnt mind seeing Buster Keaton again. He could get some of the funniest looks on his face. Going to the Roseville Auction was another memorable event that was often repeated. You never knew what you might find there, especially among the second-hand books. I could spend hours looking through the various stalls, but the books were definitely the best part. When I lived with Gramma, wed go to the big swap meets at drive-in theaters whenever Carrie and Manuel came to visit. That was always fun, too, but they never had bookstalls that were half as good as the Roseville Auction! The excursions I took as an adult, with babies in tow, have remained more solidly in my memory. I cant even call up a single picture from our trip to Tijuana, Mexico, for example, but I remember a lot from our first trip to England. John and I decided to get a flight that left in the evening around Rachels bedtime, in hopes that she and Ethan would sleep through it all. What a couple of morons we were! I dont think a single person on that airplane slept a wink during those 11 hours of flight.

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Heyer Saga We had baby crying in stereo practically the whole time, John walking Rachel up and down one aisle and me walking Ethan up and down the other. We felt wed walked the whole distance from Texas to London! Needless to say, we were feeling pretty ragged by the time we arrived at Heathrow airport. I carried both babies, one on each hip, while John saw to the luggage. Both babies were soggy wed run through a diaper bag full of diapers on the flight and we were out of baby formula. So while John dealt with the people in customs, I sat down on the floor by a wall (the only place I could lean my aching back against something), with a wearily sobbing baby on each knee. A nice British lady came over, took one of the babies from me and bounced her (him?) up and down a little, advising me to go to the chemist to buy nappies as soon as we left the airport. John and I had previously considered going to Greece, but had opted for England instead because we thought it would be easier not having to deal with a language barrier. When the nice lady told me about chemists and nappies, I didnt have a clue what she was talking about. I remember thinking we might just as well have gone to Greece after all! Maybe the customs agent was spurred to efficiency by the stereo baby-crying. I dont know, but we got through customs pretty quick. Then a fellow named Dave Cutler picked us up and drove us to our hotel. But on the way, he got lost in London and, typical Texan that he was, refused to stop for directions or to look at the map book. Instead, he just gave the map book to John to juggle in one hand (holding a now snoring baby in the other). John was so tired; he couldnt make heads or tails out of the maps. And I was so tired, I didnt have the presence of mind to take the book and try it myself. So, we continued getting the scenic tour of London for what seemed as many hours as the plane flight had been. London is a big place, but Im pretty sure we didnt actually spend 11 hours driving aimlessly through it! In the hotel, they asked if we wanted a cot for the babies. I remember that worried me because I thought a cot was a kind of makeshift bed, canvas stretched over a folding wooden frame, like people in the army Chapter 28 - Dina, page 346

Heyer Saga use. No, silly me. It was what we would call a crib. And yes, we did want one for each baby. We ended up in two rooms, John and one baby crib in one room, me with the other baby bed in the next room because the rooms were too small for two cribs and the cribs were too small for two babies. The kids went to sleep and so did we. I woke to see it was nine according to the clock by the bed. Thinking wed slept through the whole day and missed three meals, I got Rachel up and went and knocked on Johns door. Upon which, he informed me it was nine in the morning. I dont think my mental clock got straightened out for the whole first month! Our house was in Risby, a tiny town not far from the teeny little metropolis of Bury St. Edmonds. It was a two-story house, as nearly all British homes were. It had been built in the early years of the 20th century so a fairly new house by British standards. It was heated by coal, which was delivered twice a month on an irregular schedule that I never figured out. Theoretically, the coal man came by and put the coal in a coal closet, from which we brought out buckets full to start the Aga, our coal-burning range. I remember I tried to boil water on the Aga on our first day in the house. But up after 4 hours or so, I had to give that up. Fortunately, we also had a very small electric stove. So, I could burn anything lickety-split on this electric stove or keep it tepid on the Aga, but nothing in between. Eventually, John got me a microwave, which was then new technology. I remember when we moved away, we could not sell that microwave the ladies who might otherwise have been interested in taking this appliance were scared to death of eating the Lethal Micro Waves, which would no doubt cook them from the inside out. The fact that John and I had been eating microwaved food for over a year without ill effects cut no ice with them. They knew those waves were lethal and that was that! Living as an alien was an interesting experience. We had to register with the local police, an adventure in itself. We lived in Suffolk, which has its own unique accent, as does each county in Britain. But this is not quite the English accent one hears on TV shows and movies. The upper crust had that British accent but the working class people spoke the local variety. This meant we had a terrible time understanding the policeman who was trying to fill out our paperwork, and a worse time later understanding the Chapter 28 - Dina, page 347

Heyer Saga repairman who regularly visited us to fix the washing machine or the dryer (one or the other was forever on the blink). Speaking of appliances, everything was apartment sized in Britain, it seemed to us. That is, appliances that would be called apartment-sized (and so smaller than average) in the U.S. were either the standard size in Britain or what was even more surprising extra-large. We had one of the biggest refrigerators in Suffolk, for example, but it didnt hold half the amount that our regular fridge at home had. That was because most Brits didnt need a refrigerator for much. Their milk was still delivered by a milkman on a daily basis (and the ladies all tried to dash out and fetch it in as quickly as possible, so as to beat the birds to it, a feat I almost never managed, so our milk bottles almost always had the thin foil tops broken through by nasty birdie beaks). They kept this milk in the pantry, which looked like a closet, but which always stayed nice and cool. Im not exactly sure how they managed that, except that most of Britain stayed nice and cool most of the time. Most of the housewives went shopping every day for the groceries needed for that day. Since there was only one store in Risby, this would have meant a lot of walking for me with two babies in tow, one of who could sleep through thunderstorms at home and the other who woke at the racket made by grass growing. The local store didnt carry much either, being something along the lines of a 7-11 store at home. You could get bread, freshly baked and hard as a rock, semi-wrapped in paper. You could also get a few types of candy. For most other things, you had to go into Bury St. Edmonds. To my astonishment, the other moms with tots put their little ones in pushchairs and walked over to Bury regularly. But with my doublewide pushchair, I would have taken up half the road (there being no sidewalk) and I didnt trust the drivers to watch out for us. Although we learned to communicate with the British, we always stood out as foreigners. Many times, John would stop by a fish n chips shop on the way home from work to pick up supper, to give me a break. More than once, hed be told they were all out and be sent on his way empty-handed. But hed see them selling fish n chips just like normal to the next guy who came in who happened to be British. In Texas Id been told more than once that I was a Yankee and there are only two kinds of Chapter 28 - Dina, page 348

Heyer Saga Yankees your damn Yankees and your goddamn Yankees. I expect they had a similar sentiment about Americans in Britain, but they were polite enough not to tell me about it! Even so, I managed to tick off the coal man by calling to ask about more coal one time when it happened to be a holiday. I didnt know it was a holiday (it wasnt one wed had at home) and he didnt tell me. He came and delivered the coal, but instead of putting it in the coal closet, he dumped it all in the entryway. It took me about a week to find out why he did that and it was a neighbor lady who inadvertently explained it by mentioning the holiday. John and I decided maybe it was best if we forgot about coal, at that point, so we bought a number of portable heaters that ran on Calor Gas. It was sort of an adventure keeping the babies from burning themselves, but then it had also been an adventure trying to light all those coal fires, sweep up all the coal dust twice a day, mop up the coal dust that the broom wouldnt get up at least once a day, and dig stray bits of coal out of babies mouths. I had heard the term clean energy before going to Britain. But before all those adventures with coal, I had not truly known what dirty energy was! Life was a little tougher in Britain than in the U.S. When you bought an electric appliance, you had to buy the plug separately and attach it yourself. That was a little unnerving. Buying things on the economy was a bit tricky, too, since the price in pounds didnt quite correspond to the price in dollars. This meant doing a bit of math in your head, something I was never very good at. The sizes of things always seemed a fair amount smaller than in the U.S. too, and not just of appliances. Even the meat was smaller. A piece of meat that would be considered one persons helping in the U.S. (and not an especially large helping at that) would be sold in Britain as a meal for a family. I dont remember seeing anything sold in large containers no gallons (or even liters). When you went to a grocery store, you had to have your own bags, boxes, or baskets to carry the stuff home in, too. Like most things, we discovered this the hard way by shopping once unprepared and being caught at the checkout stand with a basket load of goods and no basket (or bag, or box). A woman who watched the kids for us had a gadget in her house that controlled her Chapter 28 - Dina, page 349

Heyer Saga electricity. If this woman wanted to use the electricity for anything she had to put a 25p coin in the box. That would run things for a short while and then shed have to put another coin in. I couldnt imagine having to make do like that! But living overseas was a good experience. For one thing, we appreciated so many things when we got home, things we had taken for granted before. Wide streets were a great thing back in the States. There were no wide streets in Britain. Plus they were always winding, even though it wasnt hilly. We went lots of places with the kids in the back seat of the car. I rode nearly the whole way, every time, sitting in the front passenger seat, turned around facing the back, to deal with the babies in the back seat. I plied them with drinks in sippy cups, cookies or crackers, toys, and wipies and Kleenex in a vain effort to keep their noses clean. I also talked incessantly to keep them entertained. I got carsick a lot more in England than I had in the States! I wasnt the only one, either. Shortly after starting off, Rachel would always warn us, I have a bad taste in my mouth! This meant I better get a towel ready because her last meal was about to come leaping from her lips. Once when Mom was visiting us, I was in the back seat with Rachel and the poor little tyke urped up all over me. Unfortunately, this was on our outward journey, so we still had to go in the store and do our shopping before I could get home to change clothes. The towel could only do so much, so I wore my coat into the store and kept it buttoned up to my neck. It did cover the stain. But it did nothing for the smell. I remember one person passed me in the store and did a rather wild double take with big eyes. Dont know what went through that persons mind. Dont care to know! Well, that wasnt the best part of living overseas. We saw a lot of historic things in our time there. It wasnt hard to see something historic because most of Britain is just naturally historic! That one little store in Risby dated back to Shakespeares day. It had a thatched roof something that was not at all rare in Suffolk. The church at the end of our road was also historic. It was 1,000 years old and perhaps more. It had a round tower, which was rare. Most of the churches had square towers in that part Chapter 28 - Dina, page 350

Heyer Saga of the country. Unfortunately, we never went to any of the services at that local church. The idea of trying to keep two wiggly babies quiet kept me from attempting it. But the babies went with us to several places. We took them to an animal farm of some kind once. I dont remember much about it except that they had some little horses, not much bigger than dogs. There were a lot of other animals, too, but the kids were not terribly interested. At one point the kids found a big chain that was being used to keep people on the path and out of the grass. They had more fun wiggling that chain than theyd had looking at all the animals in the place! Well, thats little kids for you! We also took them with us when we went to Ely cathedral. The cathedral had big, colorful, stained-glass windows, which I can no longer picture in my mind. What I can recall is that we went up some steps to a level above the lower floor and one of the babies tripped on one of the stone steps, banged a little knee, and began to cry. Wow, what acoustics! That baby cry echoed from one end of the cathedral to the other! One of the neat things about Britain was that most people took their kids with them where they went, so we werent oddballs with ours. Even when they went shopping, people had kids in tow in pushchairs. But since most stores were very small and there wasnt room for the pushchair inside, people would park their babies outside, pushchair and all. That took some getting used to. I could never get used to it enough to try it myself. I might have left the pushchair outside, but I would have carried the baby inside with me. The pushchair itself was British. Since people went outside almost every day, regardless of the weather, there were lots of things to put on these pushchairs to protect the little ones from the weather. We did not get the little awning to keep the rain off, or the clear plastic cover that hung from the awning to surround the baby. But we did get what they called Cosy Toes, which was something like pants but was attached to the chair. Wed slip the babies feet down in the Cosy Toes as we set them in the pushchair and theyd be wearing their little jackets or sweaters. And theyd

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Heyer Saga stay toasty warm. I cant say the same for me! It wasnt that it was so terribly cold in Britain, but it was so terribly damp all the time that I always felt cold. John and I also went to several places without the kids, once we found a child-minder. We didnt dare leave the kids overnight (which several people we knew from Johns workplace did). So we made day trips only, which limited our range. Even so, we saw a number of castles, including Orford on the coast (which was essentially just a single round tower with a few remnants of the rest) and Framlingham (which was the curtain wall around the outside and almost nothing else, but you could go up to a walkway and go around the whole thing). We went to Lincoln to see a cathedral but failed to see the Magna Carta because it had been loaned out to someplace else. In London, we saw Big Ben covered in scaffolding repeatedly throughout our stay. We went to the Tower of London several times, where it was always fun to compare the various suits of armor that had belonged to King Henry VIII each one larger than the one before. It was neat to see the very tall suit of armor that had belonged to some fellow over 6 feet tall, and compare that with the very small suit of armor that had been made for a court jester who was about half as tall as me. Yes, it was a fascinating place and on those occasions when we had visitors, we always had to take them to the Tower. But even in Bury St. Edmonds, there were interesting things to see. The big tourist attraction was Moises Hall, a building that was a few hundred years old, Im guessing. It wasnt all that much to look at, but there was a museum of sorts inside. I remember they sold miniature replicas of the death mask of a famous criminal from the 19th century. These minimasks were in a various fluorescent colors for some reason. I never felt motivated to buy one. But evidently they were popular with school children (as were rubbings of medieval funerary steles depicting worms crawling in and out of skeletons). We saw Poets Corner at Winchester cathedral in London, and Morris dancing on the first of May, and newly hatched baby ducks swimming in the pond in the ruins of in Bury St. Edmonds. Each was equally delightful in its Chapter 28 - Dina, page 352

Heyer Saga own way. When Jeff and Dad came to visit, we went to see two different stone circles, one called Nine Ladies (small upright stones). Ive forgotten the name of the other one, but the stones were very large and laid flat in the ground. Marching around the fields looking for these things was pretty fun because you never knew exactly where things were or whether youd even find them. One castle we intended to visit Bolsover? Belvoir? eluded us completely. We managed to glimpse it from several different sides, but always at a distance. We never located the road that actually went to it! The place we visited the most often was probably West Stow and Anglo-Saxon Village. It was a reconstructed village, with wattle and daub houses that you go into, all in a great field with lots of trees around it. There were picnic tables and benches out there and wed take the kids for a picnic every so often. One time Rachel climbed up on the picnic bench and was standing up, pointing things out to me. She heard a dove in one of the trees and it startled her so that she toppled over and bit her little lip. This was terribly traumatic and she talked about it for a long time, which, at that early age, meant saying the same thing over and over again. Birdie hoohoo! Rachel fall down. Bit lip! Rachel cry! But on our way home, we got some ice cream, which seems to have cured her little lip and her trauma. Another traumatic event happened one day when we were heading to Mildenhall for some shopping. I was the first to leave the house, with Ethan on my hip, thinking John would take care of Rachel. Unfortunately, he thought I had both kids and locked the front door after himself without looking around. I was already in the car by then, but I could see Rachels little silhouette through the opaque glass by the door and I knew hed locked her in. Before I could get out of the car, Rachel had started crying and so alerted her Papa to her real whereabouts. He quickly unlocked the door, got her, and we were soon on our way to Mildenhall. It was about a 20 to 30 minute drive and the whole way there Rachel talked about that dreadful experience. Papa close door! Rachel cry! Papa door close! Rachel cry! Once we got to Mildenhall, there was enough to see that little Rachel was distracted. And before heading home again, we bought the kids some big gingerbread men. Ethan took one bite of his and just held it Chapter 28 - Dina, page 353

Heyer Saga the rest of the way home. I guess he didnt like it. Somehow, this bite was every bit as unsettling to his sister as being locked in the house. So all the way home, she repeatedly wailed about it: Ethan bite head! Ethan head bite! Fortunately, her vocabulary eventually grew so that she could say more than one thing about an event! In England, they dont usually celebrate Halloween. Thats an American holiday. We had learned this from other Americans. So we didnt buy any Halloween candy ahead of time. But as it happened, that first year we had dozens of trick-or-treaters. Enough Americans had lived in Risby over the years that the locals knew all about the custom and had taken it up! John gave out M & Ms, which we had on hand, then apples and other pieces of fruit, then pennies. When he was totally out of anything he thought the kids might possibly accept, he turned all the lights off and just held his breath when there was a knock at the door. Ooh, scary! They did not celebrate Thanksgiving either, although each village had its own date for a minor celebration of harvest. Christmas, though, was a big deal. Santa Claus does not visit British kids. Their gift giver is Father Christmas. He looks a lot like Santa except that he wears a long, red robe and he has no reindeer and no sleigh. It was in England that we first became acquainted with Advent calendars. We got one each year we were there, a cardboard goody with a little cardboard window to open each day. Behind each little cardboard window was a little chocolate candy. Everything was so green in England, no doubt because of the rain that fell almost daily. The first summer we were there, however, they had a heat wave. For over a week it didnt rain at all and the temperature got all the way to 90 degrees once. This once-in-a-century event would have completely passed us by except that we read about it in the newspaper. In fact, we read that on that 90-degree day it was so hot the road to Bury spontaneously burst into flame. It cracked us up since we had come from Texas where, in a real heat wave in 1980, the temperature had topped 100 degrees every day for three months. Another thing I read about that hot summer in England was that ice cream sales soared to an all-time high. That is not too surprising. When its hot, you want something cool. But what Chapter 28 - Dina, page 354

Heyer Saga was surprising was the high number of cases of heat stroke. It didnt seem hot enough for that to us. But then, the Brits typically wore long sleeved shirts with woolen sweaters over them. Even though it was too hot for long sleeves, much less wool sweaters, lots of people kept right on wearing the typical stuff. So, come to think of it, it wasnt so surprising after all that they were getting heat stroke! England wasnt so very different from the U.S. in many ways. But the experience of being a foreigner was educational. So was all the history, something John and I have remained interested in ever since. We both feel that it was a valuable experience living overseas and were really glad we had the chance to be there as long as we were. We have greater appreciation of our own country than we would have if we had never gone. A COUPLE OF LIVING ROOM CONVERSATIONS WITH DIANA - 5/18/13 The Way Back Machines I remember how cool and futuristic it seemed when we got the yellowish station wagon, and the back window went down electrically. I thought that was the coolest thing. I remember us talking about that. There was the front seat, the back seat, and the Way Back Seat, which faced the back. When it came time to learn driving though, that station wagon was a monster. It was so long, and so wide. It was hard to figure out how much space to leave, to get used to what was happening on the remote passenger side. Not a problem in the Volkswagen. You could lean forward and touch the window. I remember Cindys Volkswagen had a sensitive throttle. Youd have to get it just right or it would stall out. The Board Story Jeff and one of his friends dug a little pit to be the start of a fort in a usually un-trafficked area of the back yard. Then when it rained, it filled up with water. Since it was hardpan, the water just stayed there, it didnt get Chapter 28 - Dina, page 355

Heyer Saga absorbed. So Jeff laid a board across what by then was a small pool, so we could walk across the pit easily. This was just for play purposes, since there wasnt any real need to cross right there, and most of us used the path Dad had built. Then the other girls in the family would sometimes walk across it too. Someone, I cant remember whom anymore, said they were concerned that Martha was too young and wouldnt be able to go across on such a narrow board. Jeff thought, That isnt an issue because she never goes over there anyway, and she always takes the path. Why would she go there? But unfortunately Martha overheard this discussion, and she thought, Well, why shouldnt I? So she tried to go across the pool on the board, and it didnt work and she fell in up to her chin in cold water. At the time she wasnt able to explain her motivations. Jeff asked her why, and she gave the typical little-kid response, I dont know. Years later, she told Jeff that she heard us talking about it, and thought, again in typical little-kid logic, If I shouldnt, then I definitely should! Dinas Thumb-Sucking Adventure When I was a preschooler I tried to do everything Cindy did. She sucked her thumb so I tried mine but didnt like the way it tasted. So I went around the house sucking on various things to find a good substitute for a thumb to suck. I dont remember what all I tasted but I know I checked out a bunch of things over most of a morning, while Cindy was in School (big kid that she was). Finally I tried the arm of the couch a wooden arm that had half of a wagon wheel underneath as a decorative feature. Now, that arm didnt exactly taste good but, compared to all the other stuff Id tried, it wasnt half bad either. I was so delighted at having completed my great search that I went to Mom to share the good news. She was not nearly as impressed with my accomplishment as I had expected. Instead, she told me, You dont need to suck on anything! This was such an astonishing revelation that I did not have to copy every single thing Cindy did that I didnt have time to be disappointed in her lack of enthusiasm. I had previously assumed that if my big sister did something, I really had to do it too. I mean, isnt that some kind of law?!

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Heyer Saga Dianas Memories of Fontana Fontana was semi-desert. In those days girls had to wear dresses to school. When the wind blew, you could hear it coming for all the little girls screamed as the sand hit their bare legs. Wed often walk out into the empty field at the end of the street. Mom told us not to touch a particular plant because it was poison [maybe Castor Beans or Jimson Weed]. I told Jeff not to touch it, so of course he touched it immediately. I got it in my head that he was doomed. Worse, his mere touch would kill anyone. So I screamed and began running home. Jeff thought this was great fun so he started reaching out his arms and chasing us, threatening to touch us with his deadly fingers. This us included Cindy and Mary, a neighbor who was more experienced in exploring down at that scary end of the street. Dianas Husband When I living in Los Angeles taking care of my grandparents, I enrolled at a community college, El Camino College, and became an LVN (Licensed Vocational Nurse). I liked L.A. One of the TV shows at the time was the Rockford Files, which was filmed in the area and which I could point at scenes and say, I know where that is! Because I was a nurse, I got hired with a pay raise at an insurance company. They needed someone with a medical background. I worked there one year, then went back to school to get my B.A. Then I met my husband. He was in the Los Angeles area taking a training course for his work. We dated and he went back to Texas, where he was from. We stayed in touch and the next year he proposed. We hopped over the state line to Las Vegas and tied the knot. My husband works as a technical writer for L-3 Systems. L-3 L-3 Communications Holdings, Inc. is an American company that supplies command and control, communications, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C3ISR) systems and products, avionics, ocean products, training devices and services, instrumentation, space, and navigation products. Its customers include the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Government intelligence agencies, Chapter 28 - Dina, page 357

Heyer Saga NASA, aerospace contractors and commercial telecommunications and wireless customers. L-3 is headquartered in Murray Hill, Manhattan, New York City and was partially named for Frank Lanza, Robert LaPenta, and Lehman Brothers, who together purchased the former Lockheed Corporation business units when Lockheed merged in 1996 with Martin Marietta. The new Lockheed Martin was uninterested in owning the included ten units. One of these units, in which Dianas husband works, was Raytheon Intelligence and Information Systems located in Greenville, Texas (though also in Waco, Texas, and Lexington, Kentucky), which was originally part of E-Systems. L-3 has continued to expand through mergers and acquisitions to become one of the top ten U.S. government contractors. A Second reason for the name, L-3, is for the SunEarth L3 point (Lagrange Point 3). The five Lagrange points (also called Lagrangian points, L-points, or libration points) are the five positions in an orbital configuration where a third body, of comparatively negligible mass (such as a communications satellite, weather satellite or a space station), could be placed so as to maintain its position relative to the two massive bodies. However, once space-based observation became possible via satellites and probes, it was shown to hold no such object. The Sun Earth L3 is unstable and could not contain an object, large or small, for very long. This is because the gravitational forces of the other planets are stronger than that of the Earth (Venus, for example, comes within 0.3 AU of this L3 every 20 months). A true geostationary orbit, or Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO), was found to be a circular orbit 22,236 miles above the Earth's equator and following the direction of the Earth's rotation. An object in such an orbit appears motionless, at a fixed position in the sky, to ground observers, so that the satellite antennas that communicate with them do not have to Chapter 28 - Dina, page 358

Heyer Saga move to track them, but can be pointed permanently at the position in the sky where they stay. A geostationary orbit is a particular type of geosynchronous orbit. The notion of a geosynchronous satellite for communication purposes was first published in 1928 (but not widely so) by Herman Potonik. However, L3 was a popular place to put a "Counter-Earth" in pulp science fiction and comic books. The first appearance of a geostationary orbit in popular literature was in the first Venus Equilateral story by George O. Smith, but Smith did not go into details. British Science Fiction author Arthur C. Clarke disseminated the idea widely, with more details on how it would work, in a 1945 paper entitled "Extra-Terrestrial Relays Can Rocket Stations Give Worldwide Radio Coverage? published in Wireless World magazine. Clarke acknowledged the connection in his introduction to The Complete Venus Equilateral. The orbit, which Clarke first described as useful for broadcast and relay communications satellites is sometimes called the Clarke Orbit.

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Heyer Saga

Art Created by Diana Gainer

This beautiful pastel was painted by Diana in 1972. It was inspired by a photograph of Mom and baby Cindy. In the photo, Mom wore a pair of Dads jeans which Dina changed to a flowing gown.

Dina created this vibrant pastel when she was in high school in Citrus Heights.

These small oil paintings of tiger lilies were painted by Diana. She is an accomplished artist indeed!

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Heyer Saga

CINDYS MEMORIES
Dad asked me to add my memories from childhood and travels: Cindys Memories Born at a young age, I was the 1st child of a 1st child of a 1st child. That makes my daughter Rosy the 1st of a 1st of a 1st of a 1st, which is pretty extreme. But it happens in every family! They say middle kids strive to keep up with their older siblings, and sometimes succeed. But first-borns strive for the impossible: to catch up with their parents. And they say every parent leaves their children both curses and blessings. Id say thats true of both my parents and me too. Ive been seeking balance ever since. For one brief moment, I was a baby. I dont remember this; Im just telling you what Ive heard. By the time I was looking beyond my own fingertips, I was the oldest of three. I remember sitting on the Pot, thinking, My feet can almost touch the floor. Wow that is BIG! There I sat with a younger brother and sister who couldnt even use the Pot yet. And as I discovered the world of roly-polies, lacey wings, and polliwogs, three more little sisters arrived. As the oldest of six children, I had a sense of heavy responsibility for my younger siblings, as if I was expected to save the world from evil. I was too timid to say out loud that I only wanted to play. I knew I was supposed to teach them things, help them, and keep them safe. I wanted passionately to do that well so they would love me and be happy. Maybe thats all anybody really wants, is to be useful, and for somebody else to notice. I was like a wild animal back then; fairly adept at catching ladybugs and horny toads, but quite confused about how to be a good girl child. I didnt have a big sister to show me how, so I deduced all kinds of things for Chapter 28 - Cindy, page 361

Heyer Saga myself, only to find out later that I didnt always get it right ! Sitting very still was a mechanism I noticed my lizards and frogs use. Keeping quiet, I was convinced, would prevent me from being seen as one of the Stupid People, a popular topic of conversation at our house. At school, I was a very shy and solitary child, and used the same mechanisms there. I found myself full of passionate desires, drawn like a magnet to vivid colors and sparkle; and a finicky eater with equally passionate dislikes of specific tastes and textures. It was many years before I realized how shortlived those intense desires were to get some things and to spit out others. In my early life, doctors, hospitals, and pills were a big part of my world. I didnt understand it, being only 2 years old, but Ive been told that I had life-threatening constipation; a very unladylike ailment! I was given big fat pills that I tried to sneak into the garbage every chance I got. Any fast movement, such as carnival rides and car rides on the highway, caused nausea, which I was very motivated to avoid. But any connection between taking pills and avoiding nausea was totally lost on me. Buying dolls in Tijuana was one of the car trips I remember. Long before Barbie Dolls had made the scene, Dad took us over the border of Southern California to Tijuana, Mexico. The purpose was to buy baby-dolls as far as I was concerned. We went to an outdoor plaza swarming with people, animals, and stalls, and found barrels and barrels of handmade dolls. Dina chose one quickly, and I took ages agonizing over which one was best. Mom bought a grown-up Seora doll with a lacy red dress, which I admired, but I liked my little-girl doll better. I loved the rides to Grandmas house, at first often, later once a year. Whenever we visited, Grandma greeted us at the door with a big kiss on the mouth and seemed to love having us visit. She never once threw me in the canal, or even cut a switch for my hide, but my attitude back then was: you can never be too careful!

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Heyer Saga The gossip at Grandmas house was far juicier than at home. Shivers went up my spine as I listened to Grandma talk of how some relation named Buddy lived with his wife and brother, so together that you couldnt tell which was the husband and which was the brother. And a year later, they found ol Buddy dead in a ditch! And how Grandma fell off the porch when she was a little girl herself, and bent her arm, and her Granny made it straight with nothing but brown paper. And how some young man beat the soup out of our great Uncle Bud as he was pressed back against a treadle sewing machine that was kept outside for some reason. So Uncle Bud whipped out his pocketknife and stabbed the young man dead. When the sheriff found his hideout in the hills, another of our uncles reassured him, Lemme go in, Ill talk to im. Grandma said you could hear him talk, talk, talking away, to give Uncle Bud time to escape! I didnt know it then, but we were learning a unique vocabulary at our house. I heard about the dry county before I ever knew what alcohol was. I found out much later that not everyone in the U.S. knows the difference between a blanket and a quilt, or the difference between cornbread and cake, or that there is no difference between grunt and poo-poo. I remember sitting for our family photo during Dads campaign to fix the problems of the world one step at a time. I was bored, but then I thought, I know, Ill bug my eyes out! Wont that be fun? (I only wish I could be so easily entertained today!) To my chagrin, that was the prize photo because Jeff peeked over to his left, which they thought was very cute, and it was put in Dads newsletter. So, long before Facebook was invented, an embarrassing photo of me was splashed across the public eye. Thank goodness it didnt go viral! I remember that at a very young age, Dad told me with great passion that Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Jesus, and the Tooth Fairy did not exist. This knowledge did not endear me to my classmates on the playground. But it didnt stop me from partaking of all the magic that these

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Heyer Saga concepts had to offer. I loved the stories and didnt distinguish between them and the stories in books and TV and movies, or what we made up ourselves every day in play. As my little sibs and I grew, I learned about the families Id been born into: the Heyers who had emigrated from Germany just 200 years ago last Thursday, the. Simses who had come to the U.S. before writing was invented, the Blanks, Popes, Powerses, and infinitely many more from various European countries. I had a lot to learn about the greater human family too. By the time I was 9 or 10, I knew, or thought I knew, all about Stress, Tsetse Flies, Discrimination, and Slum Lords. Later as I grew older, I also learned about Male Entitlement, White Privilege, Aggrieved Minorities, and other such fun topics. The problems of the world were overwhelming, being as how I was convinced that my father alone knew how to fix them. And I was equally convinced that clearly, he needed my help. In those young days, I remember puzzling over the big words in the prayer, God grant me the Serenity to Accept the Things I cannot Change, the Courage to Change the Things I can, and the Wisdom to Know the Difference. I had trouble imgining Dad asking God to Grant him Serenity, or Accepting the Things he could not Change. As the oldest of 6 young children, I felt a terrible responsibility to improve Jeffs circumstances, for some reason. I cant remember what his ailment was, maybe asthma. Whatever it was, I was convinced the only solution was to have a second boy in the house. So I conceived of a plot so complex Id need an adult to help me carry it out: I would leave home, get a boy haircut and put on a boy outfit, and return pretending to be a long-lost boy cousin from Arkansas. I figured I would need to somehow obtain boy clothes and shoes and skivvies, a backstory, and a soft Arkansas accent. I quaked only a little when the thought occurred to me that I might need to fistfight somebody. Chapter 28 - Cindy, page 364

Heyer Saga As you may have guessed, I understood something of female and male anatomy, but contrary to my conviction at the time (and all Dads efforts explaining why the Invisible Woman should go naked with all her organs showing, the poor thing), not everything. I went to Mom and started to describe my scheme in all its detail, and asked her to introduce me to the family as the long-lost boy cousin from Arkansas. Without even looking up from her newspaper, she said, Forget it! What? I cried, Why?!? Hed recognize you, thats why. So what could I do? All my best-laid plans dashed in a single instant! And at the same time, a sense of relief washed over me so enormous that I began to feel guilty for it. I wondered if that might be The Difference. I think its about that same time in the Hammond Court house that I remember Dad going in to talk with Jeff every evening at bedtime. Dina and I would be in our beds and Id hear Mom say, Rob! Go in and talk to your son! Id try so hard to hear what they said, but all too soon, Id fall asleep. It seemed like it should be very interesting, but I could never hang on long enough to find out. One of the happiest days of my childhood was when I got my very own puppy, a Chihuahua-Pekinese mix, from my friend Pamela Van Winkle. The minute she walked in the door, I knew her name was Bootsie. While she was a puppy, she was quarantined to Dinas and my room only. I tried to housetrain her with a smelly liquid in her doggie litter box, but I pulled her away every time she sniffed it because I was sure shed be poisoned, which resulted in Bootsie learning to avoid the doggie litter box. One time Bootsie startled me by barking suddenly, and I saw foam around her mouth. I was terrified that she had got rabies just like Old Yeller. So I ran to Pamela Van Winkles house and told her. Her older brother grabbed an empty pillowcase and ran with Pamela Van Winkle back to my

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Heyer Saga house. We burst in and Pamelas brother scooped Bootsie up in the pillowcase without exposing himself to the rabies, just like youd scoop dog poop with a plastic bag. He examined her carefully and then said, Shes damp. Did you just bathe her? Oh yeah, I had. Soap bubbles!! he declared, so we all ran happily back to the Van Winkle house with Bootsie in tow, so Bootsies mother the Pekinese pooch could play with her. This was at the Blanchard Street house, which was on a dead-end street with a creek at the far end where a great many frogs and tadpoles could be found. Other than the creek and its overhanging shadowy trees, the rest of the landscape was desert, especially our back yard. Cactus spines had to be watched out for, and scorpions, black widow spiders, and rattlesnakes. Tumbleweeds blew year round and sand blew onto our bare legs the year we were made to wear dresses to school. The house was Lshaped; the living room and dining rooms separated by built-in, openwork shelving which one of Dads campaign crew called gingerbread. That was a big disappointment to me, because the shelving was not at all good to eat. One of the greatest escapes during childhood was reading stories. I loved the delicious sensation of being transported into another reality. Being read to, and reading stories myself, were equally wonderful. I couldnt relate to The Hobbit because I couldnt image a world with no females, but I read books way over my head like Jane Eyre and Great Expectations with no compunction about skipping words or even entire paragraphs if I didnt understand them. After all, much of real life didnt make sense either. In fact, I was often struck by a sudden sensation of utter confusion and dj vu, where no words made sense at all, either hearing or reading. Since so many of the words and actions of adults made no sense to me back then, I took it for granted that Strange Moments like this happen to everyone. As an older child, I also sensed that a message was transmitted to me during these moments something to do with unity or connection

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Heyer Saga throughout the universe. But being a dyed-in-the-wool Robinsdottir, I poopooed any possibility of a spiritual meaning. Later as an adult, the Strange Moments were diagnosed as a mild seizure disorder, which explained a lot. Singing and music were a source of immense pleasure for me as a child and as an adult. Moms Belafonte and Makeba albums totally mesmerized me. I remember staring at the record player as a preschooler, and experiencing a sensation of unabashed adoration for the men and women willing to squeeze themselves into that little box to sing for us. I didnt question why we needed people to squeeze into a box so they could sing for our family; I just stood there and drank it all in. Later I learned songs at school, and Dina and I sang together sometimes. I liked singing in the car too; that made for good entertainment during the long drives to Grandmas house. At night when we first went to bed while Dad was talking to Jeff, we entertained ourselves by surreptitiously playing songs on each others backs. I would play a song on Dinas back as if on a piano keyboard, and she would guess which one it was by the rhythm alone. Then she would take a turn. I totally recommend this its tons of fun!! A few times, Dad corralled us together to sing as a family, sometimes using a big book that also included poems. I loved it but for one thing: I sensed somehow that Mom disliked the family sing-alongs. In my feverish brain, I decided it must be because she never sang in her higher register. So one time I decided to sing in my voice register along with her to make her feel better, sort of like a sympathy diet. It was quite painful to my throat, I found out, and she gave no sign that she noticed. I looked longingly at my sibs singing away without a second thought, and wished I didnt have any second thoughts either. I finally concluded that this must be another occurrence of The Difference. Nights to Stay Up were another element of my early childhood in the Blanchard Street house. Once a week, each of my siblings (or at least Dina and Jeff), and I got to stay up for an hour later than the others, each on a different night. I remember trying to get Mom to play dolls with me during my night to stay up, but her doll never had much to say. I dont remember Chapter 28 - Cindy, page 367

Heyer Saga Dad playing dolls with me then; he tried instead in vain to explain why the Invisible Woman should not wear any clothes. But a generation later he did play dolls with Rosy. A doll would be leaning crazily in his left hand, a Scientific American folded into his right, and Rosy happily bouncing her dolls back and forth between them both. Hunting fossils was one of a few trips we made as a family. I dont recall much except that we didnt simply hang out; we came with a purpose, which was fulfilled as far as I was concerned. We were there to hunt for fossils; something very similar to shopping which was another one of my favorite things. We discovered sandy, cracked boulders with exquisite green fractals etched in the sides. Dad said they werent true fossils because the etchings were chemical, not biological. But that was good enough for me. Being a huge daydreamer, I had no trouble filling in any gaps in reality with my own made-up version of fossilized fairy grass. Later, sailing was another source of entertainment. Dad bought two boats, and wed go to Lake Folsom to sail them. He even let me sail without a grownup a few times, which was a big deal to me. He wouldnt let me sail alone, but I was allowed to captain the little singlesail boat if another sibling was with me. And what would childhood have been without The Nose? Dina read Nicolai Gogols short story about a Russian officer who goes to the barber for a shave and a haircut, and the barber accidently cuts his nose off. The officer runs after the Nose and tries to reattach, but the Nose wants nothing to do with the officer because hes now in a higher social caste and wants to live the good life among high society. We made papier-mch puppets and got Jeff to play the Nose, as well as a few minor characters. Dina played all the other characters in the story. It was just the two of them making all kinds of different accents, and I was the music and sound effects guy. I had that all written out, and we performed it for the family. Dina and I did volunteer puppet shows in the local library at that time, so we had built a cardboard stage and all kinds of hand puppets for the Three Bears, the Three Pigs, and now, The Nose. Jeff added so much to it! Chapter 28 - Cindy, page 368

Heyer Saga There was the humorous story that Gogol wrote, and we adapted it to be even sillier. Then on top of that, every time the Nose was onstage Jeff would ad lib in a nasally, Peter Lorre-like voice, Only the Nose knows! and Oh no, Im beginning to run! When I was about to start college, Dina was winning or about to win all sorts of scholarships and awards for her exceptional talents. I figured I could never compare, but what I could do was work hard. However, the unemployment rate in Sacramento was 17% at that time. Or maybe it was actually less and I was 17 years old, Im not sure which. But anyway, I pushed myself to interviews, which was excruciating for someone as shy and unconfident as I was. And to my disappointment, no job offers came forth. Then Uncle Hal said, If you cant find a job in California, come up to Alaska and work in the fish-canning factory. Theres always work here! I flew up and it turned out it wasnt fish-canning season. So instead, I got a paper route, which my cousins KK and later Kevin inherited when I left.

I ended up spending the summer at Aunt Celia and Uncle Hal house in Anchorage, and worked four different part-time jobs. Besides the paper route, I also cleaned apartment buildings but I cant recall what the other two jobs were anymore, just that there were four of them. During my spare time, I rode KKs bicycle around Anchorage and saw moose prowling the city streets, a clay beach where KK said the high tide came in a single wave, nearby glaciers and immense mountains pocked with bold black and white markings; all sights that were amazingly exotic compared to the softly rolling hills of Sacramento Valley that I was used to. Then in my junior year of college, I had the great good fortune to go abroad to Israel as a foreign exchange student, thanks to Mom and Dad. I learned about the program at Sac State. I asked Mom and Dad if I could go Chapter 28 - Cindy, page 369

Heyer Saga and Dad said he had to think about it because he wouldnt say yes to me if he couldnt do it for all my siblings too, in the years to come. I was on tenterhooks for the next few days, until one day he told me he had it all figured out. He said he could afford to do it 6 times over if my siblings would each attend a state college like Sac State and live at home until their year abroad. I was ecstatic! Little did we know that not one of my siblings would follow this plan. But Mom went to work to earn extra money for the trip, and it was a most amazing and eye-opening experience for me. Paris was the first stop, where for the first time in my life I saw beggars, men peeing in the street, and underground streetcars. I was terrified to ride the subway alone so I went with my fellow students to many famous sights: the Louvre, Eiffel Tower, Champs-lyses, etc. One girl told me French people hate English but will tolerate Spanish, so we stumbled around speaking Spanish, and thinking naively that we were fooling the French people. It was a whirlwind of new sights, smells, and tastes. In Israel, I attended Tel Aviv University, a huge campus in Ramat Aviv (Spring Heights in Hebrew), just a few blocks from the Mediterranean Sea, mostly unused because a recent oil spill had left the beach spotted with tar. Dormitory life was as foreign to me as life in a big city in a foreign country. Coming from the Sacramento burbs, I had a lot to learn. Ill never forget my shock when I rode the bus that first week in August 1973, and saw a sabra, an Israeli girl my own age. She was gorgeous, with dark sparkling eyes and long curly black hair and long eyelashes, and as she reached up to grasp the bar, I saw that she also had very thick armpit hair. When I learned in the weeks that followed that this was considered neither unusual nor embarrassing, I experienced a glorious sense of release. I didnt stop shaving, because thats what we American girls did in those days. But I saw for the first time in a very vivid way that the concept of beauty is not universal. In fact, I found out that very little of what I had taken for granted as Universal Truths were seen that way in Israel. Israeli children spoke out without waiting to be spoken to, and often interrupted their fathers; girls my age could be drafted into the military; adult women pushed ahead in crowds instead of waiting courteously in lines, didnt

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Heyer Saga promise to obey their husbands, held powerful government positions, and generally behaved in all kinds of ways not considered ladylike as I thought was expected of girls like me. I found all this to be a delightfully refreshing precursor to the womens lib movement, which I discovered and embraced almost the minute I got back to the U.S.

Israel was a developing nation back then, and although they had strong educational and health care systems, some things were still rationed, such as telephones, cars, washing machines, and other big appliances. Other than the telephones, I didnt experience these limitations directly. There was no shortage of food, electricity, or plumbing in the dorms. Out-of-the-way sites might have nothing but a hole in the ground as a toilet, but after all, the same is true in the U.S. too, in some rural places. During my stay, the October War occurred in 1973, and there were blackouts and curfews and limitations to travel. We were told to stay in Ramat Aviv, so I volunteered in the suddenly all-female city as every ablebodied man was on the front lines, as well as any draft-age young women who didnt have children or college classes. I worked in an army matzo factory that made matzo hard tack, and served as nanny to a Sephardic family who spoke no English during that time. I knew Mom and Dad were worried, but my school counselor told us we would be shipped back to California immediately if there was any danger, so I felt safe. After all, I comforted myself, I was a Californian and nobody was at war with California. Ahhh, circular reasoning is a beautiful thing! The week before the war, I toured the Sinai Desert, and after the war, I worked for room and board in three kibbutzim, and volunteered on two archeological digs, as well as taking classes at TAU. A fire broke out on one of the digs, and I ran to help put it out. The director grabbed my arm and said, Let the Arab boys put it out. But I was so shocked at that, that Chapter 28 - Cindy, page 371

Heyer Saga he gave me the job of photographing the firefighting effort. Only later did I find out that the fire was a blessing because it removed all the foliage we were digging through, so the director didnt want the fire put out too quickly! And, after a year and a half in Israel, this was only one of way, way, way too many adventures and misadventures to do justice to them all here! On my way home from Israel, I made a stopover in Holland. By now I felt confident enough to navigate the city of Amsterdam alone. I had a fat book of coupons from a friend, and bussed from one spot to another, paying for meals, hotel room, tours, museums, and a boat ride through the canals, all by coupon. Then I went to an alternative Christian school named LAbri (shelter in French). Evangelical Christians founded the school as a ministry to travelers who want to discuss religion, which a minister friend told me about. When I thought I should hurry straight home from Israel, he said to me, You gave a year and a half to Judaism; you can afford to give two weeks to Christianity! I met very friendly people there, some of whom suffered from screaming nightmares or otherwise were struggling. Ill never forget when a Dutch girl showed me a poem shed received from an American boy. She pointed to a line that contained the phrase, a maiden fair and asked me, Does this mean the maiden is just? I said, Sometimes fair means just, but not always. In this context, it means beautiful. And thats truly the word for her smile when she heard that. Later as an adult in my 20s, I spent two weeks studying Spanish in Cuernavaca (trees nearby in Nahuatl), a charming city 50 miles south of Mexico City. Over 3000 years ago, the Olmec lived there, and later the Aztecs. The citys coat-of-arms has a pictograph of a tree trunk with a human mouth, out of which furls a speech scroll said to represent the Nahuatl language.

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Cuernavaca lay deep within lush vegetation, and when the road went through sparse areas, I caught glimpses of nearby mountain peaks. My host family had two adorable kids who brought me bread for a holiday. My two American roommates were smart and quirky, and my teachers were patient and friendly. I was able to walk to ornate churches and shrines nestled among the houses, many of which were surrounded by cement walls topped with broken glass, a handmade substitute for barbed wire. I discovered waterfalls within the city, basalt cliffs, crumbling cemeteries, and open-air markets with butterflies as big as my fist flitting around the produce. I got a shock when the bus to Mexico City passed a fatal accident that looked abandoned with a body still inside. My fellow student cried, Look away! but I had already looked. Later my hosts told me that Mexico simply didnt have the infrastructure to respond quickly to accidents in rural areas. Another country I visited was Kiribati. When my daughter Rosy graduated from high school, I used the money from a work bonus to take us on a cruise which included the Fanning Island, one of several islands in Kiribati. We were told there was no electricity or plumbing, no doctor or dentists, and that the cruise company had built a school in exchange for beach rights. The Kiribati people set up an open-air market and sold handmade baskets, boxes, shell jewelry, grass skirts, wooden carvings, and other collectibles. There were lots of children around, and at one point they performed songs and dances for us.

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Fanning Island is actually an atoll: the rim of a volcano that sticks up only about 10 feet above sea level, just enough to offer a semi-circle of land to live on with a huge bay inside, and the entire Pacific Ocean outside. Its 185 miles north of the equator and 24 hours south by ship from Hawaii. The waters around were incredible shades of blue and green and turquoise. Palm trees grew everywhere. We could walk through the township behind the market, and get our passports validated with a Kiribati stamp at the "office," a small picnic table under a Banyan tree. And my most recent adventure on foreign soil was my trip to Poland in 2010 to teach summer school classes in conversational English. My students ranged from ages 3 to 83. Between classes, I got the chance to see gorgeous cities, churches, shrines, castles, mountains, rivers, schools, and most beautiful of all: children! I was instructed to introduce the concept of volunteering into the English lessons, so I dusted off my puppetry skills and organized the older students to perform puppet shows in English for the little ones.

When I was there, Poland was still struggling to rebuild its economy after gaining independence from Soviet occupation since WWII, and several times I saw horses and cows using the main roads in the rural village where I stayed within walking distance of Owicim, the Polish town near Auschwitz. I visited the Black Madonna in Czstochowa, the Warsaw plaza rebuilt after being totally destroyed in WWII, and the Krakow castle, Chapter 28 - Cindy, page 374

Heyer Saga under which a dragon is said to reside. Someone asked me if thats where our adopted Crocker great grandparents originated. And because I love both stories so much, Im going to say, Why yes, I believe that is the case! By now, Ive become almost fully human although theres still some wild animal in me yet! En route to becoming human, Ive made a few mistakes. Ive learned a little better how to recognize The Difference. Ive learned to eschew obfuscation. Ive learned that I comes before E, except when eight feisty neighbors seize a surfeit of weighty heifers. Ive learned so very much from my mistakes, in fact, that I think Ill end my story here and go make a few more!!

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Heyer Saga Art Work by Cindy and Jules This image was designed and cut by Cindy in 2010. It was based on the photograph shown a few pages earlier, of our cousin Linda Sims hugging Grandma Sims while wrapped up in one of Grandmas quilts. Jules printed the linoblock on her letterpress at her printshop in Sedro Woolley. The image was made by layering three linoblock cuts, which Jules printed in red, turquoise, and black. The prints were given as Christmas presents to Mom and Dad, siblings, cousins, and surviving aunts and uncles. The surrounding border includes references to Grandmas turtles captured during her trips back to the wilds of Oklahoma; her childhood as her fathers farming boy; and her love of sewing and quilting, and at one time of chewing tobacco.

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JEFFS MEMORIES
Here are memories Jeff added from childhood and foreign travels: Jeffs Memories (b. 1956): 1956-59 My memories of early childhood in Fontana are few. In my very earliest memories my center of consciousness (such as I then had) and my point of view were two or three feet above the top of my head. My body did whatever it wanted to and my consciousness just watched. I did something or other, which I dont recall but which got me spanked and I was shocked by the pain. Afterward I protested that it wasnt fair because I couldnt help doing whatever I did a fact I assumed to be perfectly obvious. My father said, Yes you can. He presumed that such was perfectly obvious, while I didnt understand how he could think that. I was sitting on some chair which, compared to me, was enormous and feeling angry and resentful when my point of view suddenly snapped down into the middle of my head and I saw directly through my eyes as I realized for the first time and with a tremendous and disorienting shock that I actually could choose my actions rather than simply observing and feeling them. This experience was so strange and earth-shattering that I instinctively tried to get back up to my usual vantage point above my head, but found that I couldnt shift my center of consciousness at all. It was stuck inside my skull. In none of my studies of psychology or parapsychology have I encountered a similar recollection.

One day I was playing with a single green plastic toy soldier in my sisters dollhouse and, as I always did, I narrated what he was doing and thinking and feeling and what was going on with the enemy who were off Chapter 28 - Jeff, page 377

Heyer Saga camera, i.e., purely imaginary and not represented by other toy soldiers. I was getting very involved with the drama of the lone soldiers situation, when Dina, who was playing dolls nearby complained, Do you always have to say everything? Surprised that my sister did not share such a basic and obvious aspect of my world, I explained, Im making a movie! Even back that far I was fascinated by television and comic books and Sunday color funnies, and books that were read to me, or stories that were told. Any form of story telling was magical to me and I wanted not only to immerse myself in them, but also to tell stories of my own. Later, when I was a little older and playing with other boys, I encountered a variation of this. Usually other boys playing with toy soldiers would position opposed forces, and then get down low to see from as close as possible the angle of view of the soldiers who represented their side. They would make occasional gunfire sounds with their mouths and touch a grenade-throwing soldier, then with their fingers make an imitation explosion among the enemy ranks, scattering enemy soldiers. They clearly enjoyed this, but did not get anywhere near as involved in events as did I. With the exception of my boyhood friend Brian Luke, they had no interest in names or character traits, military strategies, or overall story structure, without which I found play pointless. I was set on the path of actor, writer, director and the like from the start.

Other than the two instances above, my few surviving flashes of preschool years are mundane and surely of interest to no one but me. And only barely to me.

When I started kindergarten, our bus stop was situated at a lot on which a house sat up on cement blocks. I was told it was waiting to be

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Heyer Saga moved somewhere else, though it made more sense to me to assume that it was waiting to be set up on that lot, since it clearly had not been built there, as there were no plumbing hookups and I couldnt see why someone would lift a house off its foundations and move it to someone elses lot and prop it up there on blocks instead of either leaving it where it was or taking it where it was to go next. A house up two feet or more from the ground was inherently fascinating to me, but we were forbidden even to walk the few steps from the bus stop to go look at it. One of the boys (two years older than me) at my bus stop threw a rock at me, which broke my glasses and raised a big bloody lump on my head. Mom and Dad were very upset by this and I believe they took me to the doctor. The boys parents claimed throwing rocks is just what all boys do, so who cares? And the boy claimed he was innocently throwing rocks at the house windows and one just accidentally whipped straight from his hand to my head off to the side away from the house. When I was told this, I pointed out that just before I got hit by the rocks he had been bragging to his friends about how accurately he could throw and that I was a good deal closer to the ground and smaller than the house he claimed to have missed entirely, and that it was illegal to damage someone elses property. These nave and unimportant observations did not result in any response from the police or the school.

A teenaged male whom I thought was an adult was hired to do some yard work around our place and one day he was bitten by a black widow spider and had to stop work and get to a doctor. I was surprised and impressed by the seriousness of the situation, since it was common knowledge that black widows can kill. Subsequently I received a surprising and rather disturbing lesson in perspective as everyone who referred to or heard of the event insisted that every aspect of it was different from what anyone else claimed: It wasnt a

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Heyer Saga black widow, it was some less dangerous spider. The boy just pretended to be bitten to get out of work. The boy was bitten, but didnt know by what and my parents forced him to go to the hospital unnecessarily because they were afraid it might be a black widow. He just went home afterward. He was checked into the emergency room and declared to be fine and immediately released. He remained in the recovery room for weeks. After that he went back to his normal routine. He was never seen again. He claimed it was all a put-on. He thought my parents were responsible and was going to sue. Everyone had the true story directly from someone who was there, and no other versions were remotely correct. Were I to discuss the incident with its survivors now, I would expect different versions because each person retained only a faded impression of what had transpired so long ago, but this was in the days immediately following. I began to see the limitations of eyewitness testimony and how rumors start. We are not only not all on the same page; some of us are in a whole different library.

Our school was flooded or burnt (or maybe the former in the process of putting out the latter), I dont remember which, but I do recall that we were obliged to bus to a different school. No one agrees on how long we were in the second school. This was only worth remembering in that it was the first step along the road to my attending many different schools even when I was staying in one area, each with their own idiosyncratic concept of how all schools are run.

I remember that Dads work often sent him off on what seemed to me to be long trips, though this might only have been for a few days at a time. Mom missed him, of course, but accepted what she couldnt change. I once asked her if she had a picture of Dad because he was gone so often and

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Heyer Saga so long that I couldnt remember what his face looked like. She scolded me a bit for making up such a thing, but I found a picture of him. I felt very strange looking at it. First it seemed a bit of a shock because of course that was what he looked like and I couldnt possibly forget. But then it seemed very alien and not right this couldnt really be Dad, could it? I found myself conflicted and confused. Years later, after inventorying my early memories, I realized that I seldom remembered any faces at all until High School. My images of Dad from when I was small were mostly from the knees down. With Mom it was different because she did all sorts of housework and child-mending down on the floor or otherwise close to my level. I really had only a very blurry image of Dad because he was so often standing up and I was not only small and usually viewing him from an extreme up angle, but had poor vision, which had not yet been diagnosed. Thus the photo I saw of him showed the basic characteristics I saw when I was sitting next to him, but from a level angle and unblurred, so they seemed both right and not right at the same time.

1960 One dream from my kindergarten year stays with me, though decades later parts of it are uncertain. It disturbed me so much that I told it to my father, feeling that it was somehow of great consequence to my life, though I found it utterly inexplicable. This was the first dream I remember having which seemed to be more than an ordinary dream and was so shocking and so inexplicable, yet so seemingly important that I remembered it for the rest of my life.

The Dream of the Quell Death I was visiting a friend from school (something I never did in waking life). This friend was someone from my actual kindergarten class in the

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Heyer Saga waking world, whom I did not know very well but rather liked and admired a little for his intelligent and, to my mind, adult bearing. We were sitting in his room talking and there was a knock at the door. I went to answer it, although it was a little odd that someone would knock on a door inside a house. I had never experienced that. In our household, being small children, my sisters and I had no expectation of privacy and doors were not generally closed. When I opened the door, there was a weird, inhuman figure standing there. It was so alien to me that I shrieked in abject and shocking terror of the unknown. The figure was not very tall and had a roughly conical shape. It was white and gave the vague impression of being covered by a white sheet or cloak. There were no visible arms under the covering in front of the being. Its head was tall and pointed. There was no nose. I had a vague impression of huge, perfectly round, terrifying black eyes, but my focus was on the mouth because I could not make myself look at the eyes. The mouth was a black ring as if drawn or painted on the white surface, with an uneven line within the ring, as if a crude depiction of uneven teeth between black lips. The bizarre mouth fascinated me - it was so unnaturally round and nothing has teeth so randomly sized. It looked more like a picture of an oscilloscope with some kind of sine wave displayed on it (not that I knew that term then - I may have seen oscilloscopes on TV). This apparition told me, "I am the Quell Death." That gave me another thrill of terror, though I had no idea what that meant. I was also struck by the fact that I did not hear the creature's voice, but felt it in my head. I knew at once, with a terrible sinking feeling, that it had come to take one of us - and I was the one who had answered its knock. I was also disturbed by the unnatural image - it seemed almost like a cartoon. I tried to resolve the image, sensing that this was not the real appearance of the Quell Death, but a kind of mask because I could not face

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Heyer Saga the real visitor. But I could not make myself see it as anything but what I have described. Terrified and unwilling to give up my life and all the possibilities that lay before me for experience, play and service to the higher good (a concept already very central to my approach to life), I backed from the door, but was helpless to flee. I struggled to prepare myself to face this unexpected and unimaginable doom. But then I saw my friend. He looked very noble, calm, dignified, and there was a suggestion of Roman toga about his clothes. He was preparing to go, knowing without question that the Quell Death was for him. I was troubled by a succession of emotions - relief that it was not here for me, surprised admiration for my friend, guilt that I would allow him to be taken, disappointment and envy that he was the chosen one to make this sacrifice for the good of our people, and a sense of incipient loss that he would be gone. There was also a peculiar sense of being left out - that he and the Quell Death had some kind of relationship, history and communication of which I knew nothing and in which I had no involvement. The sight of the creature had shorn away all illusion of maturity or control and left me utterly powerless and insignificant. This knowing acceptance on the part of my friend made me feel all the less intelligent, all the less knowing, and all the less important. I wanted my friend to stay, but he knew he had to go. There was nothing to do. Apparently the dream state went on for some time, but this was the vivid part, which I remembered when I awoke. Being very upset, I talked to my father about it. He assured me that it was only a dream, and no different than any other dream - yet I felt that it was very different. He explained it as a first awareness of the reality of death, which can come at any time for our friends no matter what we do. But this was never a satisfying answer to me. There seemed to be some all-important answer half-hidden in its name, which impressed itself on the Chapter 28 - Jeff, page 383

Heyer Saga core of my being instead of being perceived as a sound. Yet it never made sense to me. I did not know the word Quell and did not really understand my father's attempt to define it for me. Looking back on this still disturbing dream after maturing a bit and learning the meaning of the word quell, I often asked myself: What was quelled? What died? Certainly my ego was quelled - I was absolutely nothing to this creature. How did my unconscious mind contain the word "quell" when I did not come to understand its definition for years after the dream? As an adult the pointed hood suggests an Inquisitor or a member of the Ku Klux Klan, but it seems unlikely that I would have known of either at the time. There have been a few other dreams over the years in which something alien was perceived within the dream as a cartoon. In each case, I tried within the dream to resolve the image into something "real" but could only see this cartoon representation of something I could not face directly without being shocked awake. The dream of the Quell Death seemed so important that I tried to describe it to my friend, which effectively ended our friendship. He was upset that I would talk about a dream, because "no one does that," and thought it inappropriate that we would be in his room since he had never asked me, and could not accept that in dreams we see ourselves doing things that we dont do in waking life. To my surprise he did not like the idea that I perceived any maturity in him, did not like the idea that anyone might perceive him as standing out in any way from others, or as being Roman, a people he seemed to associate with Biblical bad guys. Looking back as an adult I realized that part of his upset with my being in his room and his sitting on his bed while preparing to be taken by the Quell Death was a common equation among the imperfectly educated

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Heyer Saga of the Romans with homosexuality. At the time he never said such a thing straight out, nor would it have mattered had he done so, since I had no notion yet of what that was. I think he also wanted to distance himself from any kind of death I might be dreaming at him. We never talked again.

As my life progressed, whenever I felt that I had increased in my knowledge of psychology or any spiritual studies or even when I felt unusually adrift in life and low on answers I would go back and review this and other landmark dreams, so it has become a big part of my life. Eventually, I questioned whether this fearful image represented what Carl Jung called the mass man, the conformist merging of individual psyches into a collective mob identity. This quells individuals and, if successful, effectively kills all conscious individual characteristics in favor of common, dumbed down attitudes. The original Star Trek series had an episode dealing with religion consuming a society and, as their mechanical representation of their great wise man Landru put it, absorbing people into the Body. Star Trek: The Next Generation showed an entirely anti-spiritual and purely technological version of the same sociological process in the Borg, a society made up of what were once individuals of many races and cultures, but which were rebuilt with cybernetic implants and additions into a purely collective entity in which all minds were permanently connected. This collective entitys struggle to reduce me to a stereotype and my often-desperate measures to retain a truly independent existence became the center of my life. My artistic productions have all centered on this war against the numbers. That makes the essentially faceless mass man with his mask of reductive cartoonish imagery quelling individuality a potent and meaningful interpretation of the dream. Indeed, each potential explanation or perspective gives me some sense of the upper layers, as it were, of the imagery, but none has ever convinced me that it revealed the essential core of this dream experience. To this day I am still left unsatisfied, disturbed, intrigued, and feeling that it

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Heyer Saga has been an important failure of mine that I never got the most vital part of the message my unconscious mind sought to convey to my consciousness. In my late forties I became a fan of Joss Whedons Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series. It was weird and unsettling to see an episode in which Buffys mother Joyce is suffering from some ailment, which makes her insane, and a Queller Demon comes from the moon to quell outbreaks of insanity by preying on the insane. In common with the Quell Death, the Queller Demon had an only barely human shape, though not the same one. The Queller had only stubby arms, and the Quell Death sometimes seemed to have none and other times seemed to show what might have been the shape of stubby arms showing under the white covering. The Queller and the Quell Death had huge, perfectly round black eyes very disturbing to look into. The Queller entered Joyces bedroom to take her life, as the Quell Death entered my friends bedroom to take his life in some sense. The dominant theme of the episode was the loss of self, in Joyces case through loss of sanity, in Buffys case, through dealing with the dissolution of a parent. In succeeding episodes it became clear that this unsettling assault by madness and then by a queller of madness was a step toward Joyces early death.

Post-Quell Death From very early I felt a powerful drive toward public service, probably at least largely in emulation of Dad. In Fontana I regularly watched a TV show called McKeever and the Colonel about boys who were in some kind of cadet school, though I have never heard of any military training program involving cadets that young. This show, together with ads in magazines and comic books for cadet programs convinced me that the way to give your all for the greater good was to serve in the military. I said something to that effect to Mom and she dismissed the idea, insisting that whether I knew it or not, I would miss my family too much and Chapter 28 - Jeff, page 386

Heyer Saga I wouldnt really like that kind of life, which would be much too hard for me. Nevertheless, I knew in the very depths of my soul that I was destined (not that I had any clear notion of destiny) to engage in the great events of my time and to give my all heroically. Soon after, I talked to Dad about this, insisting that this was what I had to do, and suddenly felt an overwhelming grief from no clear cause flood through me. Tears flowed and I sobbed, feeling a surprising disconnect (notice how many of my memories consist of lifes surprises) between this powerful but seemingly unmotivated grief and my intellect, which could only observe these tears, but neither understand nor stop them. I could only suppose, as I thought about it afterward, that I suddenly felt the sense that I would lose my family and that I would die young in some future war. That does not seem to be the complete explanation, as I have frequently felt a huge and crushing weight of grief at all stages of my life, triggered each time by different things but more and more connected with a sense that I had given my all in the past, had lost so much and would have no chance in this lifetime to recover or to recreate any of it. Setting aside the sense of past life perspective, I found myself often grieving for all that I felt so urgently called upon to do in this life, which circumstances had always and would always prevent me from doing. Getting back to my announcement that I needed to become a cadet, my father, rather than dismiss or discredit the notion, simply pointed out in his calm, grounded way that, TV show notwithstanding, there were no military training schools for boys my age, and the outfits I saw advertised were basically detention schools using military training techniques to discipline the most wayward of teenagers. As it turned out, public school was far too rigid, narrow-minded and arbitrarily tyrannical than I could stand and I began to distrust anyone who represented himself or herself as an authority figure and to hate being ordered about. At some point in my boyhood I realized that whatever my personality type would have become in other circumstances, neither that,

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Heyer Saga nor the personality I had in fact become, was in any way suited to the military.

Sacramento In 1961 we were in the state capital where we lived in a house with two-story pillars, which I thought of as a colonial mansion. My grammar school was Skycrest. I was impressed by the principled principal who was quite reasonable and personable.

When I started wearing glasses in second grade the boys often made fun of me, calling me Grampa: my first nickname. Not my favorite, but nowhere near as contemptuous as some. The news of President Kennedys assassination reached us on the playground during recess. There was a great deal of paranoia in the sixties. Sacramento housed the only Air Force base that protected the western coast, so many of the school kids were the children of Air Force officers and privy to weird and disturbing information most civilians knew nothing about. Because their reports were often outrageous, utterly inconsistent with common opinion and unsupported by anyone except other Air Force kids, I never believed any of them. They talked about a Negro (as they were called in those days) man with a long history of crime who went into a hospital for some kind of treatment during which he was anaesthetized. While he was under, government officers subjected him to dangerous levels of radiation without his knowledge. On subsequent visits, the progress of his radiation sickness was tracked and his exposure increased. This is one of the ways in which the military got its information on potential effects of atomic war. Eventually, deciding he was lasting too long, they opened up his leg and inserted radioactive materials directly into him to track what irradiated shrapnel

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Heyer Saga would do to people. When he died, his family was not allowed access to the body, which was stored in secret by the government because it was radioactive. What an outrageous story, I would say. The government doesnt do things like that. It wasnt until the Clinton administration that government hearings were televised in which a descendant of the murdered man was allowed to publicly discuss the whole business in an effort to get the body back for proper burial. The President confirmed that this had happened and gave an official apology on behalf of the U.S. government for its having so thoroughly violated its own laws and civilized behavior. So the most outlandish story on the playground was true. I dont remember most of them now, but there were tales of Russian agents assassinating defectors in bizarre ways, such as an umbrella gun. The agent jabbed its tip against his victims shoe and the umbrella shot a poisoned pellet into the mans foot. Yep, though it sounds as ridiculous as the devices on Get Smart, that story was true, too, and is now widely known. There was a great deal of stuff about UFOs and what the Air Force was doing about them. What I could remember of these tales when I started investigating the UFO phenomenon turned out to be true, as well, though neither the children nor their officer parents had enough information to get the bigger picture on the overarching Air Force policy on that topic. Since people are still arguing over that issue, I think it worth recording the way in which the innumerable inconsistencies in Air Force policy finally made sense to me. Over the years, the Air Force would make a big show of investigating UFOs and would publicize the claim that they were seriously intent on getting to the bottom of things. Then they would dismantle that project (Project Blue Book is the only one whose name I recall, though there were many others) and claim there was nothing to investigate, it was all a matter Chapter 28 - Jeff, page 389

Heyer Saga of hoaxes and witnesses being unable to recognize the planet Venus, and the like. This was pretty disturbing when I first heard it, since most of the sightings were, not surprisingly, by pilots and radar personnel whose business it was to scan the skies for signs of foreign attack. If they were really as incompetent, it is difficult to understand why so few planes crashed. Then a new Air Force project would be formed under a different name to renew the investigation. This would be followed by yet another announcement that there was nothing to investigate and people should just ignore what they saw in the sky. Back and forth it would teeter-totter across the decades. At first I thought that this was simply a matter of a huge organization under different leadership at different times and reflecting their different attitudes. But eventually I put together a few facts lost in the welter of information and disinformation much of both coming from the Air Force itself. The Air Force put a now famous base in Roswell, New Mexico, which housed the only Atomic Bomber Wing in the world at that time. A rancher in the area saw something crash on a remote part of his ranch and assumed any device falling out of the sky near the Air Force base must have come from there. He called them up to come get whatever had crashed. He knew, as did everyone in Roswell, that pretty nearly anything connected to the base was Top Secret, so he never went to see what had crashed. The base sent some intelligence officers out to assess the situation, and brought what they found into the base. The story that it was a flying saucer came out in the paper, though reports vary on whether it was officially released by the base PR officer or was leaked. This is where it gets interesting, Air Force General Ramey, who was not involved in affairs at Roswell, nevertheless dropped everything and flew out to Roswell from another state in order to make a public statement before the press. This amounted to insisting that the most highly trained and highly trusted intelligence Chapter 28 - Jeff, page 390

Heyer Saga officers in America mistook a radar reflector, standard equipment all over the U.S., for an alien spacecraft. What makes this statement significant is that Ramey tried to appear as debunking the UFO story, so that some people will believe nothing important happened there -- but he put enough holes in his statement that those who look closer would recognize that something is not right. For instance, this radar device was not only known to everyone who had ever worked on an Air Force landing strip, but General Ramey, the man identifying it for the public, gave it a made-up name which, again, would be recognized as wrong by everyone who had ever worked on an Air Force landing strip. This pattern of debunking in a way that raises questions continues to repeat even today. Every few years the Air Force releases a statement that all previous versions of what fell on that ranch were wrong, including all of their own varying claims, and gives a new explanation for what it was and how it got there. But each time, there is a hole in the story, which is pretty easy to find. The latest was that it was an experimental balloon carrying manikins, which drifted off course and finally expired over Roswell. Yet Air Force records were checked and no balloon bearing manikins was ever recorded as having been launched what were manikins supposed to tell them? -and the Air Force launched no balloons at all recently enough for them to have still been aloft had winds carried them over Roswell. Those who try to prove that an alien spacecraft crashed at Roswell focus on the holes in each story and try to find out who released the original story that it was a UFO, and on what people who knew the intelligence officers say they learned from them over the years. None of this has yielded anything of real value, since the intelligence officers jobs kept them sworn to secrecy, and contrary to a widespread claim that no one can keep a secret, plenty of people do, especially in the military. What drew my attention to Roswell was not the exciting notion that a spacecraft from another world with dead aliens in it had been recovered, Chapter 28 - Jeff, page 391

Heyer Saga though that would be very interesting indeed. I was disturbed to find out that when the Air Force was ordered by a U.S. senator to turn over their records on the Roswell incident, the leadership refused the senators lawful order in direct violation of the military chain of command and the laws of the country. When the senator pressed, they changed their story, as had become usual, and stated that all the records had been burned. The senator pointed out that such an action is illegal. He was informed (in less direct language, of course) that if he wanted to punish someone they would arrange for some low-level flunky to take the blame, but he wasnt going to get anywhere. He gave up. What would induce Air Force officers to flagrantly break the law? What did they cover up by claiming their top-secret records had been left lying around some place where some janitor could destroy them? Alien visitor theorists, of course, are certain that they were hiding possession of alien remains. But is that the most likely answer? I looked not for Air Force inconsistencies, but for what was consistent in their policy, and I found it. Plant the idea of alien visitors, stir the pot till it comes to a boil, then claim that there is a simple explanation but leave big holes in the story that will insure that the alien crash site idea never dies. The ranchers original simple assumption that something from the base crashed there was probably correct. And what Top Secret device did that base have whose crash on U.S. soil would have to be kept secret for so many decades? Well, lets see. The only Atomic Bomb Wing in the world. Its planes carried atomic bombs. In the prevailing climate of the Cold War, if it came out that one of those bombers, with an atom bomb aboard, crashed on native soil, it would have precipitated a huge public panic with unstoppable rumors that would have greatly disrupted American society. The fact that an atom bomb cant be detonated by impact like a normal explosive would have been swept away in the hysteria. No matter what their history of service and political connections, the public would demand the blood of

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Heyer Saga many a high-ranking officer and political official and with the inevitable demands to investigate responsibility for the supposed near disaster, security would be terribly compromised. That would be worth breaking a few laws to conceal. Every politician, advertising executive, stage magician, pickpocket and con man knows that the most successful concealment is misdirection. Distract the public by suggesting UFOs are dropping about our ears, then insist that youve checked and that there are no alien spacecraft to limit the amount of panic generated by the report, then follow that with what will inevitably be recognized by some as a cover up. Stir and repeat. Serves all kinds indefinitely. Keeps the whole family busily debating whether or not some UFOs are spaceships instead of thinking about what the Air Force needs us not to know about frightening flaws in their operations. So much for that subject.

Grammar School My grammar school experiences were increasingly frustrating me with the whole American school system; and my asthma in a place as full of allergens as Sacramento, kept me from getting strong enough to protect myself on the playground. One thug-in-training student who used the restroom as a private smoking lounge kept beating me up whenever I tried to use the restroom. Neither teachers nor administrators nor parents would do anything about it. It got very unpleasant and caused some long-lasting problems. Another person I remember from back then (face and all) was a gypsy boy. Gypsy is, of course, not an accurate name for that ethnicity, but even now most people dont know what those people actually call themselves, which, according to two people who were accepted in different centuries into such a clan, is not Romany, their second most famous incorrect moniker, but Rom.

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Heyer Saga What was impressive about this rather large boy, who seemed to be older than any other student there, was his viciousness, destructiveness and convincingness whenever he lied. I talked to him once, thinking someone from so different a background would make an interesting friend. He said nothing but pinched my arm with extremely painful strength. I got the message and avoided him. He deliberately broke a window in the school bus while the driver was watching, and then denied it so vehemently and so convincingly, that not only his bully friends, but one by one, every child on the bus but me got sucked in and swore that he couldnt have done it. By that time I could see that the bus driver was getting confused and losing his resistance to group pressure. I supported him, reminding him that he had seen the crime with his own eyes. He succumbed to the group anyway -- another memorable lesson in the irrationality of human behavior.

My sixth grade teacher Mrs. Fawley was supposedly a good teacher according to Cindy and Dina, but by the time I was assigned to her class, she was a nightmare. She couldnt do sixth grade math, and sometimes embarrassed herself by demonstrating the fact on the chalkboard before the whole class. That was a failing I could sympathize with, but it demonstrated the randomness of her grading system. She graded on the basis of how smart she decided each student was on the first day, frequently marking answers wrong which were correct and leaving unmarked answers which were wrong. I brought an incorrectly graded paper back to her desk and assured her quietly that if she would check the answers in the back of the teachers copy of the textbook , she would see that it was so. After a little persuading she checked, saw that my answer was correct and changed the grade. Still no problem that wasnt easily correctable. But it happened more and more until it was every paper. Then, instead of looking up the answer, she suddenly flared up and turned on me and sent me to the principal. I was shocked by her sudden fury but didnt Chapter 28 - Jeff, page 394

Heyer Saga find the prospect of being sent to the principal threatening. I knew him to be intelligent, perceptive and reasonable. I dont recall the interview, but he didnt punish me or do anything about her. Mrs. Fawley began making up history instead of discussing what was in the textbook, since she never remembered correctly what the books said. She got very involved with the Donner Party. She didnt have much of the story right, and concentrated on extremely detailed and grotesque recipes for human flesh what it tasted like -- the consistency when you chewed it. It thoroughly creeped me out and haunted me in my nightmares. Teachers pets could do no wrong in her eyes. One of them tried to bully my friend Carl Olson into giving up his turn at the tetherball pole, which didnt work. When Carl continued his game, this kid jumped on his back and pummeled him. Carl rammed his elbow back into the kids ribs and the bullys mouth opened and he stopped punching to start gasping. Carl flung him off. Mrs. Fawley sent Carl to the principal, insisting that he had no right to defend himself and completely refusing to deal with the fact that her pet literally jumped him from behind. Mrs. Fawley then belittled and defamed Carl as thoroughly as her worked up imagination could manage in front of the whole class. I defended Carl and pointed out who the real culprit was and that most of the class and a good many others had seen him assault Carl. She yelled, Maybe youd like to go to the principal with him! The extremity of her reaction took me aback and she resumed her rant. I thought for a moment and then, believing I could prove an effective advocate for my friend with the fair-minded principal, I replied, Yes, I would like to see the principal. She wasnt about to let that happen and her biggest threat had proven ineffective, so she went back to ranting and insulting Carl and now me loudly enough that she could pretend she couldnt hear my protests.

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Heyer Saga I was again startled and impressed by her character shifts. She quickly became a furious, out of control tyrant in class, raving, making up wholly false lessons in every subject she was supposed to be teaching. She now absolutely refused to use the answers in the back of her book, marking things according to her personal preferences. She appeared to have gone completely around the bend, wildly irrational and irresponsible, but when the parents came for Open House, she was a completely different person. She didnt just behave differently with adults than she did with children, as one would expect, but she dressed neatly instead of her usual unkempt classroom garb. Her hair was a boiling mass of curly hair overflowing in all directions by day, but for the parents it was neatly coifed and very confined. With them she kept her voice very low, quiet and restrained. She had no restraint at all with us. What she told the adults was no more real than her supposed lessons, but unlike what she told us, her tales to them were plausible, being what parents expected to hear. She flattered my mother and then accused me of misbehaving in class and to my dismay, my mother believed implicitly, and insisted I was making things up. That insistence that nothing I experienced was real continued into adult life when Cindy or Dina would imply by tone of voice that Mrs. Fawley was a good teacher and they didnt want to hear from me why she was no such thing. That attitude, expressed quite directly, was very distressing at the time and really made me wonder more than I already had what my mother had against me. Sibling rivalry, of course, I understood was an ordinary and inevitable fact of life. I never did figure out what that untrusting dynamic with my mother was until as an adult I read a history of her side of the family that she had written. From it, I learned how her mothers first two brothers both died small, resulting in her parents working her like a mule, while the only surviving boy would pull a few weeds, then complain that he felt dizzy after Chapter 28 - Jeff, page 396

Heyer Saga which he would be pampered with lemonade in the shade while she slaved away. There were further causes for Gramma Roses dissatisfaction with her husband and together the constant influence of these things led my mother to become suspicious of men in general and boys in particular. Once I understood that, a long troubling issue was set to rest and my relationship with my mother greatly improved. Of course, her own spiritual development over the years made a huge improvement in all our lives. We all always loved her, and she us, and she always had many wonderful qualities. And once she was through a rough midlife change of focus when bringing up children was no longer her function, she really blossomed magnificently as a person.

The Backyard The Sacramento backyard went through a memorable transition. When we arrived, it was just a good-sized plot of hardpan with only a little covering of thin and unproductive soil only upon the last few feet of the yard. The ubiquitous wild grass-stalks poking our of that meager soil in those last few feet were baked the palest yellow by the summer sun and were the only signs of life. In the summer the hardpan was a barren stretch with various bumps and slumps the only variation in it. Dad went to work on it right away and in trying to break it up with a pickaxe discovered that it was much like breaking concrete. He sent for information from some government office on how to work such soil and they said the only thing that could be done was to break it up with dynamite. Setting off TNT in his backyard somehow didnt strike Dads fancy. In the winter, the rains turned the yard and the vacant lot next door into wet clay that would suck a childs shoe off. I always managed to regain mine, but I think it was Nona who came in one day wearing one clay-coated shoe and one thoroughly soaked and gloppy sock because, as she told Mom, her shoe got stuck out back. I was sent to recover it and found to my

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Heyer Saga surprise that it was pretty far out in the yard at the end of a trail of little shoe and sock prints. It was easy enough to pick up and when I commented on this (surprised yet again) once I was back in the house, it came out that when her foot pulled out of the shoe, she made no attempt to retrieve her footwear and just stumped into the house to report it. This was inexplicable to me at the time, and always makes me laugh when I share that reminiscence verbally. Dad brought in and put together a jungle gym to keep the more mobile of his offspring busy. Then he wheel-barrowed in topsoil and fertilizers and did a lot of muscle work as a counter-balance to his desk job. He turned it into a nice stretch of lawn to play on with trees in it, each surrounded by a circle of little red bricks curve and with round bumps on the top that reminded me of the battlements of a fort and which served as such for many a miniature adventurer in my possession. Eventually he put in a pool. There were various bushes, small trees and flowers along the two sides of this space, and he put in a rainbird sprinkler system, which was a big part of my enjoyment of that space in the summers. My friends, Brian Luke and Carl Olson and I enjoyed dodging the spray as it chuffed slowly across the width of the lawn and then chattered quickly back the other way to start again. Sometimes we released the clip that kept it in its accustomed pattern in order that one of us could direct it as a pretend machinegun. I was always extremely careful about anything I played with, but once some cousins came in a boisterous and violent invasion, and one of them took charge of the rainbird. I started to explain about the clip and how to release it, but he just broke it and said, Never mind, I got it to work. At the end of the back lawn was a little narrow hollow that ran the width of the yard and served as a water run-off in the rainy season. It was soon filled with big gladioli and trees, which grew up big enough to thoroughly separate the back lawn from what we called the far back. Only a nifty little red-painted bridge with handy mid-sized child scaled banister Chapter 28 - Jeff, page 398

Heyer Saga provided convenient access between back lawn and far back. Many an adventurer, though, in the form of spy, soldier, jungle explorer or astronaut found small spaces where he could cautiously slip his small body between the increasingly bushy bushes. Above the left end of the pretty little run-off was planted a silver dollar tree, because, like other varieties of eucalyptus, it grew very quickly. This soon became climbable and a strong rope was tied high up in the branches once they were big enough. It hung to within two to three feet of the ground and was equipped with some knots for better hand-holds and a foot long, two inch wide sturdy white-painted board on which to sit or stand to swing. Past this and the bridge, which had an arbor archway over it, forming a portal to the inner kingdom, stretched a length of light soil over the native hardpan, and this was the playground. Therein appeared a swing set with, I think, three regular swings and another kind where one sat on one side facing a rider on the other and held onto little handle-bars which supported a panel with jet controls painted on. Now jet controls were really exciting and with two riders on the same mechanism cooperating efficiently, as with a teeter-totter, kids could get the contraption to go high up at the end of each swings arc much more quickly than on the regular swings. This was sufficiently novel and thrilling to get the device to break down long before anything else. The swing set was a Sears kit, which Dad put together and made of thinner material than most of the sets I encountered in yards. These others usually had a framework of heavy iron poles rougher than sandpaper with dark brown rust, and were often cemented into place. With the exception of the jet swing, however, though it came to bow in the middle, ours lasted throughout our time there. When I was the largest child who still played on it, I would usually climb about the frame, which had a handy bar reinforcing the two legs on each end so that looked at side-on the legs and bar formed a big A. That was the strongest part and could bear my greater weight.

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Heyer Saga To the right of the swing set there was a little open space for running around, or hopscotch squares scratched with a stick into the dusty clay, and beyond that was a tetherball pole cemented in place. The image that comes vividly to mind is of an old tire filled with cement as the base, but Im not certain I am remembering the right tetherball pole. At any rate, this was popular, though the girls tired of it long before I did. It continued to be used for years until one day I gave it a good punch and the rubber ring that the rope from the pole was tied to snapped off from too many days in the baking Sacramento sun and flew away across the yard. Thereafter, I occasionally exercised my imagination with uses for the ball, whose movements were unpredictable, because of the two lumps which were all that was left of the ring, and to come up with other things to attach to the rope still handing from the pole. Dad built a bright yellow cement path with one yellow brick at the start so that the path was symbolically our Yellow Brick Road through Oz. It led from the back porch door across the back lawn to the bridge and had large paving stones set in it every few feet. On the other side of the bridge it was cement colored and had large stones rather than flat paving stones in it and led past the play-yard down the middle of the garden and to the door of the playhouse. In later years a little shaded porch swing was added near the fence between the tetherball pole and the right side of the yard. This was primarily for Mom to sit in to watch the goldfish in a little pond Dad dug into the clay and lined with heavy black plastic, held down around the rim with decorative rocks collected from multiple locales. Others of us sat there, too, of course. In my fifteenth year I remember sitting there with Brian Luke planning out a film we were to make with my Super-8 camera. Beyond the playground stretched an area with the deepest, bestfertilized soil, where a variety of crops were grown at different times. The best was the corn, usually with pumpkins; gourds or squash vines weaving about the bases of the thick stalks. We lost a good bit of each crop to bugs Chapter 28 - Jeff, page 400

Heyer Saga and some kind of fungus or the like which turned the kernels into a discolored stinking goo. Then the birds would take a peck here and there. But most of it ripened nicely and was so much tastier than the larger, more evenly kernelled cobs we got at the store. There were strawberries, few of which survived long enough for us to eat them, but the few that did tasted incredible. Martha was still small when she was given charge of them. I did most of the watering, weeding and pruning. Nonas dog Heidi discovered the strawberries and ate many of those the bugs didnt get. We seldom harvested many, but they tasted wonderful. The fresh peas were a marvel and it was actually kind of fun to open the pods, shuck out the peas and see all the variations in size shape (contrary to the saying, alike as two peas in a pod) and they, were delicious in salads or popped straight into your mouth as shucked. pop and too, you

Sometimes we grew carrots and these were tasty, but not like store carrots in a different way. I remember the first time Dad and I saw that one carrot had grown so thick it was bulging up from the ground. But when one of us pulled it up, it was only three inches long. The soil was good for carrots, but they could make no headway through the hardpan beneath. The other crops from that section I dont recall, though I know there were others. There were some small fruit trees at the corners of that section. In our last years in Sacramento I built a big rabbit hutch against the left fence for 4-H bunnies raised either by Nona or Martha. Initially I shingled the top edge of it with some slabs of still barked wood that had been part of a load of purchased firewood. Unlike the boards, which would weather considerably, these slabs could survive many decades of sun and rain. However, the wood was so dense that it was extremely hard to drive our huge nails through them, so I ended up using only a few and putting in boards over the rest.

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Heyer Saga That work was miserable, not in and of itself, since I inherited Dads enjoyment of woodwork, but because of the time that the rabbits were to be installed. Their hutch had to be built in the summer in a sun that sucked the moisture from your bones and beat on your head like a hammer. The glare would half blind me after a fairly short time and whatever I wore, I could not keep out the sun without getting dizzy from all the water I was losing in sweat. Drinking from the hose didnt help much, because it took far longer for my body to process the water than the sun needed to make my head ache, my breath come short and my whole system to feel water-logged yet dehydrated at the same time. When the structure was finally roofed, I used the hose to simulate a rainstorm and then checked beneath. Nothing showed on the dry dirt. There was great concern from all the girls that nevertheless it wouldnt be waterproof because the wood shingles, being slightly uneven, didnt fit tightly against the boards beneath. I maintained that it didnt need to be waterproofed like a boat; it only had to stop water dropping down on it and provide it a slant to run off onto the ground. The rain couldnt land and then run uphill in order to pass under the edge of the shingles overlapping the boards. When the rains began, however, I was assured that somehow it did that and the poor bunnies were getting wet. Going out to check, I found the rabbits no more disturbed than ever, dry themselves and with no more moisture on the plants and bedding than they provided themselves. But I gave in and replaced the shingles with more boards. The rabbits were far more disturbed by the noise and vibrations from that process than they had been by the vanished water that had supposedly wet them, but being in the cool part of the year the process was just work, not misery, so it didnt take too long. Beyond the garden, as that area became called, my father built in the right-hand corner of the fence, a square fort of planks, with little stairs inside on either side of the drawbridge that led up to a wide plank along either side and across the back upon which one could stand and look out over the battlements. This was my favorite birthday present (though there were many others that were excellent and none that I did not appreciate). Chapter 28 - Jeff, page 402

Heyer Saga It was then for me to decide whether it was to be a wooden western fort or a stone castle. I chose the latter, so Dad painted it gray and so it remained for many years until I learned how to use a sponge to add over the pale gray a darker texture as variegated as the uneven surface of the sponge, making it more stone-like. That fort saw an awful lot of use. It was thoroughly played all over and also afforded one a view over the back fence across what were then a few miles of open fields. Late in our time in Sacramento, Dad bought some property on a mountain out near Shingle Springs. I wasnt doing much playing by then, but was intensely involved with Super-8 filmmaking. I broke the fort down into sections we could fit into the back of his Ford pickup and we transported them down there on one of our trips. I chose a spot and reerected it, together with a tower on one side composed of two big fuel drums someone had chucked into the fields outside our yard. The drums were held in place on top of each other by a long board sharpened on one end driven through them and into the ground. This served as a setting for a siege, in some shots of which Brian, who came up occasionally with us from Citrus Heights, and I fought in live action, with G.I. Joes and other 1/6th scale 12 figures setup as distant combatants in and about the castle. Only a few other brief shots were made of the film for which this sequence was originally planned. For various reasons it was scrapped, but slightly different versions were put together from the shots of the siege to become parts of two other films. One was Dont Get Excited, Its Only A Game. I dont recall what the other was. That was the last use I made of the fort, though I imagined disassembling it again and erecting it elsewhere. By then the wood was extremely weathered. I was impressed by the way that the rains would swell the planks into their original tight fit each winter, though the sun would so dry them that eventually you could see quite well through the widening cracks between each desiccated gray board.

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Heyer Saga The bottom of each board was rotten where it had touched the ground for a decade, and other parts were thin and brittle with woodworm. I decided that it wasnt salvageable and was glad that it would remain at least for a time, as a unique sight, a little castle standing on a beautiful stretch of green grass on a rustic hillside. That was the last time I saw the physical castle. Many times thereafter its image flickered brightly if slightly blurred on a movie screen. More significantly, it became a frequent feature in my dreams, seeming, in the slightly uncanny nature of dream images, to shadow forth the changing status of the defenses that my introverted persona erected to protect itself against the ravages of the external world. Sometimes it would be fresh and new, other times brittle and decayed. After a time, it appeared as improved and enlarged in various ways. It was frequently so complex that it reached clear across the back end of the yard, worked in with other structures and various plants. Back in the waking world, and in Citrus Heights, near the center of the yard close to the back fence for many years stood a small but sturdy sawhorse. Dad fitted a little wooden socket on one end of it and sawed off all but the stump of one of the little stick-horses we used to treasure when we were small. These had a head of some red or dark blue, thin, pliable plastic with a horse face, mane and bridle printed on it. Dad set the remaining stump into the socket and made some kind of rope tail on the other end and some kind of cushioned saddle in the middle and it was a great play-horse. The summer sun soon desiccated and cracked the head so all the cotton stuffing fell out. Over the next year I tried a variety of different head replacements, but none were very successful. When I gave up, it was turned back into a mere sawhorse. Near it, at the edge of the left side of the garden, Dad planted an apricot tree, which grew to impressive size and supplied a huge crop of fruit each year. Some we would just pick from the tree while the hose was filling one irrigation channel or another lift; then hose to wash the fruit, and eat Chapter 28 - Jeff, page 404

Heyer Saga the apricot right there. Beautiful fruits with delicate shades of color we came to recognize as promising different tastes and textures, from just a bit of nice crunch to a sweet, sweet fruity cream. Many of the apricots we harvested went to Mom who would bake delightful pies with them and preserves for the times of the year the tree lay dormant. Many more would go to friends and neighbors, and there were still plenty for the birds. A few even hung too high off the ground for us to dislodge even standing on a ladder wielding a long stick; these were baked too hard by the sun for the birds to bother with and there they would hang, clutching tight against their thin branches until they rotted away. Behind this beloved cornucopia of a tree, Dad built the playhouse, not long after the fort (the next year?). This was composed of big plywood sheets with a bit of board framing. Its linoleum floor stood a few inches off the ground on short legs and was saved thereby from most of the ravages of the seasons. The front had a child-sized door that adults had to duck down and go through sideways. To the left of this was a window with a hinged shutter that could close it like a square porthole. For a long time there was a flowerbox outside the window, but eventually it broke off. The main color of the outside walls was a deep red with yellow door and window trim. The steep roof angled down from either side of the peak and the surprisingly thin but durable green bumpy material covering the roofs kept it completely waterproof for as long as we lived there. Inside, it was painted bright yellow, like the outside trim. The side facing the back fence was blank and on rare occasions had some handdrawn picture on it. The opposite side and the back had central windows like the one in front. Out in the fields I found a little metal set of shelves painted white like a refrigerator, though it had no door or cooling unit and I put that in there to be the food pantry. It was stocked with plastic fruit meant to be decorative and a squeaky rubber dog toy shaped like a slice of cake.

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Heyer Saga No clear recollection of the little chairs that were in there comes to me but there was a little table and other furnishings at different times. There were occasions when some of us slept in sleeping bags on that plywood floor, and it was a great place to eat lunch in a sort of halfway house way, neither exactly indoors nor out. This place was as fabulous as the fort. I remember several of us helped paint the yellow interior. It saw a good bit of action by the girls, and when they largely tired of it, far more by me. It was all sorts of things over the years. In my teens during what I think was Apollo 8s manned mission to, around, and back from the Moon a very exciting thing for a youngster interested in science and imagination I set it up as the cabin of a spaceship. I built some control devices out of scrap electronic equipment sold at the Roseville Auctions to be parted out by the purchaser, one of the jet control panels I saved after that part of the swing set broke down and was removed, and other things including the last remaining bits of Brainiac. This latter was a clever educational object from the ever-useful Sears catalog. It consisted of a pressed fiberboard with different patterns of holes through it. Into these holes could be pressed various kinds of switches and electric connections and we could learn about basic electronics and crude computer functions by different setups in the instruction booklet. By that time the booklet had been lost or disposed of, whic h didnt matter because there were no longer enough parts to make it do anything. But it had been a fascinating learning tool, and what was left was the basic board with a few connections and a wheel that opened and closed different, now absent, circuits depending upon where you turned it. Well, thats all you need for a fake control panel, especially if you have various control knobs from defunct equipment to poke into some of the holes. I worked out a whole NASA-style itinerary for the voyage, with precise burn times when the controls had to be placed at a particular setting for a particular period in order to make course adjustments. I drew what the outside of the craft was to look like, and made an image of what I thought

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Heyer Saga Titan might look like. This moon of Jupiter was my goal, because it was at that time the only large body in our solar system with an atmosphere a man in a spacesuit could survive on -- other than Mars, of course. But Mars had been done to death and seemed unlikely to hold secrets that could excite me, such as animal life. Brian and Carl were both invited to take this voyage with me. It was to last several days a week, I think. Carl came aboard and Brian came for the days, but went to his nearby home at night. I therefore worked out a scenario in which Brian was supposedly donning his spacesuit and jetting back to the engine module where he spent the night hours to be on hand should any engine alarms go off. Carl almost immediately tired of the pre-plotted, regimented life of an actual astronaut, and decided to blast around the solar system on his own and do whatever else popped into his fertile imagination. I salvaged what I could of my plan and we did get to Titan, exploring the fields behind the house for a time. We encountered some form of unfriendly life, though I no longer recall what it was. We retreated to the landing module, hastily loaded up our samples for later scientific analysis and blasted off for the mother ship. Despite some damage by small meteors on the return trip and some unscheduled interruptions to stop by the house for some very tasty and welcome tacos as a change from our canned rations, we reached our home planet without casualties. It was an interesting experience and taught me something of cabin fever, and the difference between my strong sense of personal discipline and adherence to a realistic, if largely unexciting plan in order to see what it might feel like as an actual astronaut and my friends interest in stretching their imaginative muscles in pure fantasy. There was a peach tree between the apricot tree and the left-hand fence and a plum tree behind the playhouse. Between the playhouses right side and the back fence stretched a bramble of berry bushes which kept us

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Heyer Saga well supplied all summer with sweet berries, and even a few in Spring and Fall. Interwoven among these were grapes, which required the most watering of anything in the yard, yet never produced fruit until the last year we were there. They yielded tiny but delicious grapes with an intensity of flavor beyond that of any others in my experience. Dinas little dog Fluffy made little tunnels through the thorny brambles. That loveable but feisty little beastie spent a good part of every day patrolling the circuit of the fences for the least sign of alien intrusion, or opportunity for escape. I assumed that these tunnels were simply a part of that preoccupation, so she could sniff along that part of the back fences ground rail, as she did elsewhere. Then one day I went to pick some berries while she was in there and she wasnt patrolling. She was standing in one spot greedily and delightedly wolfing down all the berries and grapes she could reach. I laughed and let her continue, since even with work gloves and thick sleeves, I couldnt retrieve berries that deep in the bramble without crushing them. I called this stub-tailed Cockerpoo Fluff, as continually saying Fluffy was too girly for me. This was because at that time, day after day at school, I was obliged to fight off continual attacks both physical and verbal on my manhood. Simultaneously I was surrounded much of the time at home by a femininity hostile to my masculinity (the girls because they were sibling rivals, each in her own stage of coming of age, and often my mother because of the traumas she inherited from her mother and her own less than happy experiences with her father and other male kin). Some of the girls later took me to task because the dog was supposed to be Fluffy, not Fluff and they insisted that they couldnt help themselves calling her Fluff because I did. No explanation of this inability for seven people to stick to the original name because one used a short form was forthcoming. I kept calling her Fluff and so did they.

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Heyer Saga Fluffy (to revert to official nomenclature) was white with a big black patch over one eye and varying numbers of smaller black spots scattered about elsewhere. The hair hanging from her big, usually cocked, ears was longish and matted into a substance like the thick felt of a hat. Her little legs were bulging with hard muscles from her incessant activities. As a happy, friendly little puppy she kept going over to a bantam rooster with clipped wings who strutted authoritatively about the backyard in those days. Fluffy kept trying to make friends, but each time, the rooster would peck her on the head. When she gave up and tried to stay away from him, he would sometimes lurk in the bushes until she wandered near and then dart out and peck her and chase her away with wild wing flaps to gain a few inches elevation from which to strike at her with his spurs. An unhappy situation, and we could not always be on hand to look out for the puppy, since my fathers allergies and mine obliged her to live in the yard, where she had a clean little white doghouse. But unlike the adult Bantam rooster, Fluffy grew. She stopped running off and snapped at the rooster, lunging aggressively toward him. He stopped strutting and moved about with a body language clearly communicating loss of self-confidence and dismay, even a growing apprehension. At some time, despite his recently re-clipped wings, Mr. Bantam made it up to the top of the fence without being seen, fluttered down on the other side and ran for his life. I made a search for him, but found no trace. From then on, the yard was Fluffys queendom. She became a mistress of escape techniques. She would casually drift about in the background and then dart between your legs the moment the gate was opened. Shed tunnel, scratching at a loose fence board until there was a tiny space through which a determined Cockerpoo could squeeze her little body. Shed even sneak over to a weak spot in the fence to gnaw on the wood whenever no one was looking. She managed to splinter a fair amount of wood on that one before my less than daily circuits of the fence revealed her plan. Chapter 28 - Jeff, page 409

Heyer Saga She got out fairly often and always led anyone willing to come after her on a merry chase. When her pursuers were too tired to continue, she would happily trot off and go exploring, returning when she pleased. She had become so tough and self-confident that she never had trouble with people or bigger dogs, but she had no notion of traffic and Cindys little dog Bootsie had been run over years before, so we were all determined to make sure that didnt happen again. My most effective trick for cutting short her perambulations was to take a bit of sandwich baloney and lay it on the mast support of the boat trailer in the open garage. As long as I withdrew for five or ten minutes, I could come back confident I would see her sitting just outside the garage staring entranced at the baloney. Usually, I would take the baloney down and hold it just out of her lunging range and snag her collar while she was fixated. Then I would give her the baloney and she would allow me in return to carry her unresisting back into the back yard. Once I picked her up to hold her up by the baloney instead. This experiment resulted in my having three narrow two-inch strips of skin torn back from my fingernail to dangle uselessly below. I scolded her, but let her have the baloney, realizing that she had thought I wasnt going to let her take the bait now that shed been caught. She growled back at me through the scolding making clear that she wasnt about to mend her ways. It was baloney first or no surrender. Being in my teens by then, the pain and the few trickles of blood I lost before using a fingernail clipper to clip off the hanging skin and cold water to stop the bleeding, didnt bother me much. Mostly, though, Fluffy played with us. She was great fun to chase or be chased by, and would wrestle with Brian and me. There was a TV commercial often shown in our early teens of some supposedly Hawaiian cereal something like Puffa-Puffa Oats, which shot out of a volcano. Brian started calling her Puffa-Puffa Dog whenever she was something we were supposed to run from, so that became a standard game. Whenever one of us would shout, Look out! Here comes Puffa-Puffa Dog! we would cry out

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Heyer Saga in dismay and run for our lives and she would obligingly chase us up the jungle gym, or wherever. She kept the yard clear of cats, barked furiously to warn us of intrusions, including a very long folding pocket knife some kids had been throwing at our back fence and which flew over. Dad confiscated the dangerous thing and the younger child said, What am I gunna do without my Dads knife? A less potentially dangerous barkage incident resulted from a gherkin pickle precipitated into the side yard. When I got near she started darting at it, clearly unable to tell just what it was, but knowing that it had moved and it had invaded and it didnt belong in the Fiefdom of Fluffy. Upon another occasion she went wild in the evening the time when animals and thieves most commonly passed through and Dad and I went out to see what had her so upset. There was no sign of anything alive, other than the plants. Her barking changed from furious to apprehensively warning us. When we wandered so near the cause of her alarm that she feared for our safety, she began darting at it, barking in a higher, more urgent pitch. It was a log for the fireplace, which had been removed from the firewood stash and set down upright, upon which it had been forgotten. From her perspective it was something standing up where it shouldnt be and she didnt know what it was in the dark. Needless to say, she was a more than effective watchdog. Typically for the abused, when Heidi the puppy came to live with us, Fluffy cowed her and ruled the roost. Heidi was permitted to stay but only as a serf. But Heidi grew. After increasing numbers of warnings when Fluffy would try to dominate her, Heidi turned and I witness it. She snarled and snapped and straddled Fluffy, her teeth encompassing the little white and black throat. Fluffy whimpered once, then lay there on her back, shuddering violently. Chapter 28 - Jeff, page 411

Heyer Saga I understood how Heidi felt, but Fluffys dismay and fear was too much for me to watch, so I rushed over and grabbed Heidis collar to pull her back. She struggled to shake me off but made no move against me. Scared that this might mean she really had it in for the littler dog, I carried her bodily away. Fluffy sat there, continuing to shake for some minutes. She minded her manners for several days, then Fluffy got cantankerous again and tried to herd Heidi aside and snap at her and Heidi immediately went for her. I was again witness, but having felt that my intervention the first time had been a mistake, I watched instead. Heidi held there in a position in which she could easily have crushed or torn out Fluffys throat for a little while longer than she had the first time, and then stepped back, gave her a little, Get the message? growl and walked off. Poor, shuddering little Fluffy got the message. Heidi was top dog. Fluffy still made her patrols as frequently as ever and remained the watchdog and the dreaded Puffa-Puffa Dog, and life was still good in the queendom.

The Supreme Importance of Play A curious moment from my early teens: I set out on an ambitious campaign to cram in various kinds of imaginative role-playing play while I still had time. I was keenly aware that I was approaching adulthood and that opportunities to play would narrow enormously in the coming years. It wasnt just that I enjoyed playing and wanted to do so for as long as I still enjoyed it. It was that I felt that it was vitally important to my development as a person and to my future productivity that I get in an awful lot of play while I was a child. Play, like story telling of any kind, was a vital form of preparation for situations I would soon have to deal with. And so it proved. Vocation The path of the actor, director and writer foreshadowed by my earliest memory of playing with a toy soldier whose experiences I narrated aloud formulated around me by stages. Chapter 28 - Jeff, page 412

Heyer Saga In the Second Grade I played the Beast in Beauty and the Beast. No one else wanted to be an ugly monster, but I was moved by the drama of his lonely half-human status and eventual near death and transformation. Plus I wanted to be kissed by Beauty. I had no idea how Puritanical much of our nation still remains. Kissing wasnt to me as casual a thing as it was for my Italian acquaintances, but some people considered it anathema except between marriage partners. Mom made paper mach puppet heads around necks consisting of the cardboard cylinder that is left when a toilet paper roll runs out. Dad helped paint them, if I recall, and gradually the older kids would make and paint them, as well. Mom sewed wonderful cloth bodies for them with neat little details. Various family members put on puppet shows for others. I loved everything about this and experimented with these puppets. Cindy wrote some scripts adapting stories from African folklore. She created the puppets and a neat yellow and orange striped folding cardboard puppet stage with cloth curtains and toured libraries with Dina putting on these shows for a little nominal monetary consideration. When Cindy went off to Israel after High School, I toured the county library circuit a bit with Dina. I narrated and did voices while Dina operated the puppets. These shows were successful and popular. They were enjoyable to us and to our audiences as well as to the adults who booked us. In the summer of 1971, San Juan High School offered a Summer School Class on filmmaking and I signed up. In addition to studying films and learning production skills, we were to make a Super-8 movie and were each given 3 rolls of film, 8 minutes per roll. Drawing in several other students, pooling our film and buying more myself, I scripted and directed a daffy, sophomoric spy spoof in which I played Clyde, a bumbling secret agent. Several silly bit parts followed in a sequel, which was begun the following year but never completed. In the same year I played a bit part as an astronaut in fellow student Steven Brousseau's production of Arthur C. Clarkes "The Sentinel," but his

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Heyer Saga footage turned out so po0000orly he just took a few cuts and put together a random series of amusing images. I took this course at least three years in a row, but they wouldnt let me take it again after I graduated. Before that, on a library trip, Cindy visited the local library and picked up a book for Mom. Mom liked mysteries and ghost stories and Cindy found Bram Stokers novel Dracula. Seeing that it was a mystery AND a ghost story and much more besides, Cindy brought it home and Mom would periodically read it aloud to whoever cared to listen. Ghost stories seemed foolish to me, deep in my Twentieth Century Western Scientific mindset as I was, so I heard the early readings while doing something more interesting. But Stoker soon hooked me and drew me in. I was very impressed by some of the techniques he used to build suspense and to encourage the reader to willingly suspend his or her disbelief. The story became fascinating and I thought a great deal about it. Not long after this, during my junior year at San Juan High School (1971-2), the director decided to put on a comedy musical called "Dracula, Baby." None of the other students had any real feeling for what the Count was all about. As for me, I felt only half-alive most of the time due to my asthma squeezing my airways. The school did nothing to rein in the brutal bullies and, too oxygen-starved to be strong enough to protect myself, I was a favorite target and was terrorized every day. Once some of the members of a high school gang followed me out into the empty fields I walked through to get home from school. They surrounded me with their car and their motorcycles, pulled knives and began to move in, telling me how they could do anything they wanted to me and no one would do anything about it. As in various films Ive seen, I told them to come on and do it, then, but I would mess up the first guy I got hold of as badly as I could before they cut me down. Who wants to be first? Chapter 28 - Jeff, page 414

Heyer Saga They laughed. It was a movie clich. But they also realized that I meant it and was ready to die fighting. And that was more than they were ready to face. Once it became obvious that no one wanted to be first, I picked by binder and books up again and walked the rest of the way home. I knew exactly what kind of drive for vengeance, what kind of blood thirst ruled the Count. The auditioner told me that I became Dracula when I auditioned. I loved the experience of playing that role in front of the largest audience I had yet faced. The production was very successful and I received a great deal of positive input, but I was so unconsciously nervous (not FEELING nervous at all) that my voice came out vibrato and strange. The run of the show was very limited, as usual for school shows: two evening performances and a two-scene segment for an Open House program. Nevertheless, it marked a huge turn-around in my life and I focused primarily on theater from then on.

Appendix F: (1) A list off all my entertainment industry employers and (2) My complete entertainment industry resume and (Jeffs section - a memory note to Mom)

Life Flashes: Mom, you asked me awhile back about whether my life flashed before my eyes when I felt I was about to die. At the time, I couldnt connect to that experience enough to remember it. As often happens, the info floated to the surface once my subconscious had time to pursue the question. I did have an experience, which I described with that phrase, but it was not what is customarily described that way. I didnt see past incidents leading to that near fatal moment. I had images and emotional impressions

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Heyer Saga of all the threads of my life, which would be left unfinished, and of a host of things I would not experience nor achieve nor resolve, because I was out of time. Fortunately, though, I no longer had any control over what the car was doing, as it bounced off the guardrail at the edge of the precipice to my right and smacked into the side of the hill to my left, which stopped it cold. Love, Jeff

Jeff and the Sea Beach

On one occasion, the family went to enjoy ________ Beach, at the ocean. Most of our children stayed fairly close to each other as they played in their respective ways, but Jeff set off in a different direction from the others and walked a long way, although still well within our sight. I assumed that he might be seeking some specific goal, but I did not detect what it was. Then at some point, he stopped, sat down a moment, and started walking back toward us. Apparently, he had accidentally stepped on a bee, which had stung him. He appeared to be in a lot of pain.

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Heyer Saga

ABOUT JEFF FROM DAD:

Jeff and the Doberman Once, when Jeff was walking with a friend, a large Doberman approached alone from the opposite direction. Jeff stopped, petted the dog affectionately and then proceeded with his friend on his way. The friend afterward expressed some astonishment about Jeffs calm approach to the dog, I gather with some awe, though I was not there at the time. He responded, if I remember correctly, that his action had been the most prudent under the given circumstances.

Its Only a Game When I was growing up, as mentioned earlier, my father patiently and considerately taught me many things: fictions at first, then later he introduced real events occurring in Europe currently and threatening our own shores and lives, though not yet saying so. To me the message became clear. He also taught me chess, checkers, etc. Accordingly, following his example, I did the same for my children. As Jeff was growing up, he in his turn took up the same interests, related goals, practices and games. He found however, that his efforts and goals were sometimes frustrated. Sometimes, in engagement with his grandmother as a small child, he would become frustrated and she would comment, Its only a game. To him, that was not satisfactory or acceptable, but the comment introduced into his mind a creative idea for a written and acted performance. The title of his project, not surprisingly, was Its Only a Game. He accomplished this by various performance means by which he was getting a feel for dramatic presentation. In the project he presented a whole series of people working at different levels of life and conveying different outlooks over time at different ages, perceptions of reality from different viewpoints. The climax was presented and finally ended as a conflict between God and the Devil (with me as both at overlapping times arguing with one another). He Chapter 28 - Jeff, page 417

Heyer Saga ultimately presented this successfully, and although still very young, he was on his way to his dramatic career.

The Monster and the Tiny Child In his teens, Jeffs interest in creating scenarios had become sufficiently well recognized that Thelma decided to present him with a Single 8 (Double 8?) movie camera to support his interest in that field. He carefully worked out a plan for the program and asked me to personify a large monster. His procedure was for him to crouch to the ground and photograph me standing as tall as possible and acting as threatening as possible with waving arms and threatening gestures so as to make me appear larger than life in the film. Then he asked my younger daughter, Winona, to pretend to be the tiny girl who should at his direction crouch fearfully, looking upward while he stood on a tall ladder taking a picture of her from above, whereby she would appear far smaller. He did complete the motion picture, played it both at home and at school. His theatrical career, though still in its infancy, was set well on its way. SuperBaby Jeffs first large public performance was as a lead in the play Dracula, Baby during his senior year of high school. He did lots of other pieces. There was one with a Teddy Bear made at Shingle Springs (a lovely country in the foothills of the Sierras not too far from Citrus Heights. We got there via Highway 50). This was made when Rose brought her Teddy Bear along. Jeff placed the bear on the hood of the car and made the film to look like the evil bear was stopping the car and preventing it from moving forward. SuperBaby would save the day. My move to the Coastside (El Granada) for my work made the upkeep of our Shingle Springs property too difficult. My refuge from the world became a problem, also an unruly neighbor moved in nearby. Because there was only one way to get in, we had to share the dirt road, and the new neighbor was very unfriendly.

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Heyer Saga A COUPLE OF LIVING ROOM CONVERSATIONS, 5/18/13 Fluffy and Heidi ate berries How funny I thought it was when I discovered toward the end of our time in Citrus Heights that Fluffy had made her own tunnel through the berry bush, she would go inside and we would wonder why we never got any grapes because she was eating from the inside of the bush! I remember here, Heidi would get some of the strawberries. Shed eat them, wed find some chewed off berries. Fluffy and Marty: Kindred Spirits I dont remember how we discovered Marty [Martha Rose, i.e. Rose] was missing. She wasnt very big, probably no more than 2 years old or so. This happened several times, I remember. Suddenly wed realize she was missing, and we kids would all spread out to hunt her down. One time Jeff remembers is when he headed out to what was then just open space, before the Littles house and the house next to that got built. I saw way out by the field, heading for the creek at full tilt, Martha just toddling like mad. I could see her little hair down to just above her shoulders, and a little sky blue sweater the shoulders of which I could see above the weeds. She had one hand in the air, maybe reaching for a butterfly. Thinking I should hear the theme to Born Free, I felt bad I had to go get her. But I sure didnt want her to make it down to the creek. Main thing I remember about chasing Martha down was that once shed catch sight of us, shed toddle faster! She didnt want us to catch up with her. I think she and Fluffy were kindred spirits. I was amazed at the lengths that fluffy would go to get out. A partial hole, shed dig out. Why not? But there was a part of the fence where she was gradually chewing through the board a long-term project. I remember a space not quit big enough to get out. A part of the wood was scraping her ears, she was crying. I went to rescue her, but before I Chapter 28 - Jeff, page 419

Heyer Saga got there she got out. She didnt care if shed left an ear behind, she was gone! She loved it when you chased her. If you gave up shed come closer to tempt you again. Nonas Pet Humor When Winona lived alone on Skyline in Woodside, she had a large German shepherd that she named Thora Heyerdog. This name was a pun on the famous Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer, Thor Heyerdahl.

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Heyer Saga Jeffs Art Here are a few samples of Jeffs career as a stage actor: The invincible Sherlock Holmes

This was taken from a playbill with several photo montages. He looks a bit like a western version of Buster Keeton!

On a serious note, here is Jeff as King Henry the IV.

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Heyer Saga Pretty grumpy Scrooge with his jammies & night light in hand.

Jeff plays Cyrano de Bergerac, getting smooched in spite of his big nose.

After a life-long love of Star Trek, what better role to play than Spock. Jeff was a natural.

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Heyer Saga Jeffs Entertainment Industry Employers List, Alphabetical (Last updated 4/15/13) All Saints Episcopal Church (theater) American River College Summer Repertory, Sacramento Bear Republic Theater, Santa Cruz Big Time Communications, Monterey (commercial) Brozovich Productions, Sacramento (film) C.S.U. Hayward Summer Repertory (theater, tech.) C.S.U. Monterey Bay, Teledramatic Arts & Tech. Dept. (theater) California UI Tech., Subcommittee, Hartnell College, Salinas (theater) Cambria Productions, Cambria (film) Carl Cherry Art Center, Carmel (theater) Carmel High School, Carmel (theater) City of Monterey (historical reenactments) Comedy Playhouse, Santa Cruz (theater) CTB/McGraw-Hill (film) Darcie Fohrman at Casa Serrano (theater) Del Mesa, Carmel Valley (theater) Del Monte Shopping Center, Monterey (theater) Dolciani Puppet Troupe, Sacramento (theater) Endorphin Productions (film) Events California, Monterey (theater) First Night Monterey (theater & historical reenactments) Foothill Theater Company, Nevada City, California (theater) Giant Slayer Productions, Monterey (film) Greg Franks Entertainment, Spanish Bay (theater) GroveMont Theater, Monterey, which became Pacific Repertory Theater, Carmel (theater, tech) Hands On the Arts, San Jose and then, Sunnyvale, California (theater, tech) Hanuman Players, Santa Cruz (theater, tech) Harry McCune Sound Services, Monterey (tech) Heyer Puppetry, Sacramento (theater) Heyer Productions (theater) HL Amateur Film Co., Sacramento (film) Homeschoolers Association, Monterey (historical reenactments) Illusions of Grandeur, Seaside. California (tech) Jacqueline Melcher (tech) Chapter 28 - Jeff, page 423

Heyer Saga Joes Musical Co., Sacramento (theater, tech) Jose Lambert, production at MPCs SRP Theatre KE Productions (historical reenactments) Kelly Productions (theater KION, Salinas, California (historical reenactments) Lexus Dealership, Seaside, California (commercials) Living History Association, Novato, California (historical reenactments) Mac & Ava Motion Pictures, Monterey (film) Medialine, Pacific Grove, California (news broadcasting job-listing) Monterey Bay Aquarium (video) Monterey Peninsula College Theater Arts Department (theater) Morgan E. Stock (historical reenactments) Nadja Productions (video) North Salinas High School Drama Department (theater, tech) Pacific Actors Co., Mountain View, California (theater) Pacific Coast Tele-Products, Monterey (industrials) Pacific Host Designation Services, Monterey (theater) Pacific Repertory Theater, Carmel, formerly GroveMont Theater (theater, tech) Peter Mieuli & Associates, Cupertino, California (commercial) Premier Events, Inc., Monterey (theater) Private Party, Carmel Valley (historical reenactment) Ramey Companies, Monterey (tech) Ruth Gilbert Celebration (historical reenactments) Salinas High School Drama Department (theater, tech) San Juan High School, Sacramento (theater, tech) Santa Catalina School Drama Department, Monterey (tech) Shakespeare Santa Cruz (theater, tech) Shire Films, Santa Cruz (film) Shrelk Productions, San Jose, California (theater) Southern Comfort Revue Players, Sacramento (theater) Staff Players Repertory, Carmel (theater, tech) State Department of Parks & Recreation (historical reenactments) State of California, The Resources Agency, Sacramento (theater) Summer Creations, Los Gatos, California (tech) The Actors Collective (theater, tech) The Haunted Woods for Friends of the Youth Science Institute (theater, tech) The Marketing Dept., Inc. (commercials for TWS) Chapter 28 - Jeff, page 424

Heyer Saga The National Steinbeck Center (theater) The Western Stage of Salinas (theater, tech) The Wonder Show, Los Gatos (theater, tech) Tommy Lee Harris Productions & others at Stonepine Equestrian Center, Carmel Valley (theater) U.C. Santa Cruz Annual Playwriting Festival Valley Institute of the Theater Arts (V.I.T.A.), Saratoga, California (theater, tech) Various amateur filmmakers in Sacramento (film, tech) Warner Brothers for Carmel Heritage Society (V. O.) 78 plus 5 student filmmakers

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Heyer Saga Jeffs Performance Resume Because of its size, Jeffs Performance Resume has been added to the Appendices. You can see it as Appendix H. Jeffs Performance Resume.

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Heyer Saga

JULES MEMORIES
Jules Memories (b. 1958): In January 1975 in the second semester of my junior year of high school, Mom & Dad generously allowed me to transfer from the largely unsatisfactory San Juan public high school to a private high school in Orangevale, called Desiderata. Desiderata was made up of a small community of young idealist teachers and students who held paradisial or utopian social ambitions regarding education and society. There were about a dozen faculty and maybe 30 students, primarily high school age, but there were a few younger students between ages 12 and 14. There were many things I enjoyed about attending Desiderata. Each day would begin with morning meeting. This was a community-wide gathering of all the students and faculty where we would discuss the schedule of the day and make decisions about the school together. Student participation was encouraged and taken seriously. This was my first experience with community participation, which was sometimes a frustrating process when there was disagreement. But many times there was a great deal of enthusiasm and passion expressed around various ongoing projects or plans we were collectively pursuing. Once meetings closed, some days we would attend small classes at our tiny campus that consisted of a converted church building with a small bell tower we were all very proud of. Other days we often enjoyed various field trips to nearby farms to learn about agriculture, or go on hikes to learn about local flora or fauna, or we might go on overnight camping trips and lie in the grass gazing at stars to discuss astronomy. While attending Desiderata, I met one of the young teachers, Marc Janowitz, who had previously been a Peace Corp Volunteer. He encouraged me to travel and considered world travel an important part of ones education. At the end of the semester in June, Marc invited me to join him on a trip to the Caribbean islands. I was thrilled. So we flew to Martinique for a week. Then went to visit St Lucia for a night. Then flew to Jamaica for a week where we stayed with Peace Corp pals of Marcs. Chapter 28 - Jules, page 427

Heyer Saga Everything on the islands was beautiful and lush. Fresh fruits and flowers were abundant. People were dressed in bright florid clothes and I remember vibrant colors everywhere. From Jamaica we flew into Merida in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico. We visited Chichen Itza, Palenque & Mexico Citys Museum of Archeology, all of which were stunning and magical in their own ways. I remember climbing the temples in the ruins and watching the tiny people far below and feeling the awe of these ancient history-steeped places. From Mexico City, we took a train through the country north to Los Angeles where we stayed with Grandma Sims for a day. Then we took the bus from there back to Sacramento. I believe the whole trip was about three weeks. It felt like the richest three weeks Id ever spent. During our travels Marc and I fell in love. That autumn I moved from Citrus Heights to San Francisco to join him. That first year together in San Francisco we worked in the same fancy restaurant on Union Street in the Cow Hollow neighborhood. But I was interested in learning the printing trade. So I apprenticed to a letterpress printer in my neighborhood on my days off, and took offset printing courses at night at a community college. But all along I was planning for my next trip abroad. In the summer of 1977, I joined Operations Crossroads Africa. This was an organization that arranged short-term Peace Corp type programs throughout Africa. They enlisted American college students to travel in teams to work on projects in villages throughout various East and West African countries. My team went to Ghana and spent most of our time in a small village near the eastern border of Togo. Several Ghanaian college students joined us and we all lived as guests of the village and worked on building an elementary school house. The work was very physically demanding as the village had no electricity and very few resources. We carried sand and rocks and water from a nearby stream into the village where we mixed and shoveled these materials with bags of imported concrete to make bricks by hand. We

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Heyer Saga leveled the ground by pounding it with giant rods. And we began to lay the brick foundation. Our workday began at 8:00 in the morning and ended at noon. Then we would be fed a lunch of peanut soup and offered palm wine, a kind of wine made from the fermented sap of the palm tree. I have always enjoyed physical labor and I looked forward everyday to work. But apparently most of my fellow American students did not share my enthusiasm. At the end of our three weeks in the village, several of the villagers told me they were very impressed to see an American woman could work so hard. All African women work very hard, but the image of American women is that they are very pampered and incapable of hard work. I was the only one in our team, including both women and men, who actually came to work everyday and worked the full shift. All my fellow students either quit early, took days off, or got sick from traveling. I was so proud that I impressed my African friends with the strength of American womanhood! This was an extraordinary trip that changed my life in many ways. I worked with both white and black American students, as well as African students. I so enjoyed meeting and working with my African friends. One of the things that impressed me most was how passionate they all felt about contributing to improving their small nation. In such a small country one persons contribution has a significant impact on others. And these young Africans felt committed to that very deeply. That was very inspiring for me to see. But another of the treasures of that trip was getting to know the black American students. One of the most stunning moments was one evening I was drinking wine with one of the young black American women. We were talking about our families and our lives back in California. She said her grandmother always told her, If you have only one smile for the day, save it for your family. I loved that. At one point in our conversation I told her if she was ever in San Francisco she should come and visit me. She stared at me for a moment in disbelief. Then she told me never in her entire life had a white person invited her to visit them. I was appalled. Still in 1977 a black American in Los Angeles could live her entire life and never have had Chapter 28 - Jules, page 429

Heyer Saga a friendship with a white person. This redoubled my commitment to work toward a world of acceptance and appreciation between all peoples. After this I promised myself I would travel abroad every year. But alas, life turned me in other directions. Although I have visited Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada several times over the years, it was not until just this spring in 2013 that I traveled out of the US again. All these years I have remained dear friends with Marc Janowitz. His wife Susan has become a dear friend as well. This spring they invited me to join them in San Miguel de Allende in the state of Guanajuato in Mexico. So we three flew down together for two weeks. It was an exquisite trip. We stayed in their small casita in a colonia, or neighborhood not far from the main plaza downtown. Every morning we would walk to the plaza to enjoy a day of eating delicious foods, enjoying shopping for local artisans crafts, and drinking the occasional margaritas! This trip happened to be during the week of my birthday. So on my birthday, as we were in the indigenous market looking at table after table of strange tropical fruits, huge baskets, exotic birds, antiques, handmade crafts, piatas, and other wonderful things, we wandered past some mariachi musicians. Susan asked them in Spanish to please serenade me since it was my birthday. They did. It was a treat to be sung to so sweetly! I feel blessed to have gotten to travel this much. But I look forward to future travels if it is my good fortune to do so. Jules Mid Life Learning Insights When I arrived at Fairhaven College in my late 40s I had virtually no college background. Though I was a published fiction writer, had read extensively throughout my life, and considered myself relatively intelligent, I had never believed I was capable of research, scholarship, or public speaking. At the end of my work here at Fairhaven, I am humbled and encouraged not only to have developed these very skills, but also to discover they can serve others.

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Heyer Saga In fact, the most meaningful work I concluded at college was my research papers and independent projects. Although the purpose and philosophy behind a bachelors degree is to provide breadth of exposure, I came into the college having given considerable thought or lived through much of the material that was covered in many of my courses. So exposure to new ideas, new concepts, new approaches to framing thoughts and philosophies, or exposure to multicultural perspectives was not the crux of what Fairhaven offered me. Although course work certainly offered depth to my understanding, still, the overarching tools and confidence I gained from my education was in maturing latent skills of research, organization, articulation, presentation and teaching that needed the proper care and nourishment in which to blossom. Ive come a long way. In youth I was tangentially involved in the Anarchist community in San Francisco. These were primarily young college educated folks who ran bookshops, organized civil disobedience demonstrations, and sat around the kitchen table drinking late into the night, passionately arguing the virtues and downfalls of the Weather Underground, syndicalism, collectivism, violence and non-violence. I had no idea what they were talking about. None of it seemed to have any applicability to the raw immediacy of everyday life. I felt I had no capacity to develop a theoretical case and hold forth on my opinion. When I began at Fairhaven, I still had a visceral aversion to overreliance on theoretical analysis. Heated subjects would arise in class around questions of prejudice and privilege and my blood would boil. Sometimes I would simply listen to what others had to say while I squirmed in my seat, unable to express the avalanche of experiential observation and belief that I held. Over the years here, due largely to round-table discussions, combined with the enormous skill and encouragement of my professors, I learned how to participate with meaningful engagement in controversial discussions. Now I not only look forward to hearing what others think, and to offering my own perspective, but in fact, this has become one of the great pleasures in my life. I no longer squirm, aching to say something, yet not Chapter 28 - Jules, page 431

Heyer Saga knowing how to express it. The divide between conviction, belief and verbal expression that had plagued my youth has been significantly healed. I see this as throat, heart, and mind coming together into a fuller alignment. Ive gained confidence that my perceptions of life are valuable and can offer a great deal to those around me. Im continually deepening my ability to listen to the overall issue being expressed while simultaneously hearing underlying themes and sensing subtle connections that can provide a valuable clarity and fresh perspective. Speaking and writing go hand in hand. Though Id developed a degree of writing ability before coming to Fairhaven, Id never presented my writing publicly. One of the crowning moments in my work at Fairhaven was being invited to present a paper at the National Association for Ethnic Studies conference under the guidance of Professor Dan First Scout Rowe. I had never written a full research paper before and certainly never presented research publicly. I chose to research the experience of Native American Indians whod been raised in the Indian Boarding Schools yet chose to return to those institutions in order to become teachers and mentors to their communities. The subject inspired me and this came through not only in the written paper, but in the presentation as well. Following the presentations, the questions raised showed that the audience had been moved and engaged by my presentation. Afterwards several professors Id never met approached me with positive feedback. What remains most embedded in my mind and heart was when one professor spoke of how moved she was by the depth of humanity Id expressed. I attribute her use of the word humanity to a genuine sense of kinship I expressed toward those I was speaking to, as well as a deep regard for the subject I was addressing. That opportunity to present my research showed me how powerfully crucial it is to both write and speak with genuine humanity, and how deeply this can touch others. I have tried to develop this ever since in my writing, in presentations and in teaching. Teaching In every class I took, I not only studied the subject being presented, but I studied the manner in which the instructor taught. I also studied the Chapter 28 - Jules, page 432

Heyer Saga nature of seminar style round-table discussion formats for teaching, how this format was facilitated and conducted, and how patterns of student participation or non-participation played out. Essentially, I was studying and developing which pedagogical methods I could incorporate into my own approach to teaching, and which I could reject based both on my own nature as well as on observational analysis of what seems to be effective to establishing and maintaining a learning environment. Fairhaven provided me the opportunity to explore and develop my own teaching approach through hands-on direct experience. In spring 2005 I led a scriptwriting Independent Study Project [ISP] during which I was supposed to facilitate on-going discussion and keep things moving at a reasonable pace. In spring 2010, and again in winter 2011, Professor Dana Jack asked me to facilitate one of her Psychology of Mindfulness & Wellbeing classes while she was out of town. In these classes I was to lead a guided meditation and again facilitate discussion. The comparative difference of my skills at teaching/facilitation between 2005 and 2011 was significant. In the 2005 class, I was nervous and unsure of how to keep things on track. Students often came late, and the energy frequently digressed from the subject at hand into jokes, chitchat and private conversations during class. I didnt have the skill to bring things back on point and often had to rely on Professor Dan Larner, our scriptwriting ISP sponsor, to help bring an air of authority and accountability back to the subject. But by the time I took over Danas classes, I had gai ned and developed the skill of working with students in a facilitator role. I spend several hours preparing and rehearsing in advance so I knew precisely what I wanted to cover and approximately how long each component would take. Also, with my cumulative experience in Fairhaven seminar discussions, as well as experience gained outside college in both leading and participating in group discussions, and teaching as adjunct faculty at Cornish College of the Arts, I was able to guide a meaningful discussion with students on the very emotionally complex topic of death and dying. In both of Danas classes I was able to provide a safe and open environment Chapter 28 - Jules, page 433

Heyer Saga in which most of the students felt comfortable discussing questions in depth. Afterwards, several students offered heartfelt thanks for allowing them a place to discuss something they are deeply impacted by, but have little opportunity to talk over openly. Besides advance preparation and deep understanding of the material I was presenting, one of the important differences between my earlier experience and this more recent experience at facilitation has to do with my approach. In the past Ive always felt I had to be an expert. But this changed when it came to the subject of death and dying. Although I feel I have something to offer, I also know everyone in the room has something to teach. I certainly am not an expert so I was able to let that illusion go easily. This invites a more spacious and accommodating learning environment for everyone. Another key thing that helped me remain open was the very strong sense that anything Ive learned in this field comes to me from those who have gone before. I need not take credit nor do I have anything to prove. I am standing on the shoulders of my predecessors, and am deeply grateful when their wisdom comes to mind in answer to students questions. This exact thing happened to one of the most important questions asked. I was presenting a set of Buddhist inspired precepts on how to provide mindful, end-of-life palliative care. All of the precepts revolved around how to remain present to the needs of the situation at hand without imposing your own preconceptions or agendas. One student spoke about working with Latino kids in juvenile halls. He said they, too, speak about living for the moment, but to them it means to hell with life; lets get high now. Surely this is not what the Buddhists mean when they speak about being present, he said. How then, does the precept of being present apply to these kids? I found myself offering an answer Id received from one of my spiritual teachers some months before. Though my teachers answer was in response to a different question, I felt it would serve this students question as well. I said when I was young I, too, used to live on the edge of that

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Heyer Saga world. And one of the reasons kids fall into addiction is because they have lost touch with their own interior beauty. They dont know ho extraordinary their lives are, how much the world needs them to radiate and reflect their beauty back into the world. If you can see their inner beauty, I said, sometimes thats enough. And I know you can, or you wouldnt be working with them. But if thats not enough, then find a way to wake them up to their own inner strength, power and beauty. In that moment, when we were speaking heart to heart, I saw this students whole posture and expression brighten and relax. After class, when I asked him if my answer was helpful, he confirmed it was exactly what he needed to hear. It reminded him of his own Aztec cultures belief in tona or tonal, the brilliant bit of sun that lives in everyones heart. In our culture, he said, we believe that each of us has a place in the world where our light is needed. The world cannot be complete without each persons tona, so each must find that place where his or her light can pour forth for the sake of the whole. I was deeply moved that the truth and experience of interior beauty that my teacher had pointed out to me was able to serve this young mans own spiritual and cultural work with youth. Another student asked how I prepare to talk about a subject like death. I explained I didnt come in here thinking Im the teacher with expertise. Im no expert. But one of the most powerful things supporting me is that Im not afraid of the subject. Im no longer afraid of death or of grief. Ive spent a lot of time with both now, and thats large part of why others find themselves comfortable opening up because they can sense Im not going to shut down. This lack of fear of a difficult subject is accompanied by an openness to welcome whatever needs to come up. That is to say, although I came with a subject and a direction to take the discussion, I didnt have a strict agenda I wanted to enforce. I left a fair amount of room for tending to whatever people needed to bring up. At the same time, I held a clear sense of when things needed to move on. As one of my mentors put it, I provide and hold a field of openness into which others feel welcomed.

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Heyer Saga I attribute these deepening facilitation skills to being given the opportunity to participate in seminar style discussion and closely observe how my Fairhaven teachers facilitate. In addition to this, Ive gained deep experience while doing my Senior Project of facilitating a grief support group I called the Yoga of Sorrow, which Ill speak more about below. All of these opportunities have encouraged me to develop gifts and skills that will hopefully serve others in the years to come. Intention, Motivation & Application Having spent most of my life outside academia, yet being an avid reader and conversationalist, I never understood why so many college educated folks would bemoan the fact that once they left college they rarely had the opportunity to engage in thought-provoking and intellectually, creatively stimulating discussion. Although I have certainly gained a great deal of verbal eloquence in my time here, I have all my life engaged in conversation with gusto. What prevents so many people from continuing to think creatively and passionately once they leave the university hallways? This seems to point to a gap between thinking and being, between aspiration and application. This divide between theory and practical application continues to hold my attention. Even at Fairhaven, in spite of its brilliant analysis of academia, its hearty welcome of experiential learning, and its deep commitment to activist social justice, still this divide persists. All too often both professors and students dont distinguish the crucial difference between thinking about something and directly embodying something. Or there is such a powerful focus placed on how things ought to be that the gap between what motivates us, what we aspire to, and what we actually have to work with right here, right now in the present reality, becomes almost impossible to bridge. When I say present reality Im actually not pointing to the external problems of life here. Thats what critical thinking aims for establishing a problem-solving connection between conceptual thinking and the external reality. What Im pointing to here is the internal reality of intention and

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Heyer Saga motivation out of which action arises. If we dont attend to that with impeccable honesty we are forever acting and reacting out of halfconscious motivations at best. This is what I mean by not knowing the difference between thinking about, and living from, or embodying, Theory. Analysis, reason, and critical thinking are extraordinary tools we need to develop. But they are not necessarily the primary tools for what serves life the fullest. Without being tempered and balanced with intuition, insight and deep reflection, without embodying the very things we aspire to, our studies just become busyness for the mind. Once the course is finished the material is largely forgotten. Ironically, I know this sounds way too theoretical. So let me give an example. In Danas course on Psychology of Mindfulness & Wellbeing, several students expressed the belief that reading about meditation and its beneficial effects was enough; they did not need to meditate in order to understand what meditation is. Studying and thinking about compassion or ethics or social justice does not make us compassionate, ethical or just. Intellectually agreeing with something isnt enough. How do we allow time to digest and assimilate what we are learning? How can we apply what we believe if we have not become the very things we are aiming for? When under pressure, what causes us to respond out of genuine compassion or justice, rather than out of a raw reactive state? What is it that awakens theory and belief into living applied response that rises from our authentic core? Familiarity with our own multi-layered motivation and intentions is a good part of it, as our actions in the world always rise out of and are driven by this. Motivation is the why of it: why we do what we do. Intention is the "what" of it: what it is we hope our actions will accomplish. If we are not conscious of these driving factors, will our well-meaning actions ultimately serve the greater good or will they cause more suffering? Contemplative reflection on and direct connection with our interior emotional, intuitive and visceral states is what leads us directly into becoming aware of those motivations and intentions that are even hidden from ourselves. This contemplative process is still missing from academia. Over-emphasis on Chapter 28 - Jules, page 437

Heyer Saga the thinking brain without direct connection to the knowing heart causes an almost unbridgeable gap in our capacity to learn, to know and to embody wisdom. Teaching by example can cause genuine transformative change. The quality of love my professors offer when working with students is palpable. I absorb their passion and devotion to their subjects and to their work. I would have to say it has not been specific books or classes or subjects that were most valuable to me in my education. Instead, it was connections with people, moments of insight, and connection to truths that transcend mere intellectualism and sink into the bones. For theory to genuinely be applied to everyday life, it cant be dependent on memorizing conceptual ideals. It has to come alive and animate our very person on the deepest levels. This clarity of the distinction between concept and lived experience is one of the greatest gifts Ive gained from my education. This is what will continue to make learning an on-going living support throughout my life, and will forever inspire me to reflect on whether I am teaching by example or only by word. Contemplative Learning & Deep Listening Really Im talking about learning to learn. My time at Fairhaven and my intervening life has taught me a great deal about how to learn. One of the first and most lasting lessons in learning to learn came from Dan Larner. In Dans scriptwriting course he offers a highly valuable method of critique, which I have taken to heart and applied in all kinds of situations beyond critiquing creative work. Dan calls it mirroring. In this method students are asked to simply reflect back what they see, what they feel, and what impact the writing has on them. There is no evaluative language used, we are taught not to speak in terms of I like this, but that didnt work. Instead, we simply reflect back what was presented. As the recipient of mirroring, I found this profoundly useful. I could tell immediately whether people were seeing what Id intended them to, or whether they were seeing something I did not intend. Also sometimes people would mirror subtle undercurrents I had not been consciously aware

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Heyer Saga of in my work, which shed light on my own story. This was enormously useful as a writer and far more instructive than having people evaluate my work on the basis of arbitrary and preferential likes and dislikes. I now teach this approach to my own "bookarts" students at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle. But more than a teaching method, learning to look deeply and observe without evaluation, learning to receive what is being presented with an open-heart and open-mind has taught me how to learn. I use this approach in facilitating my Yoga of Sorrow grief support group. It allows me to listen more and more deeply, not only to the content of what is being offered, but to the spirit of heart of what may lie behind the content. I call this deep listening. And it can be applied in every endeavor where I work with people in any capacity. Can contemplative learning be taught within academia? Yes. In Garrison, New York, the Garrison Institutes Initiative on Contemplative Education provides resources, training and a long list of links for organizations, which promote mindfulness-based education for K-12 and higher education. On their homepage they state, There is a growing recognition that contemplative education addresses a missing dimension in the lives of children and teachers. Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, offers a MA degree in Contemplative Education. They describe it in this way, Contemplative education is learning infused with the experience of awareness, insight and compassion for oneself and others, honed through the practice of sitting meditation and other contemplative disciplines. The rigor of these disciplined practices prepares the mind to process information in new and perhaps unexpected ways. My work at Fairhaven has supported and prepared me to continue to explore contemplative learning, teaching and facilitation in the future. I am considering whether to pursue a graduate degree in the field of contemplative mindfulness-based education.

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Heyer Saga Yoga of Sorrow & the Primacy of Love When I first applied to Fairhaven I shared its passion for social justice and thought I would go into the field of conflict resolution, reconciliation, or restorative justice. Id already completed mediation training at the Snohomish Conflict Resolution center and was particularly interested in large group facilitation and mediation between conflicted neighborhoods and communities. After my sweetheart died midway through my education, I felt these ambitions required far too many super-hero qualities that I simply no longer had available. I took two years off in order to heal. When I returned, healing and spiritual wellbeing became the heart of my work. My concentration became focused on Contemplative Arts, which included comparative spiritual disciplines, contemplative creative arts, and contemplative healing arts. As an Independent Study Project, I attended a four-semester program through the Spiritual Paths Institute in Santa Barbara and worked closely with mentors from five world religions: a Contemplative Christian Reverend, a Rabbi who refers to himself as a Holy Rascal, a Buddhist scholar, a Sufi Shaikh and Shaikha, and a Vedanta Hindu Swami. I studied theology and philosophy, engaged in contemplative disciplines with these mentors and with an interracial intergenerational, and inter-spiritual community. In the world of comparative religion and religion proper, theology often far exceeds walking the talk. So here again I found that gap between heart and mind, between thinking and embodying, between aspiration and application. And yet I have come to understand this is a developmental process, not only individually but also collectively. Whole communities, institutions, nations can hold exalted aspirations, yet individually we may fall short. I will leave Fairhaven with the rich aspiration to mend that gap within myself, and in the communities I work with. Integrating and reconciling what appears to be polarized is part of what mends. Teaching by example is what transforms. And fierce love is what leads the way.

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Heyer Saga Rather than social activism, I am moving toward interfaith and nonsectarian hospice chaplaincy work. My husbands death showed me there is no clear demarcation line between the living and the dying. At what point are you fully alive? At what point do you begin to die? It seems we are alive right up to the point when we are not. And right up to that point, healing, reconciling and mending the gaps and the wounds continues to be possible. Though Chris died physically broken and in deep pain, his heart of hearts was wholly healed. Healing and offering comfort on the heart level is what calls me now. In the first two years following Chris death I descended into profound grief. Simultaneously I was held in a palpable grace I call Love. Grief itself became my teacher. And Love was the only light through that midnight terrain. For my Senior Project I invited a handful of friends who had recently lost family members to join me in a spiritual exploration of grief as a path to transformation. I called this group the Yoga of Sorrow. The first chapter of the Bhagavad-Gita is often translated as the Yoga of Sorrow. In this epic opening scene, the great warrior hero Arjuna is preparing for a war he knows will be ore destructive than the world has ever seen before. He asks Lord Krishna, his charioteer, to take him into the battlefield to see his enemy. But who he sees standing against him ready to wage this brutal war are his most revered teachers, beloved uncles, cousins and male relations. Arjuna falls into despair, lays down his bow and arrows, and refuses to fight. He will not participate in staining his hands with the blood of his brothers. Surely this is morally reprehensible. But Lord Krishna tells him he must do this duty. Its what he was made for. And the rest of the Gita is Krishna teaching Arjuna the meaning and purpose of facing spiritual battles. For me grief became my battlefield and Love was my guide and charioteer. It is not uncommon that when your beloved dies, you too want to follow. Why must I stay here to live when everything I adore has been taken from me? My duty though, is to remain -and to learn how to love life all over again, right through the grief.

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Heyer Saga One of the great gifts I received after Chris died was that many dear friends began to share with me their own experience of losing a loved one. These intimate talks were profoundly valuable. Sharing the utterly personal uniqueness of grief, as well as its deep universality. Was deeply healing. Sometimes simply saying things out loud to others who understand can be profoundly moving and cathartic. This sharing connected me to life. I wanted to create a safe, warm and welcoming environment for my small circle of Yoga of Sorrow friends, where we could say and listen to what wants to be said, share resources and support, and explore together both the painful and the enriching terrain of deep loss and grief. Sorrow or grief was the catalyst that threw us onto this path, ready or not. I thought together we could shed some light on how to move through. The group was not for the purpose of fixing grief. Rather, the gatherings revolved around offering and receiving mutual support, sharing what wed lost, how we move through loss, how grief, death, and profound loss had shaped our lives, and what we were becoming through our travels along this path. As facilitator I drew from workshops Id attended through San Francisco Zen Hospice and through the Metta Institute. Initially I provided handouts, a bibliography, and resource lists. I always came with guided meditations or experiential exercises. But often I chose instead to set aside the exercises and simply allowed something more organic to evolve that seemed to nourish the groups needs and desires in the moment. Again, the power of speaking the truth and having it heard and received is no small thing. The project was an overwhelming success. My group asked me to continue it well beyond our originally agreed upon four months. They all confirmed it has had tremendous healing effect on them and that I have provided a safe environment and guidance to move into this human experience with heart. In my original invitation letter I said, No matter what, I know this will enrich my own humanity. And hopefully we will all find our way closer to a sense of inner healing through this heart exchange. Indeed we have.

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Heyer Saga What I have learned about the human experience of grief is profoundly moving and continues to shape and open my heart. What Ive learned about facilitating has been invaluable and endlessly enriching. I am more whole for this experience, more integrated, and deeply humbled. Many people over the last couple of years have said to me in intimate conversation, I have never said this to anyone, and then they proceed to speak. This is a profound honor. May I always receive such gifts with humility and love. Wellbeing reconciliation and integrity are the same thing to me, where all the dissonant parts are flowing in unison. And so it seems I have come full circle back to conflict resolution and restorative justice. Only this is reconciliation of the broken heart. This doesnt mean theres never conflict or grief. Grief will always ebb and flow. But when it arises I can now listen to it with all my heart, receive what it is trying to teach, and speak the truth about it. And when beauty or love arises, Ill do the same. Diana Remembers about Jules: I remember once in Citrus Heights we started getting prank phone calls. We didnt know who was calling or why it was being done. But Mom read somewhere that if you blew a whistle into the phone as loud as you could, the caller would stop because that would hurt his ears. Jules, hearing this, the next time the phone rang promptly picked it up and SCREAMED as loud as she could. She didnt even wait to find out who was calling! Who needs a whistle! But it worked the prank calls stopped. Dad Remembers about Jules and the Prank Calls: I think I knew who was doing it. It doesnt take very long to figure out other peoples attitudes. Most people are decent, but a few are not. It was the neighbor two doors down. He was a fully-grown adult man. I believed it was he because he was doing other things. Hed wait for the neighbor next door to leave for work and go into his backyard and throw missiles of one kind or another at our downstairs backroom. Once he broke a window. I dont know if he had a wife or children, I never saw any. But eventually he moved away. I never knew why he was attacking us. Chapter 28 - Jules, page 443

Heyer Saga Diana Remembers about Jules (2): Grandpa Crocker came to visit us and he did magic tricks and made music. Hed bring balloons and wed blow them up and play with them until they popped. That scared Jules and she screamed really loud! If you get six kids out on the grass playing with balloons; a balloon is going to pop! Jules: I thought he was magic and I loved his visits. I couldnt take my eyes off him. He looked like Jimmy Durante. Diana Remembers about Jules (3): I remember that in Fontana the back yard was fenced and Jules would go out to the farthest corner. On the other side lived a little boy of about the same age, less than five years old, and he would stand at the back of his yard facing her. Jules and the little boy would take turns screaming. Who needs words! For the Epilogue, 6/10/13: Chris and I had bats living in our farmhouse in Washington. In fact, we had several maternal colonies in our attic. They would arrive every spring, birth their pups, and then migrate away every fall. All summer long, every night, hundreds of bats would fly out of our attic at sunset. This is a truly awe-inspiring sight. Bats are very tiny, about the size of your thumb, only with wings. They could squeeze into or out of any crack the diameter of a pencil. Our house was old and had a lot of cracks in it! So every once in awhile a bat would get inside our house and flit about wildly trying to get back out. Chris and I had a routine for getting them out of the living area that wouldnt hurt them. Chris would approach the little bugger while holding up a terry cloth towel while I approached it from the other side of the room. Eventually we would narrow in on it. Chris would fling the towel over the bat, wrap it gently in his big hands and tenderly carry it outside, all snuggled up in the towel. Then he would release it into the yard where it would flit away happily. Was Chris Jewish? I dont know his ethnicity or genealogy. But he wasnt raised religious. He did have an amazing nose, however, that looked Chapter 28 - Jules, page 444

Heyer Saga very middle-eastern to me. I would often say, You have such a Semitic nose, Mr. Sternie! and he would say, Oh, thank you! He was very proud of his nose. I met Chris Stern in 1987, and we were friends for some years until 1992 when we fell in love and moved in together. I was thirty-four at that time. In 2001 we officially married at the Mt Vernon courthouse. Chris and I bought a defunct strawberry farm in 1994. Here we renovated the barn into a gorgeous printing studio. We shared our lives at our Printing Farm in Skagit valley, working together side by side printing or bookbinding almost every day for over fourteen years. Then, in October 2006 Chris was diagnosed with colon cancer. I was 48 years old at the time, and he was only 56. Only five weeks after the diagnosis, two days after Thanksgiving, Chris died in my arms. Fairhaven Fairhaven College was quite a lovely community. Its name comes from the neighborhood of Fairhaven where the campus was built. I loved attending that college. I loved everything about it. I was 46 when I returned to school. This was close to the age of most of my professors, so we were more like colleagues. I became dear friends with several of my professors. Im still in touch with some of them. Fairhaven is in Bellingham, Washington; about ninety miles north of Seattle, very near the border with Canada. My house was about one hour south east of Bellingham so I would drive through the lovely northwest foothills to get to school. It took me about five years to complete my B.A. I was only going to school part-time while working full-time. Chris and I ran our letterpress print shop and hand-bookbindery business together where we made books by hand rather than by machine. We made a frugal living out of that (very frugal). We owned a farmhouse, which included a barn we had converted into a print shop. We lived with a great big, 90-pound Bernese mountain dog we named Monk. This breed of dog originates from the Canton of Bern in the Swiss Alps. Chris and Monk were the best of friends. They were quite inseparable.

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Heyer Saga Ninety pounds is a lot of dog. He stood almost three feet tall. Yet he loved tiny, little spaces. At bedtime he would squish himself under our bed that was maybe only a foot off the floor. He barely fit under there, so every time he rolled over he would bump the underside of the bed. Chris would be snoring sound asleep next to me in bed, Monk would be snoring under the bed, and Chris adopted grandfather, Scotty, would be snoring away in the next room I was surrounded by snoring males! That just drove me bats at the time. But boy, what I would give to hear the sweet sound of my beloveds snoring near me at night now. Another gift Chris left me with is a deep affection for the smell of coffee. Chris used to brew coffee every morning, so even though I cant drink coffee, I could enjoy the smell of it every day. One morning, about six weeks after Chris had died, I woke up and my whole house was filled with the smell of coffee. I was living alone at that time. So no one had brewed coffee. But the smell was unmistakable. I went into the kitchen and felt a powerful sense of Chris presence and love permeating the house. I remember saying out loud, I love you too, darling! To this day, the smell of coffee first thing in the morning brings back that warmth and love we shared. Scotty, Chris adopted grandfather, came to live with us until shortly before he passed away at the age of 94. He had been raised in the Seattle area and lived there all his life. Chris and I enjoyed listening to him recount his memories of early Seattle. He would talk about watching the famous Denny Regrade Project that occurred in the 1920s. The city of Seattle had decided to tear down a whole mountain near the downtown neighborhood. It was washed away using huge powerful water hoses. Scotty watched this happen as a young schoolboy. Later in his early 20s, he worked on a clipper ship in Alaska. Clipper ships were those big, wooden, sailing ships that were built to go fast. They might have been mail delivery ships or involved in the tea trade with China. Eventually, Scotty became a master machinist and worked for the nuclear physics lab at the University of Washington in Seattle. Here he specialized in building or repairing one of a kind machines needed for the lab. Later, when living with us he would offer machinist skills to local neighbors to build or repair metal parts on farm Chapter 28 - Jules, page 446

Heyer Saga equipment, or other metal work needs. Though he was an expert in machinist work, he might not get to a project for months. So his workshop was filled with half finished projects, some of which dated back years. There was another machinist who lived down the block named Max. Everyone said, if you want it quick, go to Max. If you want it pretty, go to Scotty. Jules addendum 6-17-13 I originally went to Washington to take a little break from San Francisco and I housesit for a friend. Once I arrived, I fell in love with Seattle. Eventually I found a little apartment of my own and got a job in a little coffee shop in the Capital Hill neighborhood. The owner of the coffee shop was a very unpleasant fellow. However, the best part of that job was that every day, this tiny little old white-haired lady would come in for a cup of coffee. She was always dressed in bright pinks or reds or brilliant greens and purples. You couldnt miss her as she enjoyed her daily walks through the neighborhood. As I mentioned, the owner was very grumpy towards all his employees as well as his customers. However, for whatever reason, he always treated this little old woman with extreme tenderness. He made sure she always got her cup of coffee served to her, rather than expecting her to come to the counter, like all the other customers. She was clearly a ray of sunshine for him. And she was always delighted by her cup of coffee. She would say in a very strong Eastern European accent, Dahling, the coffee is just vunderful! Just vunderful! One day as she was reached for the sugar for her coffee, her blouse sleeve rose up her arm. I saw numbers tattooed on her forearm and I understood she was a holocaust survivor. Ever since that moment, because of his love for this woman, the owner became more forgivable to me. And the little old woman with her quick smile and her expressive joy of a simple cup of coffee changed my life.

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Heyer Saga Jules Art These two silk paintings were done in a fiber art class at Fairhaven College. They were both painted with dyes and while the fabric is wet, salt crystals were sprinkled on it, which cause the dye to create unexpected and beautiful organic mottled effects. I was thinking of Mom when I made the green/blue piece. With the hands open downward, they signify the Buddhist Varada mudra of offering, welcome, charity, giving, compassion and sincerity. If you flip the silk around, the hands will open in an upward gesture, representing the Abhaya mudra of protection, peace, benevolence, and dispelling of fear. I thought this was a perfect symbol for Moms reiki work! The birds in the other piece are silkscreened on top of the painted silk fabric. The four quadrants of the piece were painted in different colors to represent both microcosmic and macrocosmic change; planetary changes, seasonal changes, shifts in time and place, personal changes of experience, changes of emotional depth and texture, and so on. I wanted the birds to provide a sense of motion and flight, to bring a sense of playfulness, dance, beauty and mystery. Though they seem to be going in every direction, in fact, they are moving in a kind of mysterious order as they remain in harmonious relation to one another. There is something peaceful and healing about this silk. So it seemed yet another perfect gift for Moms work as a reiki healer.

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Heyer Saga Desiderata - Words for Life

By Max Ehrmann Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself, especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

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Heyer Saga Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy. Max Ehrmann 1927

Editors Notes:
Desiderata are, technically, things considered necessary of highly desirable OR something lacking and wanted. The poem is a list of things desirable in life. The common myth is that the Desiderata poem was found in a Baltimore church in 1692 and is centuries old, of unknown origin. Desiderata was in fact written around 1920 (although some say as early as 1906), and certainly copyrighted in 1927, by lawyer Max Ehrmann (18721945). The Desiderata myth began after Reverend Frederick Kates reproduced the Desiderata poem in a collection of inspirational works for his congregation in 1959, on church notepaper headed: The Old St. Pauls Church, Baltimore, AD 1692 (the year the church was founded). Copies of the Desiderata page were circulated among friends, and the myth grew, accelerated particularly when a copy of the erroneously attributed Chapter 28 - Jules, page 450

Heyer Saga Desiderata was found at the bedside of deceased Democratic politician Adlai Stevenson in 1965. Whatever the history of the Desiderata, Ehrmanns prose is inspirational, and offers a simple, positive credo for life. Max Ehrmann, himself, was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, on September 16, 1872 to German immigrant parents. In 1894 he graduated from DePauw University in Greencastle. Later he studied law and philosophy at Harvard. He returned to Terre Haute, where he practiced law. When he began writing, he devoted every day to his work and wrote many poems. His most famous poem, however, is Desiderata (1927) and A Prayer (1906). Jules and Desiderata (Jules own words): Mark encouraged me to travel to the Caribbean in 1975. We went to Martinique for a week, St. Lucia for a day and a night, Jamaica for 2 weeks, and then the Yucatan of Mexico. He used to be in the Peace Corps and had lived in St. Lucia for many years. We flew from Jamaica to the southeast of Mexico (Mrida is the capital of the Mexican State of Yucatn), to Chichen Itza and Palenque, then Mexico City. We took the train and buses and spent a week traveling, stopping here and there. It was wonderful! We saw many ancient things and finally reached Grandmas house in Los Angeles. From there we took the bus back to Citrus Heights. Mark lived in Sacramento, but the school was in Orangevale. We fell in love and moved to San Francisco. He got involved in Operation Crossroads Africa, a mini-Peace Corps. They organized U.S. college students that for the summer would help with projects. I went in 1977. I went to Ghana. In a little village we helped build a little schoolhouse. I was not in school at all but the others of the group were all college students. At the village Ghanaian college students joined us.

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Heyer Saga Art Created by Jules Faye This tiger face was beaded by Jules circa 1976. It is made entirely of tiny seed-beads woven together on a handmade loom. Before weaving, Jules had to map out exactly how many beads would be strung on each line to create the image.

This bathing beauty was drawn with pen and ink, then water-colored by Jules circa 1989. It was presented as a gift to Mom shortly after Jules moved to Seattle.

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Heyer Saga

This linoleum cut print was made by Jules in 2007. It was inspired by an ancient Buddhist painting of thousands of tiny meditators which cover the interior wall of a meditation cave.

Jules created this very Buddhist game with printed type which tells us:
1. Object: Find the still center. 2. Key: Use those circumstances which cause unexpected gaps & pauses to occur, as guide posts & stepping stones. 3. Clue: Although things appear to be fixed & solid, are they? 4. To Win: Enter the still center point. Expand it.

5. Advanced instructions: Begin now.

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NONAS MEMORIES
Founder of the Feast (Dads comment): In the old days, and I cant tell you of how old that was, it used to be the custom for powerful, wealthy, influential people to put on a feast to which important people were invited. In this case, that phrase has been applied to our daughter, Winona, because she is the person who first advised me to write this book. Hence, she is, in this case, the founder of the feast. Winonas version of the Heyer History When we lived in Citrus Heights the second time (1970-1975) Dad asked me if I would help him put together a Heyer family history. He had recently returned from a trip to our ancestors place of origin and had pictures of the Heyer Mill, Heyer Road and Heyer gravesites in Pennsylvania. I helped him write captions and descriptions of the history of the earliest Heyer immigrant, Old Johannes, through all the Heyer descendants, to our generation. I was intrigued by the discovery that our family had any such history and that it was traceable. Although the family tree was in no way complete, I felt it added a new perspective to my life and my existence. After Dina married and moved away she spent a lot of time further researching and tracing the family origins on both sides of the family. I was delighted to discover that she had compiled it into a binder and traced both sides back to the American Revolution. Through her hard work and dedication, she was able to fill in many of the holes and complete the much bigger picture. A few years ago I found the history album I had helped with so many years ago. The pictures were deteriorating and turning yellow. I offered to scan in the photos, restore them and redo the album to avoid further deterioration. I found tucked in the back of the album a narrative complete with maps that Dad had later worked on. That became the first book, Heyer History: Whence We Came, Volume I, 2005, his final lines concluding as follows:

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Heyer Saga As for further generations of our family, each person is uniquely qualified to tell his or her own story, and has a unique perspective on that life story, so I am reticent to try to cover the lives of my siblings, cousins, or children, much less those of my grandchildren, whose lives have yet to reveal their full adult patterns and accomplishments. I hope to tell of my own time, and invite other members of the family to do the same as their inclination and opportunity allows . . . Of course everyone loves to talk of his siblings, children, and grandchildren, but what one member of a family most remembers about another, whether cute, poignant, proud, or whatever, may not be what that other regards as most significant. Here I have tried to tell a bit about those who can no longer tell their own story. I mustnt presume to do the same for those who still can. Although the original album included all of us siblings childhood photos with captions, this portion became an overwhelming task once I started the Masters program, was working full time and raising 3 teenagers. So I suggested we separate his life and our childhoods into a second volume. I had hoped Dad would elaborate on some of his favorite memories of our childhoods, filling in the blanks for us that we do not remember. This project has been worked on extensively by all members of the family but especially Mom who tirelessly assisted him in recalling details, taking notes, following up on dates and locations and inspiring him to finish. This Heyer History Part II is a testament both to Dads life but als o to the devotion of each of us to our father and his project. Winonas Childhood Memories I have so many memories of childhood I dont know where to begin. I think the most important thing about my childhood is that both our parents were great teachers who raised us with the love of learning. I couldnt ask for a better gift or better childhood than that.

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Heyer Saga Practical Skills Reading One of the most memorable accomplishments as a child was learning to read. We had a big overstuffed chair in the family room that Dad would sit in to read. Mom had had it reupholstered along with the couch and hassock to a beautiful bright blue Naugahyde. Jules & I used to be fascinated by him when he was reading because he appeared completely oblivious to us. We could poke his feet and even take his shoes off but he would never yell at us. Just when we would forget he was animate he would cross his legs and startle us. We may even have tied his shoelaces together. But we quickly rethought this and put them back. On second thought, I think we thought about tying the shoelaces, but when we tried, Dad said, No, why dont you massage my feet. So we did. That was a really great chair. I loved that chair. It was so big and comfortable. I remember going behind him and running my fingers through his hair. It was a fascinating texture and he softly asked me to scratch it for him. I felt very privileged. The chair was just big enough and I was just small enough that I could squeeze in next to him where he would read to me. I relished this time with him. One day I climbed in next to him with a book and asked him to read to me. He told me that I could read it myself. I explained that I did not know how to read. And he said it wasnt that hard, and that I could do it. He said, You know the letters dont you? and I did. He asked, Do you know what sounds they make, and I wasnt sure so we went through the first word, sounding it out by letter. I felt like Dorothy waking up in Oz seeing color for the first time. It was a very empowering experience, which opened up a whole new world to me. I loved to read and enjoyed our frequent family outings to the local library. I remember one summer I had blistered my feet playing tennis barefoot on the hot Sacramento asphalt street and spent the majority of that summer reading the Readers Digest Condensed versions of all the popular literature of the time.

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Heyer Saga Chores and Allowance Learning the Value of a Dollar and Work Well Done I had chores as far back as I can remember. I was four years old when I started helping do the dishes. At first I would clear the table hand the dishes up to the person at the sink to rinse and them load them in the dishwasher. When I was older I was at the stepstool at the sink and handed dishes down to someone else to load into the dishwasher. The one at the sink also had to wash the pots. In the early days when I was small it was such a difficult task. And the worst part was that no matter what I did, different ones would come and criticize the work. So I tried to work harder and harder. It was through this that I learned conscientiousness, the pride of a job well done and the joy found in a good days work. Later when we lived in Santa Clara the kitchen had pocket doors that we would close so we would not disturb the different ones watching television in the living room. We made a game out of it and used to play that we were maids serving a king. It created a sense of urgency and excitement that helped us stay motivated to finish the work quickly. Over the years the chores expanded and changed but we always had an allowance that was proportionate to the work. The modest little allowance I got was highly valued because I associated it with the work I had done. I learned to save up rather than buy something I would soon loose interest in. Over time I developed the capacity to postpone pleasure in order to prepare for the future. I remember having saved $20, which seemed a fortune at the time. I remember telling someone who was incredulous until I showed him. But I would often spend my entire savings at Christmas. I remember one time I was standing next to Dad at the checkout stand. I noticed that the cashier had mistakenly shortchanged him in coin. I spoke up and they both double-checked her math. Sure enough she had shortchanged him. He seemed so impressed with this that he gave me the extra change he would have unknowingly lost. I kind of turned up my nose at it saying, What am I going to buy with that? And he reminded me the

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Heyer Saga cost of a gumball. I dashed to the gumball machines and got the largest one I could find. That gumball was probably the last one I ever had but it was definitely the best tasting gumball ever! Learning my Gender I remember the day I realized I was female. I was playing with the neighbor kids who were sure I could not do something because I was a GIRL! I was devastated to learn there were two types of people and I was in the disadvantaged group. This seemed so very unfair! Sewing I remember how Mom would sew all our clothes. I took it for granted until I tried it myself. Somehow mine never came out like hers did. When I think of how she did this for all six of us I am so amazed. A few weeks before school started she would be laying out the patterns, pinning, cutting and sewing, sewing, sewing. And then she would have us try them on to hem them. I remember the smell and feel of fresh new cotton. They were not simple dresses either. They were just as nice and professionally made as what my friends would get from a store. When we were older, she let me pick the colors. Even after they announced that girls could wear pants to school, she would make us dresses as well as pants. Grandma used to say that new fabric was magic until it had been washed for the first time. Woodworking Dad used to do a lot of woodworking. I used to enjoy watching and sometimes he would let me make something using his wonderful array of tools including the vice, the saw, the file and the hammer and nails. I loved the smell of the wood and the feel of the sawdust. I dont remember anything we made because, I guess, the joy was in the process and the time spent together.

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Heyer Saga Camp Fire Girls I was a Camp Fire Girl for most of my grade school days. The year we moved back to Citrus Heights, Mom was the leader. It was a great year. We had all sorts of fun, we made all sorts of projects, and I made some really great friends. For Mothers Day we made straw hats out of bleach bottles. I thought they were so pretty when we wove different colored ribbons around and around so that the bottle itself disappeared. Later in the week, Mom got a phone call from one of the other moms who was not very grateful. I think she gave mom a hard time about it and Mom hung up the phone rather offended. That was the last time she volunteered to be leader. Animals I have many memories of the animals we had as children. I am grateful our parents understood the value of this and humored us as much as possible. From animal care I learned many things including responsibility, patience, loyalty, sacrifice, natural consequences, nurturing, unconditional love and joy as well as the wonders of biology, embryology, entomology and zoology from watching pollywogs change into frogs, chrysalis change into moths and animal husbandry of many traditional pets. I always found that my affection far outweighed the inevitable sad ending. Moth When we lived in Santa Clara we had cottonwood trees in the back yard, which seemed to attract numerous insects, spiders and birds. One time I found what looked like a cocoon. I had been learning about the metamorphic process and I thought it a great opportunity to observe first hand. I was delighted at the thought of a pet butterfly. So I put the cocoon in a jar with holes poked in the lid along with a little soil, some grasses and leaves to simulate a natural environment. I was very disappointed that a butterfly did not emerge. Summer came and went and I forgot about the jar on top of the dresser. Fall came and still no butterfly. I examined the cocoon and assumed whatever it was had died so I didnt bother to reattach the lid. One day I came downstairs to find an enormous moth stretched out in the hallway. It had what looked like eyes on its wings and Chapter 28 - Nona, page 460

Heyer Saga for some reason I found this terrifying. I almost thought it must be a toy but then it moved. It was so large and the eyes were so scary! I screamed and screamed until Jeff came. After I calmed down I realized what an amazing thing it was that this huge scary moth came from the little chrysalis I had kept for so long. And I have never seen one so big since. It was two hands large, maybe six to ten inches. Lizard I recall we had a lizard as well. I think he was Jeffs lizard. One day it was not in its cage and I was terrified knowing it was loose in the house. We found it later hiding in a dust bunny in the laundry room. He was dried up and dead. Uongolema! One of my favorite animal stories was the puppet show that I helped Cindy & Dina with, called Uongolema! I think Jeff had been helping but could not make this particular performance so I was asked to step in as understudy. Cindy and Dina performed the complete narration and I only had to move the puppets according to the story. We had spent many hours creating the puppets with paper mach, paint and glue. It was quite a production. But the entire process was joyous. The day of the puppet show was at a public library. I was surprised and anxious about the large audience that had assembled. But my sisters not only rose to the occasion but also shined in the spotlight. Id had no idea my sisters were such talented celebrities!3

Editors Note: Uongolema is an African expression from Danny Kaye's Around the World Story Book. Nonas recollection was of hearing it from an LP and Cindy and Dina making a puppet show from it. Danny Kaye was the first ambassador-at-large of UNICEF in 1954 and received the French Legion of Honor in 1986 for his many years of work with the organization. Danny Kaye lent his name to this collection, no doubt reflecting his being U.N.I.C.E.F.'s children's ambassador at the time and a tireless campaigner for kids' rights around the globe. Additionally, it was a book that introduced the idea of different cultures around the world and that while there were differences, there were ideas and morals that were universal and appealed to kids everywhere.

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Heyer Saga Kitten When we lived in Santa Clara I was a Camp Fire Girl. During the annual cookie sale I loaded the little red wagon with cookies and set out around the block with my friend Anita. We were way around the far side of the block when an older woman answered the door. She said no thank you to the cookies but she had some kittens to show us. She invited us in to look while Anita whispered in my ear, No we shouldnt. But I could not resist just taking a peek and of course my heart melted at the sight of the little mewing balls of fur. I just couldnt resist taking one home. I picked the little orange tiger kitty while Anita continued to whisper in my ear like Jiminy Cricket, No, Winona, dont do it! Youll get in trouble! [Jiminy Cricket plays the part of a conscience. That was his job. I definitely felt guilty but it was worth it.] But my heart was sure that I couldnt leave without it. I smuggled it into my room and emptied a box in my closet to make a little bed with food and water. When Dad came down to tuck me in I was very anxious, praying the kitten wouldnt make a sound. When I heard her rustle, I tried to make some noise to distract him and then rushed him off claiming exhaustion. The next day when Jules was in my room it made a very audible meow. I tried to stop her but she found it immediately. She was sure I couldnt keep it in my room so she took it upstairs and showed it to Mom who allowed her to keep it in her room until we could find it a home. I remember playing with it in Jules room, watching it try to climb from its box up Jules bedcovers using its tiny little claws. It was so small it could not get all the way to the bed before falling back down into the box. Within a couple of days a new home was found with one of Dinas friends. That was the only cat we ever had growing up. The Monkey When we lived in Santa Clara, I recall frequenting the local pet store. It contained a vast menagerie of animals including puppies, kittens, small mammals, birds and reptiles. Not sure why we did this (getting dog food perhaps?) as it was difficult to see the adorable puppies & kittens but not be allowed to have one. The responses were clear and consistent, No, we already have a dog, No, you wont take care of it, No, we cant afford it, Chapter 28 - Nona, page 462

Heyer Saga and No, we cant keep animals in the house. It was true we did have a family dog. And before that in Citrus Heights we'd had many animals including dogs and ducks as well as reptiles and fish that received the traditional burial at sea. But this did not dissuade me from asking each and every time which I am sure must have included begging, pleading and whining. Over time, Mom wore down to where she'd defer to Dad. Around this time a movie had come out called Born Free about an English couple in Africa who found an orphaned lion cub, poachers had gotten her mom. The husband was somehow responsible for the cubs predicament, so he felt responsible. They named her Elsa. They raised her and then found that as an adult lioness she would hate living in a zoo. So they set out to teach her how to live in the wild so they could set her free. There was at least one sequel to this as well. The movie was very popular and as a young impressionable child, a very noble endeavor. In addition, Jane Goodall had been in the news for her work with wild chimpanzees, further popularizing wild animals4, which explains why I had a stuffed chimpanzee. Around this time the local pet store was stocking up on more and more exotic pets. At one time, they had a cage of three or four little monkeys. They were so unlike the typical pets. I found their sapient similarities fascinating. Soon after we had seen the monkeys in the store, Jules came to me saying we could get a monkey if I asked Dad because he always said yes to me. I was incredulous, as I knew the exact opposite to be true. In addition, we had been through this a hundred times. Mom & Dad's responses were clear and consistent. But I was motivated and spurred on by her determination. Clearly they had a love of the natural sciences and had encouraged all of us to keep pets; and, we were frequenting the local pet store on a regular basis. I believed Mom & Dad might agree to a new pet if we demonstrated our determination to be responsible, competent and dependable by proving we had thought it through and would stick with it.

Editors Note: Dian Fossey also popularized the plight of wild gorillas. Her work was made into a film, Gorillas in the Mist, in 1988.

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Heyer Saga I took a quick inventory and we did not have enough money to buy it. Jules suggested we ask Dad for the additional money but I insisted that would not work and would prove we weren't responsible enough. I dont recall if we also saved up for a time but we did consult Martha Rose who was definitely interested as well. We came up with a sliding scale to accommodate the allowance disparity. In the end we came up with the total cost of the monkey, the carrying cage and the Purina Monkey Chow that came in a 50-pound bag just like our dog food. Jules paid $30, I paid $20 (my life's savings) and Martha Rose came up with the final $10. This was quite a feat as I was only 8. We would promise to take full responsibility for the care and expense as well as to keep him downstairs out of their sight. I only vaguely remember the asking part. Jules told us something like, "be really good" or, "be really sweet, indicating she had not abandoned her idea that we had some magical powers of persuasion, which I found both humorous and offensive. As I had anticipated, Dad had the obvious objections; who would take care of it, who would pay for it, where would it stay, etc. And we proved we had thought it through and were ready, willing and able to take responsibility. I do recall the surprised look on his face when we showed we had saved all the money. He had run out of objections. And Mom had the same reaction. She was surprised and also annoyed that she had run out of objections. We were very excited arriving at the pet store. We were ecstatic when Dad told the shopkeeper we wanted a monkey. It was really happening! I was glued to the cage and had picked out the saddest looking little monkey who I thought most wanted to come home with us. But when the shopkeeper opened the cage, the most aggressive monkey leaped out. It was so abrupt and unexpected, we all screamed. The shopkeeper tried to catch her with a butterfly net but only succeeded in scaring the poor thing more. At first it was almost exhilarating fun, like a Disney movie when everything gets destroyed to the sound of lively mischievous music

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Heyer Saga reminiscent of Tyll Ulenspiegel's Merry Pranks5. But the commotion was working the poor thing into frenzy. At one point we were told to stop screaming, that we were scaring the monkey more. I was unaware I had been screaming but when I was still for a moment and listened I could see that it was true. She was as afraid of us as we were of her. My heart was breaking as I watched the monkey being chased around and around and around. Finally when everyone was exhausted, they caught the monkey. I tried to explain that it wasnt the monkey I wanted. But I was told it was too late now. So we took her home. On the car ride home we were searching for a name. We were experimenting with the combinations of different syllables and somehow we simultaneously came to Bobo. It was immediately unanimous as if we had all just remembered it. Later I found Dad in the garage making a cage for her. I asked why Bobo couldn't stay in the small carrying cage and Dad said she was a wild animal that would need more space. I was surprised and a bit embarrassed that we had overlooked this necessity! It was a huge cage with a platform near the door. I was able to stand up inside it comfortably with room to spare. There may also have been a dowel placed crosswise like a bird perch and/or a ramp. Bobo would leap around when she was excited but mostly she sat at the platform near the door waiting for someone to open it. Leaping out of her cage was always her favorite thing. And she was very clever. It took a few tries before we could latch it so she could not reach around and open it herself. Soon after the purchase of the monkey, Aunt Wanda (Thelmas sister) and Uncle Ralph were visiting. Someone had decided we needed to harness the monkey so she could be taken outside. Our attempts to harness her had failed so Uncle Ralph stepped in confident he could do it. But the more aggressive he got, the more Bobo fought back. Ralph wrestled her to the ground trying to hold her down on her back while

by Moritz A. Jagendorf, Fritz Eichenberg (Illustrator) and published in 1938 by The Vanguard Press.

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Heyer Saga buckling the collar around her waist. Bobo screamed and screamed and bit and bit and bit at Ralphs hands. It seemed like it was a two-man operation - that someone would have to buckle it while he held Bobo down. Afterwards, Ralph's hands were bleeding in more than one place. He asked Mom for some Methylate and then put that on all the cuts while cursing under his breath. I cringed to think how this must burn! His hands were all red from the Methylate. I was astounded that anyone would voluntarily put methylate on himself. It is still funny to think about that. Though I felt bad that the monkey had hurt him so badly, I felt really bad that he had forced himself on the monkey. Thinking back it is pretty silly how that tiny monkey put up such a fight against that 6+ tall man. How was that monkey ever caught in the first place? Eventually Bobo settled into life at our house. We kept her downstairs so that no one had to see her. I fed her the monkey chow biscuits that were about the size of her head. She would hold it in her hands and chew on it like a giant corn on the cob. I think she liked 3 or 4 per day but I would give her one every time I walked by. I would give her 3 or 4 when I was leaving for school and she would squirrel them away on her platform by the cage door. In the afternoons I would give her another one and let her out while we watched TV. Bobo would gallop around the room on top of the bookcases. It was amazing how she could leap and gallop holding the monkey chow biscuit tucked under her elbow like a football. Jeff, Martha Rose and I had the downstairs bedrooms. I was always eager to get home to let the monkey out and watch Dark Shadows and all our favorite afternoon shows in the downstairs family room. I dont recall the older girls ever coming downstairs. But I recall different ones complaining that they could hear that monkey screeching. But no matter what I did, Bobo would still screech. Mom told me that she screeched because she was lonely and I should spend more time with her. I put my stuffed chimpanzee (quite a sacrifice) on top of the bookcases where Bobo played when we were watching TV after school. The first day she discovered the chimp she was quite taken. She played with it hesitantly putting her hand in its open mouth. Then she curled up in its lap and went Chapter 28 - Nona, page 466

Heyer Saga to sleep, something I had never seen her do before. She woke up groggy as if it was the deepest sleep shed enjoyed in years. As I watched her play with the chimp, I realized Mom was right, that she was very lonely. She was not an affectionate pet. She was pretty wild and I had a healthy respect for her wild nature. When we first got her I was terrified when she tried to climb up my leg. I tried to shake her off but she just hung on tighter. Later when I had grown more accustomed to her I would let her use my arms, shoulders and head as a staircase to make her way to the top of the bookcase. Then if different ones did come downstairs they would complain that it smelled like a monkey. Dad had built the cage so that it was easy to clean. At first there was a sheet metal tray at the bottom of the cage that I could slide out and change the newspapers. One day we put Bobo on a leash and let her outside. I took the cage outside and hosed it off, sterilized it with Lysol and let it dry in the sun. When we took Bobo into the backyard, I was terrified Fluff would kill her if given the chance. Fluff was very territorial and barked indicating she would not allow Bobo to touch foot on the ground. But Bobo was not intimidated and ignored her. That was impressive. And Bobo did not leap about hysterically as she had in the pet store, which is what I had expected. Instead she steadily made her way to the top of the nearest tree where she enjoyed the sunshine, the sky, the breeze and the taste of the leaves. When the cleaned cage was back in the house with fresh newspapers, Dad turned over the leash to me. Eventually I lost interest and wanted to go on to other things. But getting Bobo back down was another thing. She had gone so high the leash was very tangled in the branches. I was worried there was no way to get her down. But very calmly and patiently Dad helped reel her in like a fish inch by inch. I was very impressed by Dad's patience. But it took a long time. It was dinnertime when we got her in. One time the Webers (Robins sister Kathleens family) came to visit. The twins, Debbie & Danielle, were fascinated by Bobo. So I went to let her out. When she leaped out of her cage the girls were both so surprised they screamed in unison. It was so unexpected to them to see this animal galloping along the tops of the bookcases; they became as excited as we Chapter 28 - Nona, page 467

Heyer Saga had been in the pet store that first day. I was scolded for letting Bobo out and Uncle Andy ushered the girls outside. But eventually things calmed down. One of the boys was an infant just learning to sit up. He was sitting on the floor in the middle of the downstairs living room. Typically Bobo would stay as high as she could but this day she was interested in the baby and climbed up on his head. The baby was so top-heavy it looked as if it was just a matter of seconds before he would topple over. But Michael (?6) stayed up just like one of those balloon clowns that can't be knocked down. He swayed way to one side and then to the other but he did not fall down. When we went to move back to Citrus Heights Mom insisted we get rid of Bobo. I objected dispassionately as she had never become an affectionate animal. So Mom put an ad in the paper " to a good home." Im not sure if it was for free. Surprisingly we got a call. Mom told them over the phone that she was a good pet but she screeched when she was lonely. I put her in her small carrying cage along with the small fraction of what was left of the 50-pound sack of Purina Monkey Chow. I put them in the wagon and took them to the address Mom had given me which turned out to be the home of a classmate of mine. They put the small cage on top of their TV in their dining room saying she could watch TV during the day so she wouldn't get lonely. This made me happy but I was surprised they did not want the big cage. She said they didn't have room for it. It was a very small room compared to our spacious family room and that made me feel bad for Bobo. When I told Jules about this she asked me to take her to the house. She didn't want to ring the bell so instead I gave her a boost to look in their window by making a bridge with my hands for her to stand on. I was too short and could not see but she reassured me Bobo was not in the cage and looked happy. Im still not sure that Jules was being honest. She would not give me a boost and I had wanted to ring the doorbell. She said Bobo was sitting on the dinner table, helping herself, sort of like a live

Eventually Kathleen had three boys: Michael, Steven and Jonathan. All her children were close in age, so it is hard to remember which one it was. Although Im not sure which boy was there, I do remember that Bobo standing on his head did not please Kathleen.

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Heyer Saga centerpiece. I was therefore pleased to hear Bobo had found a better home where she could live out her life with a family that loved her. Turtle Nearly every summer we would make the trek to southern California to see Grandma Sims (Thelmas parents). One year she and Grandpa had three turtles, each about a foot across, that according to Grandma, Grandpa loved. He would sit aside the edge of the backyard lawn and bring them lettuce. They would come to him from wherever they were in the yard. Jules & I tried to use lettuce to stage turtle races. But they did not respond to us the same way they responded to Grandpa. Their anatomy and the incredibly slow motion, which seemed more suited to a much larger prehistoric animal, fascinated me. It defied logic! I was captivated by them and somehow convinced Grandma to let me take one (Sam) home. Shortly after this we moved back to Citrus Heights. I recall I had Sam in a cardboard box for the car ride. When we arrived I put him in the backyard, which was much bigger than he was used to either in LA or in Santa Clara. I thought he would be happy and I didnt think much about it. I also recall that Dad and Jeff were working hard to shore up the fence for our dog, Fluff. It was a long and exhausting day unpacking and arranging things in the house. When I went outside to check on him he had somehow managed to get under the fence and was half way across the vacant lot next door. I brought him back and I believe this happened again later in the day. I recall at bedtime thinking I should go check on him again but I fell asleep in exhaustion. The next day he was gone. I searched everywhere praying he had found shelter under the bridge or the playhouse but he was nowhere to be found, our Houdini turtle. According to Jeff, Sam would follow Fluff around, and it was Fluff that was digging the holes under the fence. Grandma could never accept that a turtle could run away. But I have to assume Sam found a better home and is somewhere safe living a full and happy life.

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Heyer Saga Bunny (Bounding Bunnies, as Dad refers to them) One time we had gone to the flea market (in Sacramento area) and I was unable to find anything of interest with the exception of someone with a cardboard box full of bunnies. I stopped to pet them and ended up spending most of the day there. I couldnt resist taking one home. I carried it off in my arms tucking it into my coat when I got to the car. Within minutes I was found out and Mom told me sternly to return it to wherever I got it. I protested but went back in the direction where Id found her. But instead of looking for the previous owner I hid behind a building for a few minutes. I then returned to the car saying he had left already so I was unable to return it. Mom was not so easily fooled and reminded me I had not been gone long enough so she sent one of the others to go with me. Thankfully, the previous owners really had left by the time we got there. Mom was angry but it was so late in the day there was nothing else we could do. I held the little ball of fur under my coat all the way home. She was such a sweet little bunny. When we got home I put her on the hearth while I received the rest of my punishment. Mom explained we couldnt keep it in the house because rabbits have such strong smelling urine and it was impossible to get that smell out. Jeff reminded her we had an abandoned Guinea pig hutch from when he had Guinea pigs. So Jeff and Dad went out and repaired the hutch for her. As soon as they had all left the room the little bunny peed on the hearth. I quickly mopped it up with toilet paper and never mentioned it to anyone. No one ever mentioned a smell. I named her Bernice but I called her Bunbun. She loved her new home. She was a great pet for many years until we moved to Half Moon Bay. The Garden When we lived in Citrus Heights we had a huge backyard, about half an acre. The front half of the backyard was purely ornamental with an expansive lawn and shade trees. Halfway through the yard was a creek bed where Mom had planted large flowering bushes and Dad had built a small footbridge. Past the bridge was a play area with sandbox, swings and a pond. Past that area Dad had divided up the land into parcels. Each of us was given a parcel to tend. Initially it was just a wasteland where nothing Chapter 28 - Nona, page 470

Heyer Saga grew but what is referred to now as native grasses. In those days they were just called weeds. We had a wonderful collection of gardening tools so I set to turning the soil with a pitchfork plowing under all the weeds. The soil was rich and smelled warm and damp. I worked in the warm sun to prepare the soil for planting, making careful rows and irrigation trenches. I planted a different vegetable in each row as an experiment. Much to my delight all of the seeds sprouted! I had everything from beets to lettuce and corn on the cob. Initially it was a lesson in faith and patience. But in the end it confirmed my understanding of the fruits of labor, literally! I could make a salad with all the vegetables growing in my garden! This was such a wonderfully rewarding experience that gave me a better understanding of the food we eat and how it arrives on our table. 4-H Rabbits Before I started High School Mom & Dad sat me down and laid out a plan to have me join the local 4-H club in an effort to steer me away from trouble in high school. I found this surprising since I was a straight A student whod never been in trouble. Let me rephrase a. They offered me an opportunity to join 4-H, something I had never heard of and suggested we check this out. Mom probably had searched this out and Dad said he thought I would enjoy it. Since I had my bunny, they thought it fitting that I could join into the rabbit group. And they also had a plan to let my younger sister get a puppy in order to join the dog-training group. Although I would have much preferred the dog, I was happy that we would be getting a puppy at long last. 4-H was a youth organization associated with the Future Farmers of America. There was a large overall group and then smaller groups for each specialty. Most of the kids were raising lambs and pigs and the rich kids had horses. Rabbits were also considered farm animals. The dogs were trained as Seeing Eye dogs that the kids would place with a blind person at the end of the project year. All the kids I knew were unable to give up their first animal, but instead saved it as a pet. The story of Charlottes Web was a favorite but also a very accurate fate. All the kids had pet lambs, pet pigs and the like. Martha Rose also had enough chickens to keep us in eggs. Chapter 28 - Nona, page 471

Heyer Saga So I began my 4-H career with rabbits and goats. Bernice was a beautiful sweet white bunny with black nose, feet and ears which is a breed called a Californian. Since she was not a purebred, I bred her to another members Dutch buck. She had three adorable bunnies, all different colors. I sold them to a pet shop and used that money to buy a purebred I named Khanenken (Kaninchen), German for bunny as well as a buck she didnt want. He was suffering from a cold and I had to give him penicillin injections daily. He would get so tense he could break the needle just by clenching up. The vet told me to use a bigger needle, poor little guy. Eventually I mastered giving the injections and he did get better. But the doe was a mean little animal. When she delivered her first litter she killed all the bunnies. I was terribly upset and horrified. Her second litter was not much better. She delivered 12 bunnies. Although she had calmed down quite a bit from when I first got her, she still managed to lose a bunny each day for the first week. I remember one was doing so poorly I took it into the house in a shoebox and tried to feed it with an eyedropper. But that little bunny didnt make it. I was so upset I asked Mom to help me go through the nest box each day. It was watching Moms calm acceptance of the harshness of nature that I had the courage to do it myself each day after that. The surviving bunnies did very well after that first week. After that second huge litter she became a good breeder. Different ones in the club explained that it is common in such a large litter to lose a few. It is natures way. But I have always suspected the former owners may have traumatized her. I think I kept the pick of that litter, sold the best as breeders and sold the rest to the market. After that all the bunnies did well and I showed a profit at the end of each year as well as taking a first place at the State Fair. When we left Citrus Heights to move to Half Moon Bay, I had had enough and sold them all at the Roseville auction. I was surprised but Mom suggested I keep just one as a pet. 4-H Goats One day Dad came home from a trip with a large goat in the back of the station wagon. We named her Zella. She had large horns and was very wild. She seemed very unhappy and stubborn. Dad said he got her from a place where she ran wild in a large pasture. She had never been leashed Chapter 28 - Nona, page 472

Heyer Saga before. And she was pregnant! I was very surprised and delighted. I was able to hold her horn and collar with one hand to control her and then she would allow me to pet her. I think it was just the long car ride she was so mad about. She was kind of mean and if you didnt watch out she would butt you.7 When she had her kids I was the only one who could catch her. I was the milker for a while until Martha Rose learned how. She had two kids. One was like that first bunny I had tried to save. That one died soon after birth but the other, Zoe, was a great family pet. We persuaded Mom to let us bring her into the house sometimes to the astonishment of many neighbors, the mailman and various door-to-door salesmen. She was very clever but also left little chew marks on many books and other belongings. She was an amazing little animal that we were all very fond of. I remember she had trouble distinguishing between green lawn and green shag carpeting! If I lay on the floor to watch TV she would nibble on my hair. Bill Grogans Goat8 was the favorite song to play on the piano and sing along. She was such fun and smarter than the pups. After she had her kids, Zella produced enough milk for our entire family. From the milk we also experimented making butter, yogurt, cheese and ice cream. I was devastated when our little Zoe didnt make it through her first year. I think this is when I lost my passion for raising animals. The fragility of life and the harshness of nature proved too much for me. After we moved to Half Moon Bay, Martha Rose continued in 4-H and bred Zella every year or so to keep the milk production going. One time I was visiting and Zella was yelling. I went outside and stroked her familiar face and ran my hand down her all too familiar side where I would lay my head when I was milking. She was clearly pregnant and in pain. It occurred to me she was in labor. I felt a moment of panic since I was home alone
Editors Note: Robin doesnt think the people who managed the herd handled her very well. They didnt seem to have any sense. T he car ride calmed her. When we got home she pressed her head against my chest, as if appealing to be released. I made some adjustments and she did settle down over time. 8 Lyrics?
7

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Heyer Saga and did not know whom I could call. I tried my best to calm and sooth her but I could tell from her cries she was in so much pain. Then something protruded from her. I wasnt sure if it was a nose or a hoof. I tried to wipe it and it was a hoof. So when she made her next push I pulled gently. And out slid a little goatie. It was so amazing how she cleaned it and protected it while it wobbled up onto its legs for the first time. After all the years of animal care this was the only birth I had ever witnessed. Heidi and Fluff But my favorite pets were the dogs. When I would get home from school I would go straight out back to water the garden and feed the animals. Then I would sit at the swing by the pond and pet the dogs. I was able to teach them both how to sit and be still. I spent many long hours outside before I would go in and do my homework. It was always the best part of my day. The dogs were my best friends through those middle school years. Religion Neither of our parents was very religious. They were alike that way. Dad does remember going to church with his brother, Terry, on occasion but never as a family. A Jewish couple, of course9, adopted his mother, but she herself did not carry on any of the traditions. He does not recall any Christmas or Easter traditions, either. Mom took us to church when we were really small. All I can remember is being terrified of the other children and wanting to never go back. I think Mom had been roped into leading the childrens Sunday school. I remember someone reading a story about a child who was collecting eggs and dropped one and marveled at the little half formed chicken inside. The other kids in the class had pushed in so close to her I couldnt get in. I felt nauseated and didnt want to go back.

Im assuming that everyone knows this, being a relative who will likely b e reading the journal.

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Heyer Saga Santa I remember Jules & I carrying our clothes downstairs so we could sleep in the family room to wait for Santa. The house was dark but the tree lights were still on creating a beautiful magical glow. I remember the sound of our hangers clinking on the metal banister. Mom found us almost immediately and sent us back to bed. That is the only Christmas I remember believing in Santa. With so many older siblings the truth was revealed pretty quickly. Science Science was not a big influence at school but I do remember one year working on a science fair project. I scientifically tested various environments for mold growth potential. I infected oranges with mold spores and placed each of them in different environments all over the house along with an uninfected orange. Imagine Dads surprise when he came to home to find moldy oranges everywhere he looked. I remember Dad telling me about the stars, the Milky Way and the big dipper. I recall watching the moon landing on TV. The imagery was incredibly poor and in black and white of course. We were allowed to bring our supper into the living room to watch the TV. In those days we never did that. I found it disproportionately boring and slow, even monotonous at times in comparison to the excitement and anticipation I felt. When Neil Armstrong touched foot on the moon and recited his now famous quote, Thats one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. I could barely understand him through the static monotone. Dad asked excitedly if I heard what he said, and I had not. So he repeated the words slowly, clearly and emphatically with exuberance. As the gravity of his statement seeped into my awareness, I was filled with awe and pride for this seemingly impossible goal similar to Christopher Columbuss ventures across the sea, an accomplishment which had advanced mankind altogether. It was on my birthday in 1968 that Apollo 8, splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. I was eight years old.

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Heyer Saga It was on my night to stay up that I watched Star Trek for the first time. I recall Mom objected momentarily suggesting it was over my head and would be too scary but Dad reassured her it would be okay and he reassured me that this episode was not scary (it was a rerun). I believe it was The Corbomite Maneuver episode. I loved Shatners infamous opening mission statement narration, which I found very inspiring, to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before. Space was the Renaissance of the present day. Art Creativity of all kinds was highly regarded and encouraged in our house growing up. I grew up admiring the art of different ones in the family. I remember feeling discouraged that I could never compare with my older siblings. But art has always been a big part of my life. I recall being complimented both at home and at school for my artwork, which was always surprising since it came so naturally. It was not something I worked hard at or had any special training in. But I do remember Dina showing me how to blend pastel crayons to make the shadows in portraiture. It was a wonderful medium in comparison to the big box of crayons I had been using. In middle school I worked on both the yearbook and the school newspaper. In high school I took art and drama. And of course my BA is in Fine Art. From the treasures of Alexandria, to the most valued artifacts of ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, Art is the part of our cultural heritage that remains. Trips I dont recall any vacations other than the annual trek to LA to visit Grandma Sims and the cousins and other relatives. Many volumes could be filled with stories of adventures with the Sims and the Betts (Aunt Wandas family). But what I loved most about Grandmas was that we were always welcome. She always made room at her table even if we had to eat

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Heyer Saga in shifts. She always had a place for us to sleep even if it was just a pallet on the floor. And she always had the most genuine hugs and kisses even if wed been ornery. And she was the best cook Ive ever known. She would make the best foods out of the simplest ingredients. I loved her peach cobbler and the vanilla wafer pudding as well as her biscuits and gravy and cornbread! I remember the smell of Grandpas pipe, coffee and bacon. It was the most delicious smell in the world. It was in those long car rides to LA that I learned patience, how to entertain myself, how to just watch, listen and do nothing. I remember when I would start to get drowsy all the sounds seemed so far away and dreamy. When Cindy and Dina would sing together it sounded just like angels. And then we would all chime in and it would be such fun. Cindy and Dina had quite a repertoire of camp songs. I remember when we got the Rambler. Dad was so happy to get that car but I was confused. Where will I sit? I asked. On someones lap I suppose, was his answer. One year Grandpa offered to trade the Rambler for his station wagon. I was so grateful. There were no seats in the far back so we got to lie down all the way home. It was heaven. Later we figured out the far back seat and we faced backwards. While the different ones complained of carsickness I was in the far back facing backwards feeling great. And I enjoyed the view of where wed been. When I was 10, I was allowed to go to Grandmas (in Gardena) by myself. It was probably the first time Id been on a plane. It was a really big deal for me. I was amazed by the landscape all laid out in different colored squares like a huge quilt as far as I could see. Grandpa told me they had left for the airport about the same time I got on the plane. Grandpa always called us Grandottir10, which we thought was a hoot. I remember looking at the back of his head as they drove me home from the airport and noticing his snowy white hair. I remember thinking he looked so much older than I remembered. I remember how awkward I felt at first since I had never

Thelma says that the Sims are all from the British Isles and that he was saying Granddaughter, in his own quirky, affectionate way.

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Heyer Saga spent time alone with Grandma and Grandpa. But Grandma soon made me feel at home. We played cards, dominoes and Aggravation. We watched her boring TV soap opera and her favorite TV show, Roller Derby. I wasnt sure at first, but I was glad Id come. I do recall the camping trip to Calaveras Big Trees that we took with Uncle Terry, Aunt Anni and Baby Celeste when I was five. I remember that I stayed in their tent. I played with Celeste by putting her toy in the crib and then she would throw it back out. We played this over and over. I found it very entertaining. I remember having fun swimming in the lake but that afternoon I felt like I had splinters in my chest. In the evening there was some kind of outdoor show. I remember sitting on Dads lap and being very cold. Mom took us to the restroom when it was over but I had put on all my clothes to keep warm. And I still had on my one-piece swimsuit from that morning. I found after only a couple of layers that I was unable to get all the clothes off. So that night didnt go well for me. And we went home the next day. Childhood was not all good times. We had our share of hard times, tragedies and misfortunes. Viet Nam I dont remember the war starting but I do remember when I realized there was a war going on. We did not watch the news on television like so many families. Somehow I was unaware of it until I was assigned to watch the news as homework. I was astounded to discover that we were in the middle of a war with Viet Nam. The more I talked about it the more I learned how close it was to home. Many of my friends at school were military families with friends and family serving overseas. Some had already lost family members. It was shocking to discover that war was not an embarrassing historic mistake but a current devastation. I remember a heated discussion about registering for the draft. I was both terrified for my brother and relieved to hear the draft would not want me. This was the one time in life I was glad to be female. The sense of

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Heyer Saga disappointment and shame that haunted my childhood was slightly appeased by being disregarded in this way. One of my friends was able to get me a POW bracelet. I wore that through the end of grade school and throughout middle school holding vigil for Captain Wallace L. Wiggins missing since 2/3/68. When the war ended and soldiers began to come home I checked the paper every day but his name was never listed. I never knew what had happened to him until http://www.thewall-usa.com/information.asp came online. It was meant to be an electronic version of The Wall memorial in Washington DC that listed all the fallen soldiers vertically on black granite. He was a pilot whose plane had been shot down over the ocean. His remains were never found. And when I took my family to visit Washington DC we found his name on the wall. United Way/Childrens Fund/UNICEF (The United Nations Children's Fund) When I was about seven years old I remember being very moved by the television advertisements for the childrens fund for orphaned and unfortunate children in other parts of the world. I remember looking into the soulful eyes of children my age who were so unimaginably less fortunate than I was. Even though I didnt have the ability to send money, I was determined to help in any way I could. So I designed an orphanage. With binder paper on a cardboard box for a drafting table I sketched out a facility complete with kitchen, classrooms, dormitories and play areas. I planned for multiple age groups, and designed exciting, inspiring curriculum including a Renaissance Faire in lieu of history classes, Art-making classes and a vegetable garden. I spent a lot of time planning out the facility and after many hours of drawing, redrawing and thinking, I was quite satisfied that my facility would offer the children a healthy and nurturing environment. Above food, shelter and clothing I offered a safe and structured environment that might inspire their young minds to realize their own potential.

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Heyer Saga Although I did not build an orphanage, my adult life has been a continuous expansion of knowledge revolving around the built environment culminating in educational facilities planning which is what I can best do to fulfill my personal ambitions and serve society in the most useful and productive way I possibly can. Like that seven year old who wanted to help the orphans, I have devoted myself to the creation, development and preservation of the built environment and specifically the campus as an autonomous entity; to enrich the educational experience and improve the quality of life through aesthetics, functionality, accessibility and safety in order to foster development of new minds and thought. In many schools of thought, architecture is considered a fine art a three-dimensional art form, a form of sculpture. Planning is a social science devoted to the betterment of society through the design of the physical form. The two together are not just about buildings; they are about people, about making communities more livable. Trees In our backyard we had many trees. My favorite was the silver dollar tree. When I was coming up it was a great tall tree, as tall as the house. It had branches spaced evenly like a ladder so it was easy to scramble up as high. And I was light enough that it would support my weight. I used to love to sit way up high and enjoy the breeze gently rock me while I enjoyed the view of the neighborhood. I loved the smell of the eucalyptus tree. Even today, the smell of the eucalyptus calms me. Another favorite tree was the apricot tree way in the back in front of the playhouse. When I was coming up it had such great amount of fruit. The leaves were hanging low enough to pick. Of all the fruit trees, it had the greatest amount of fruit. The maple tree was another favorite. It was next to the path in the back lawn. It was deciduous and left beautiful yellow, orange and red leaves all over the lawn to be raked into a pile every fall. He had pruned one of the lower branches that grew horizontally so that it was perfect for doing chin-ups. Chapter 28 - Nona, page 480

Heyer Saga One day Dad and I discovered a small plumb tree just outside the side window of the playhouse. It was still pretty small, only about four feet tall. Dad thought it probably had grown from a pit that had been thrown out the window. He officially gave it to me to care for. I faithfully watered it and he helped me prune it in the winter. One day I was very upset to find one of its main branches had broken. I showed it to him and he suggested we could tape it back up with duct tape. It was an amazing miracle to see the nearly dismembered branch grow back into the tree. But we didnt stop there. Dad explained about grafting and how we could take a branch or shoot from another tree and attach it in the same way to a groove we cut in my tree to get two kinds of fruit from it. He explained how navel orange trees are propagated in this way since they have no seeds. Nonas Pastel Art in the Reiki room This image was a homework assignment for a beginning art course I took in College. The assignment was to create a piece that referred to or responded to another work of art. As a beginning painter, I was fond of Renoirs work. I created this in response to his piece titled The Umbrellas. I used the same composition but completely eliminated the clarity of the environment and placed it in a more etheric environment. The background figures are lost in the mist with only the child in the foreground visible. Her hoop becomes a portal to another dimension. The viewers own reflection becomes a part of the image. Nonas World Travels Norway

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Heyer Saga When my kids were all out of diapers Glenn and I decided it was time to visit Glenns home country, Norway. Vanessa was 9, Erica was 7 and Kyle was 5. Glenn flew over first with the girls and I followed several days later with Kyle. We flew from San Francisco to London. It was a big plane that had enough aisle space to walk a restless young one up and down the aisles and peer out the little porthole window from the back galley. Then they turned out the lights in an effort to get us to sleep. Surprisingly, we did. I remember waking to find Kyle sleeping not only sprawled across my lap but also sprawled across the lap of the woman on the other side of him. I looked at her apologetically but she smiled warmly as I removed his feet from her lap. Glenn had called ahead to warm us about taking a taxi from the airport. They took advantage of tourists so Kyle and I took the bus to Windsor Castle during our layover. I dont remember much of the castle except that the royal family was not there that day. I do remember when we got on the smaller plane to go to Norway, Kyle and I both fell asleep before we even took off. When we arrived in Norway it was nearly midnight their time. The most amazing thing about Norway was to find that not only did Glenn have relatives, but also he had a lot of relatives. Glenns Mom & Dad had been vacationing there for a couple of weeks so they really helped with the transition. There was a historical section of town where both Alf & Olaug pointed out their childhood homes. The buildings were small fishermens homes that were whitewashed every year. The cobblestone was always clean and everything looked very tidy and new. The downtown was along the waterfront a couple of blocks from the house where we stayed with Glenns Aunt Lillimore and Uncle Nils. They lived on the first floor, their son lived on the second floor and we stayed in the attic. We walked down to the water nearly every day. Downtown there was produce and fish for sale as well as many boutique shops. Periodically there were huge cruise ships docked and tourists poured out into the little downtown. One day we looked down into the cold North Sea and found the water teeming with jellyfish. It was amazing! We enjoyed feeding the pigeons and visiting the old church where Glenn and all the Norwegian ancestors had been christened. Chapter 28 - Nona, page 482

Heyer Saga One quiet afternoon I decided to take a break and tiptoed down the stairs. It was a very old house and I didnt even get to the bottom when the stairs creaked so loudly someone heard me and asked where I was going. I said I just wanted to take a walk and before I knew it there were four relative who wanted to walk with me. So much for a break! Glenns father took us up hill to where he said he used to walk and play as a boy. I was amazed that any place could remain unchanged! We visited nearly all the relatives. Any who ever thought of visiting America fought over us. We did so much eating! In Norway there is no dinner. The main meal is middag, which is at midday. Then in the early evening they have a small lunch-like snack and then a couple hours later, a dessert and some drink. Alcohol is difficult to get there. I wanted to bring Auntie a bottle of wine and had to wait in a long line at a store where there was not much selection and not very good supply. I think I got her something like what comes in a box here. The first day in Norway Uncle Nils told me we should stop speaking English and speak only Norwegian. My eyes must have widened and my jaw hit the floor! Fortunately he did not insist on this. Even though we had been listening to Norwegian tapes, it was a different dialect and we did not understand one another well. We really only knew a few basic phrases. Luckily, all the shopkeepers spoke fluent English due to the large cruise ships that came into port every week. The Norwegians learn English in school starting in 4th grade. Uncle Nils favorite phrase was Fantastisk! which needs no translation. It was an amazing way of life in Norway. It is a socialist country so everyone is guaranteed a job. Although Uncle Nils was the conductor to the symphony, technically his job was working in the sardine-canning factory. Music was a source of joy in his family. All the men played some instrument. His son, Glenns cousin Togeir, played trumpet for his majestys Army. The elderly and single mothers are taken care of by the government. Olaug has often said she would go back to Norway to grow old.

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Heyer Saga We scheduled the trip to be able to attend Glenns Aunt & Uncles 60 wedding anniversary party. At this celebration we saw many more of the Aunts, Uncles and cousins. The little ones all wore their traditional Norwegian bunads. Glenns cousin Haarald requested Glenn join him in a Norwegian song. Haarald twisted Glenns arm so he couldnt refuse even though he didnt really know the song. It still makes me chuckle what a good sport he was!
th

We enjoyed the simpler way of life there. Very few owned automobiles and the government had a limit to the size of vehicles people could bring there. SUVs were not allowed at all. I dont remember seeing American cars either. At this time gas was just over a dollar a gallon in the US but there is $3.00-$4.00 dollars a gallon. The one day we went for a drive we had to take two cars. Going up the first big hill, both cars broke down. So we spent that day in a meadow aside the highway. It was a beautiful spring day and we enjoyed ourselves picking flowers. One day Glenns cousin Mia took me out by myself. She asked me if I like things that are old. I didnt understand what she meant until we arrived at an antique shop. One day we went to Uncle Nils cabin on Brue, an island off the coast in the North Sea. Evidently most people had vacation homes on the islands. We drove through a long, long tunnel under the North Sea. Finally off in the distance there was a little speck of light. And finally we came out on the island. There was no running water at the cabin but there were plenty of beds and fishing poles so we caught our dinner that night. My kids had all liked fish as children. But after seeing the process of how it arrives on the table, Erica has never eaten fish again. This became a problem because the main diet was fish. On a special occasion we would have dinner sausage but a couple of nights Erica did go hungry. One day Alf treated Glenn and I to a boat ride up the fjord to see Prikestolen (pulpit rock) followed by a steep winding bus ride up to the top of the fjord. It was very foggy much like a Coastside winter day, not very

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Heyer Saga suitable for sightseeing. I imagine this must happen to tourists in San Francisco who come to see the Golden Gate Bridge! One of the last nights we were there, there was a midsummer festival on the longest day of the year. It is a bit like our Halloween. There is a great big bonfire as big as a house meant to drive out evil spirits. Then there were hayrides, carnival games and a petting zoo of goats. It was great fun for the kids. We had a grand time in Norway, learning about our long-lost family, the Norwegian way of life and so many new friends. Everyone treated us like royalty and we hoped to return the favor some day. Since the trip nearly all the relatives have come to visit us in California. They always want to see Disneyland not realiing California is bigger than the whole country of Norway! Each of the kids (as well as Glenn) has been back to Norway at least once as young adults but this was our only family trip. On the journey home, we had planned an overnight layover in London. We saw the Tower of London and Trafalgar Square. English food is not like Norwegian home cooking! And there is a discrepancy between an American Queen size bed and an English one! It was a great visit but so nice to be home! A few months after this Princess Diana was tragically killed in an automobile accident. London & Paris In Scotts Valley, the middle school sponsored a trip each summer to a different country. When Vanessa was in middle school, the trip was scheduled for England and France led by her drama teacher who developed a drama and art-focused trip. Vanessa (and I) had been studying French and wanted to go. So I volunteered to go along as chaperone. In the end there were plenty of chaperones but I thought it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Traveling with middle schoolers is much easier than traveling with little ones. They are independent enough to entertaining themselves but still comfortable asking for help. The trip was Chapter 28 - Nona, page 485

Heyer Saga highly structured with strict agenda and timeframes. It was rush, rush, rush all day long. We saw the original Shakespeare theater as well as Anne Hathaways cottage and Shakespeares childhood home; Stratford-uponAvon. We saw at least two shows, one of which was Cats. And we spent nearly a day at the National Museum. Then we took the bullet train to Paris. We saw the Eifel Tower in the evening. And the next day we went to the Louve. We didnt have a lot of time scheduled so we made a dash for the Mona Lisa who was surprisingly small, only about life size! We saw the cathedral at Notre Dame and the Palace at Versailles. Then we traveled to Monets home at Giverny and saw the famous pond of lilipads he painted so much later in life. Vanessa and I ditched the group one day to visit the Musee DOrsay where all the impressionist paintings are displayed. This was the only day when we werent over-agendized to exhaustion! We caught up with the group in the Loire Valley where we went wine tasting at a castle. And lastly we visited Leonardo Da Vincis home at Amboise. I had toyed with the idea of staying after the group and taking the Eurorail. I had heard it was a great way to see Europe. I had even asked Dad if he would be interested in joining us. Dad had declined due to health issues and frankly; at the end of the trip I was exhausted! Vanessa is a great traveling companion and I always enjoyed helping out with her different endeavors. But this was a unique opportunity that we both enjoyed together. I hope we can travel together again some day. Quebec, Canada Last summer Glenn and I went to Quebec. We flew into Boston to visit Erica, and then took her car to Niagara Falls. We spent a day there and then drove north to Montreal. We stayed in Old Town where the buildings have all been converted into boutique shops and restaurants with cobblestone streets just like in Paris. Although the shopkeepers greet in French, everyone speaks English, and without attitude! It was very charming. From there we went north to Quebec City that is even older. We

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Heyer Saga stayed in an old castle right on the water. It also had shopkeepers who greeted with French but their English was not nearly so good! On the drive back to Boston we drove through the fall colors and saw the lighthouses of Maine. Mexico I cant really say Ive seen Mexico. We took a cruise out of Long Beach that stopped in Ensenada for one afternoon. I remember being accosted by a mariachi band at a restaurant. Glenn had to pay them to leave us alone! I bought a necklace from a little girl who came up to our table with pleading eyes. The kids were telling me, No, Mom. Dont do it. But I thought I was doing her a favor. When we were walking back to the ship, we saw a poster with that little girls face saying Do not buy souvenirs from children! The poster indicated that children were being taken advantage of and would not get any part of the proceeds. My kids all love giving me a hard time about this - to this day! We also spent a day in Cabo San Lucas. It was a much lovelier place along the waterfront. It was not busy with automobiles or tourist traffic and was pretty clean. The only vendor that caught my eye had a baby tiger I could hold for $10 or $20. I just couldnt resist even though Glenn was protesting the whole time. He scolded me later saying it was a wild animal and could have really mauled me there were no laws to protect me in Mexico! But I have a great picture holding that tiger that was worth every penny! Some things never change!

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Heyer Saga Achievements These documents are on the following pages: Nonas 4-H Record and Photos Nonas Architecture Resume Nonas Photography Resume Nonas photos of family and graduations Nonas photos of previous family reunions

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Heyer Saga

THELMA'S MEMORIES
Karma? Fate? Destiny? What were the odds of Robin and me ever meeting and marrying each other? Call it what you will--we were fated to meetno doubt about it! I was born on December 12, 1931 in Heavener, Oklahoma, a small town in Le Flore County about 40 miles south of the Arkansas border city of Fort Smith and 80 miles north of the Texas border. Robin was born on November 10, 1929 in Los Angeles, California. He and his parents lived in rented quarters for several years. After the birth of his brother Terry, when Robin was about five years old, the family began making payments on a home at 631 West Nectarine Street in Inglewood, California. Robin lived there, throughout his college years, until our marriage two months after he earned his Bachelors degree at UCLA in 1951. My family of six (parents, five-year-old Clarence and four-year-old Hal, baby sister Wanda, and I) moved from Oklahoma to Honey Grove, Texas, not far below the Oklahoma border in northeastern Texas. I was 18 months old and Wanda was an infant. I have memories of living in six different rented houses during the next twelve and a half years before moving to Inglewood, California. We shared a rented house with Mamas older sister Emma and her husband and children for a year until they moved to Durant, Oklahoma. Note: we called our mother Mama and our father Daddy in our early years, but switched to Mom and Dad when we reached our early teens, feeling grown up by then. One house was next door to an elderly woman whose granddaughter, about my age, lived with her. The woman never let the granddaughter come play in our yard and my mother never let us go to that yard. She sometimes invited my mother to come see her possessions, of which she was proud. Mama took Wanda and me with her, but warned us that the Chapter 28 - Thelma, page 489

Heyer Saga woman was not right in the head and that we must never touch anything in that house and we must keep our hands in plain sight at all times. I remember the woman showed off nice dishes and a rolled up rug, which she unrolled part way. Mama said sometimes when some person walked past the front of the house, that neighbor would yell and accuse the person of stealing from her. Nowadays she might be diagnosed with Alzheimers. Another house we lived in was out in the country on the edge of Honey Grove. It was called the Kapman place, owned by a doctor in Honey Grove. It was a white two-story house with pastures. We lived in the downstairs rooms and the upstairs were off limits for Wanda and me. One day we slipped upstairs. I dont remember anything specific about climbing the stairs, what we saw up there, or why we started back down. I slipped or tripped part way down and tumbled the rest of the way. It must have skinned my nose, because I remember Daddy was home and he licked a cigarette paper and pasted it across my nose. In those days loose tobacco was sold in small bags. It was gently spread along the length of cigarette paper, a strong tissue paper that burned evenly and is porous enough to control the burning of tobacco in a cigarette. The only other thing I remember about the Kapman house is that a bumblebee stung me on top of my head in the yard. From there, we moved to 701 North Sixth Street, Honey Grove, Texasan address I memorized after entering first grade at the Honey Grove Elementary School. I dont know whether they offered Kindergarten but, at any rate, I wasnt enrolled in it. We stayed there until fifth grade, when we moved to New Boston, not far from the border city of Texarkana. We lived in that house from fifth grade through eighth grade. Before starting ninth grade, we rented a house in a new housing project at the edge of town. I caught a school bus from there to New Boston High School. From New Boston, Texas, we moved to Inglewood, California in December of 1945, right after the end of World War II. During the war years, our country was mobilized for the war effort. No new housing was being built and, as draftees came home and returned to civilian life, there Chapter 28 - Thelma, page 490

Heyer Saga was a housing shortage. My Dad was able to buy a house trailer, and one of his cousins let him park it on their driveway. The four of us lived there several months and finally found space in a trailer park on Century Boulevard, between Prairie Avenue and Crenshaw Boulevard, across from the huge parking lot of the Hollywood Park Race Track in Inglewood. We lived there until May of 1951, when Dad was able to buy a new twobedroom home at 3208 West 147th Street, Gardena, California. I was engaged to Robin by then, and our wedding was set for August 19th, so I only lived there a little over two months. Very Early Years During that first summer in Honey Grove, Texas, Mama left baby Wanda and me (I was about 20 months old) in the care of her sister Emma, who also had an infant and several other children. Mama, six-year-old Clarence and five-year-old Hal picked cotton for a local farmer who picked them up at the house and returned them in the evening. By the next summer, when I was two-and-a-half years old and Wanda was one, Aunt Emmas family moved back to Oklahoma. Having no one to care for us, Wanda and I were taken to the cotton field with Mama and my brothers for several summers. The money was used to buy new clothes for school. I dont remember anything from my first season in the cotton field. Mama related that she set one-year-old Wanda on her cotton sack and dragged her along while picking cotton. She let me walk ahead of her in the row to pick randomly and stuff it in my little sack. In later summers, Wanda and I both had our little sacks, but when we got tired or fussy, she let us go to the wagon, parked nearby to receive the cotton from pickers when they brought their sacks to be weighed. We could rest in the shade under the wagon. Mama said it was hard, taking two toddlers to the field she said wistfully sometimes youuns would come cryin down the rows looking for me. When I collected Mamas oral history, in her early nineties, she related that cotton pickers were paid fifty cents for a hundred pounds of

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Heyer Saga cotton. She said the best pickers could pick 300 pounds in a day but she never got that high, but she always went over 200 pounds. Cotton pickers purchased long canvas sacks that looked to me like a gigantic pillowcase with a shoulder strap at the open end. They were available in nine foot and twelve foot sizes. Pickers worked between two rows of cotton, just wide enough for an adult to pull the sack, snatching the fluffy cotton from the dry open bolls and quickly stuffing it into the sack. This was stoop labor, because the cotton plants were not very tall. This was during racial segregation, so the black pickers gathered on one side of the wagon and the whites on the other side. Each group had its own keg of drinking water and one long handled metal dipper. There were no outhouses. Pickers brought their own lunches with them. Mama brought ours in a metal lard bucket with a tight fitting lid. Sometimes we only had one biscuit apiece, but mostly we shared a can of Pork and Beans. My brothers emptied their short burlap bags into Mamas when they were full. When the large sack was nearly full, Mama grabbed it near its middle and threw it up across her shoulder and carried it to the wagon to be weighed. The wagon tongue was propped up with a scale with a large hook suspended from it. One corner of the bag had a green cotton boll stuffed snugly into it, and held in place by baling wire wrapped tightly around it, and then fashioned into a loop. At the wagon, that wire loop was placed on the hook of the scale, then the sack was folded in the middle with the shoulder strap wrapped around the top of the bag several times, and then the strap was also attached to the scales hook. The farmer kept a tally book for each picker, but Mama also kept her own tally to make sure she wasnt shorted. I dont know how often they were paid. Wanda and I were allowed to climb into the wagon when Mama emptied her sack. We loved plopping down into the soft cotton, but we werent allowed in the wagon any other time. I dont remember any other children except my brothers, but there might well have been.

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Heyer Saga After my marriage in 1951, Mama, my visiting Grandma Smith, my sister Wanda, and my sister-in-law Shirley, drove up to Avenal, near Bakersfield, California, to visit Moms youngest sister Cara (called Carry, rhymes with starry) during cotton harvest, They all picked cotton one day just for old times sake. Wanda said she and Shirley were exhausted in the evening and went to bed early. Grandma Smith, Mama, and Aunt Carry, stayed up several hours playing Aggravation and other board games. How We Ended Up In Inglewood Instead of Barstow My Dad worked as a machinist at the Army Ammunitions Depot near Texarkana, which is on the Texas/Arkansas border, during World War II. He applied for a machinist job with a railroad at the end of the war and was hired to work in Barstow, California. On the train to Barstow, he met someone who talked him into traveling on to Los Angeles, where he was hired by the (? name) Streetcar Lines. No new housing was built during the war years, so Dad had to settle for buying a trailer, which he parked in the driveway of one of his cousins in (? name) until he was able to move it to a trailer park space on Century Boulevard, across from the huge parking lot of the Hollywood Park Racetrack. Although we had an Inglewood mailing address, the trailer park was actually in the Los Angeles School District. I was supposed to register in ninth grade at the Horace Mann Junior High School in Los Angeles. After finishing the school year at Horace Mann, I was supposed to enroll in tenth grade at George Washington High School in the L.A. school district. Although there was a school bus to Horace Mann from our neighborhood, there was neither school bus nor public transportation to the high school at that time from our location. We applied for a transfer to the Inglewood High School District. It was granted, and I was able to catch the Prairie Avenue public bus less than a mile from the trailer park. I was very shy, as well as self-conscious about my Okie/Tex accent. The Grapes of Wrath book and movie came out about that time. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, many people traveled from the Midwest Chapter 28 - Thelma, page 493

Heyer Saga to California looking for jobs. labeled an Okie. Anyone who didnt look prosperous was

My tenth grade year started out without any friends, but a girl named Nancy, who rode the Prairie Avenue bus, invited me to meet with her and her friends at lunch. I mostly just tagged along until Nancy missed school for over a week with the flu. One of the girls in the group told me not to come back anymore. When Nancy returned to school, she asked me why I didnt join them. I told her why, and she was very put out that I was unwilling to rejoin them. After that I ate my bag lunch alone until another girl, named Dorian, invited me to join the Christian Fellowship Club. After that, I hung out with Dorian and her circle on days the club didnt meet. At the beginning of my junior year, my history teacher, Mr. Lehigh, announced in class that the World Friendship Club would be meeting at noon that week. Robin Heyer, a senior, was the president. I was elected recording secretary. I developed a major crush on Robin. It happened that my English class met, in building six, right after one of Robins classes ended. Building six was two-story, with the stairs aligned directly with the entry. Hall monitors did not allow anyone to enter while students were pouring out of the building. I managed to position myself a yard or so from the entry so I could catch his eye and flash him a big smile. He says he was surprised but pleased and from then on we exchanged smiles daily. There was never time to chatclasses were spread out on the large campus, so students had to rush to avoid being tardy. After his graduation, Robin was granted a scholarship to attend USC in Los Angeles. He says he didnt know then whether he would ever see me again. His goal was to complete his higher education before his brother Terrys high school graduation. However, the World Friendship Club held a banquet that summer after Robins graduation. My best friend, Dorian Townsend, was corresponding secretary of the club. I asked her to send an invitation to him as past president. He attended and we sat across the table from each other. Dorian invited both of us to her birthday party shortly after that, and

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Heyer Saga suggested that he give me a ride. Then the group met to go to Griffith Park, in Los Angeles, that summer. We all brought bag lunches and carpooled from the high school. Dorian asked if I wanted to go with others to some area of the park, but Robin spoke up and said, Shes with me! My heart went pitter-pat! The two of us hiked up to the Observatory. On the way we stopped to eat our bag lunches. At one point Robin stopped to remove something from his shoe. He had a hole in the toe of his sock and was completely comfortableI would have been embarrassed if it had been me! I thought he was so cool! The barriers that might have kept us apart dissolved at each critical step: Being born halfway across the nation from each other; my Dads decision to stay on the train to Los Angeles instead of reporting to the new job in Barstow; my transfer to Inglewood High School from the Los Angeles School District; being disinvited and dropping out of Nancys circle of friends; joining the World Friendship Club in my junior year (during Robins senior year); Robins decision to attend the World Friendship Club trip to Griffith Park, followed by Dorians birthday party invitation to both of us, which included her request that Robin give me a ride. Although other circumstances could have eventually resulted in our meeting, these particular events happened at a critical time during our youth. We were definitely meant to be together! My goal in life During my early years, like many females of my generation in that part of the country, my ambition after high school was to get a job and work until getting married, and raise my family. To that end, I took secretarial classes along with the required courses for graduation. In one course, titled Office Practice, I was assigned to work as a clerk for Maude Knudson (known as Mother K), Principal of Adult Day Classes. Her office was located on the first floor of the high school administration building. Mother K had a huge bulletin board filled with photos of former students of Inglewood Chapter 28 - Thelma, page 495

Heyer Saga High School, going back to her years as Vice Principal of Inglewood High School when Robins parents graduated from there in 1928. I dont remember anything about my duties there except trimming around photos that arrived in the mail from former students and gluing them to the display. After graduation in 1949, I was offered a salaried clerical job in the Adult Ed office across the hall from Mother Ks office. Robert K. Lloyde, known as R.K., was Director of Adult Education and Principal of Evening High School. I registered people in evening classes and handled filing and other clerical details. Three other women, ranging from 30 to 40 years old, worked in that office. I had a split shift, working from 8:00 am to noon and from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm. This split shift allowed me to take afternoon classes at El Camino Junior College in Lawndale, where I enrolled in a Marriage and Family course but dont remember any details. It was rather boring. I remained an employee there until after my marriage, resigning when I became pregnant and began having problems with my pregnancy. Robin and I lived in a trailer park on Freeman, near Manchester, only a few blocks from Robins parents, Kenneth and Kay Heyer. My parents lived maybe ten miles or so from there. During the daytime, while Robin was attending classes, I stayed at his parents houseKen worked as a machinist in Los Angeles and Kay worked in the chemistry department at El Camino Junior College in Lawndale. I read a lot during that time. I had a miscarriage around November. From then on, we stayed at my parents home, and Robin bought an old car to commute to his Practice Teaching assignment somewhere in Los Angeles. After recovery from the miscarriage, I got a clerical job at the Inglewood Department of Water and worked there until our move to Fontana, a small town in San Bernardino County, where Robin was hired to teach in the brand new Fontana High School. After earning his teaching credential in 1952, Robin was hired to teach at Fontana High School, a newly built high school in San Bernardino County. We had neither car nor funds to buy one, so Robins father drove us out to Fontana, where we rented a three-room apartment in a duplex on

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Heyer Saga Arrow Route, within walking distance of the high school. Robin walked to work at the high school until one of the other teachers gave him a ride one day and offered to pick him up regularly. We lived in that apartment from August 1952, until the end of the school year in 1953. Our first child, Cynthia June, was due in September. We rented a studio apartment on 135th Street in Hawthorne, about a mile from my parents home on 147th Street in Gardena. When Robin was inducted into the U.S. Army that July, we kept the apartment but I stayed with my parents and younger sister. Cindy was born in the early hours of Labor Day, September 6, 1953. Robin arrived around midnight, just as we were preparing to go to Centinela Hospital for deliverya very propitious time for his first leave from Basic Training at Fort Ord, California. After finishing basic training, Robin stayed on at Fort Ord for several months in a leadership course, which could lead to noncommissioned officer promotions. Then he was assigned to Fort Bliss near El Paso, Texas. Cindy and I stayed in a furnished apartment in Salinas until he completed that training. We then returned to my parents home until Robin sent for us to join him in El Paso. In March, six-month-old Cindy and I traveled to El Paso by train to move into a furnished apartment in a large El Paso house that had been converted into apartments owned by a Lebanese family from Sierra Leone in west Africa. The landlords elderly mother, his niece Angel, and nephew Meled lived in half of the downstairs, an older single man lived in one room at the back, and we moved into three rooms, sharing the bathroom with the older man whom we never saw or even heard. Three other army couples lived upstairs, one of who had a baby about Cindys age. Robin tutored Angel, a college student, who was having difficulty with a chemistry class. She often dropped in to chat with me and enjoy a cigarette. In the hot summertime, I kept the double doors from our living room to the hallway open. If her elderly grandmother happened to pass by the door during a visit, she would stand at the door talking to Angel, who hid her cigarette behind her back until grandmother left. To my untutored

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Heyer Saga ear, the Lebanese language was harsh. It sounded like Angel was being scolded until grandmother laughed. Meled owned a chimpanzee imported from Africa. The chimpanzee was kept in a large cage of strong metal mesh in the screened in back porch. Sometimes he would get out of the cage and rush through the halls whooping loudly. When he was loose we all kept our doors to the hallways closed. Sometimes on weekends, Meled brought the chimp out to the front porch where it rode a tricycle back and forth. Meled eventually sold the chimp, to the great relief of all of us in the house. I became pregnant again soon after moving to El Paso. Diana was born on Christmas Day in 1954 at the base hospital. Fifteen-month-old Cindy was still sleeping in a crib, so Diana slept in a bassinette. When Robins army enlistment ended in June, 1955, he bought a used car and a box trailer for our return to California. We placed the crib mattress on the back seat of the car for the little ones to sit on. The crib, bassinette, trunk and belongings were loaded in the trailer. Because of the summer heat across the southwest desert, Robin drove mostly at night on Interstate Highway 10, the southernmost highway in the U.S. From El Paso, Texas, we headed north on Interstate Highway 10 to Las Cruces, New Mexico, where the highway turned west, crossing New Mexico and Arizona and eventually taking us to the greater Los Angeles area of Southern California where our parents lived in Inglewood and in Gardena. I tried to stay awake during the nighttime travel to keep Robin from falling asleep at the wheel. When he stopped for sleep a few hours at motels along the way, I kept watch over Cindy and Dina. What a relief to get back to southern California! After a brief visit with our families, we packed our gear back into the trailer and moved to San Francisco where Robin enrolled in a law school summer course at San Francisco University, a Catholic university. As a veteran, Robin was qualified to live in public housing at Hunters Point. The neighbors in our building were all African Americans. The

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Heyer Saga adults were reserved and polite, but not unfriendly toward me. Teenagers seemed tense and suspicious when I was outside the apartment, but otherwise ignored me. I was too shy to try to connect with any of the neighbors. In retrospect, that may have been interpreted as snobbish or racist behavior, but that never occurred to me at the time. Upon completion of summer school in San Francisco, Robin resumed teaching at Fontana High School in Southern California. He obtained a G.I. loan for a low-interest mortgage on a newly built two-bedroom house at 16195 Hunter Street, eight-tenths of a mile from the high school. We lived in that home from 1955 to 1957, after the birth of our third child, Jeffrey. Our first Fontana address, during the 1952-1953 school year, had been at 475 Arrow Route, which was 1.2 miles from the school. After selling the Hunter Street house, we upgraded to a three-bedroom one at 7740 Blanchard Avenue, which was 3.7 miles from the school. From there, Cindy, Dina, and Jeff each enrolled at the North Tamarind Elementary School, in 1958, 1960, and 1961 respectively. They caught a school bus at the end of our street. We remained in the Blanchard Avenue home until March of 1963, shortly after the birth of Martha Rose. From there we moved to Citrus Heights, an unincorporated community near Sacramento. Ten-year-old Cindy, nine-year-old Dina, and seven-year-old Jeff enrolled right away in Skycrest Elementary School in Citrus Heights that spring. Jules and Winona enrolled there in the fall of 1963 and 1965. Robin took a job in San Jose in 1968, joining the staff of the unemployment insurance field office. So we moved to Santa Clara where five-year-old Rose enrolled in Kindergarten at nearby Bowers Elementary School. Jules and Winona also enrolled at Bowers Elementary that year. Jeff attended Buchser Middle School in Santa Clara and Carnegie Junior High upon our return to Citrus Heights, followed by San Juan High School. Cindy and Diana attended Adrian Wilcox High School in Santa Clara and San Juan High in Citrus Heights.

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Heyer Saga During our childrens early years, we allowed each of them to stay up an hour later than the others, one night a week, in order to receive some individual attention. In retrospect, this was only partially successful. Robins work involved periodic travel that took him away from Monday through Friday. My body energy rhythm peaks early in the morning, slowly wanes in the afternoon, and needs sleep in early evening hours. Consequently, after a normal full day with my children, by evening I didnt have much energy or alertness to play with them or read to them when Robin was out of town. Since we had a TV by then, we usually watched early evening shows for children. I didnt develop any close friendships in Fontana, although I had a few acquaintances in the PTA and among the faculty wives of Fontana High School, where Robin taught. Doris and Dick Clark and Betsy and Russ Freeman were our closest friends. Doris hosted a baby shower for me before Jeffs birth. Robin and I joined the newly organized NAACP chapter in Fontana, headed by Reverend Marcus Rickard, pastor of the local A.M.E. Church. The African Methodist Episcopal Church was organized by people of African descent after the American Revolution. Its beliefs are Methodist, and its form of government is episcopal (governed by bishops). Today the A.M.E. Church has congregations on four continents. At the first meeting we attended, the main discussion was about securing a large enough meeting place for an NAACP conference. I suggested that they contact the local high school district office. We both attended the conference held in the Fontana High School auditorium that year. After that conference, the local chapter invited me to ride on its float in a local parade--it may have been a July 4th parade. As I recall, the float was a decorated flatbed truck and there were three teenage girls in long dresses standing near the cab of the truck. I sat on the floor facing out the back, with several young children sitting facing me. I was supposed to be

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Heyer Saga reading to the children. Some of Robins faculty friends reported that there was very little in the way of racist comments where they stood. Robin was a member of the California Democratic Council, a grassroots organization. He invited Rev. Marcus Rickard, pastor of the AME, to give the opening prayer at a meeting of the county Democratic Council. A vacancy in our California Assembly District occurred in 1962, when the incumbent decided to run for a higher office. I dont remember the requirements for filing for candidacy in the 1962 California Primary election. Members of the California Democratic Council in San Bernardino County tended to be more conservative in the more isolated smaller outlying communities and more liberal in the towns and cities with higher population. The split in the party resulted in Robin losing the nomination. We moved to Citrus Heights the following year, buying a house on a quarter acre lot. For the first time, we stayed in a place where I began to put down roots and build friendships. A friend from high school, Mary Edwards, lived in nearby Orangevale. She had ALS (Lou Gehrigs disease) that required her to use a wheel chair. Since she could not drive, I frequently visited her in her home. Born in Oklahoma, she moved with her family to California before my family moved there. We remained dear friends until her death in the mid-1990s. I met Janet Stevens through the Camp Fire Girls program. She taught Blue Birds, when I went to her home to register Jules in that program. We became fast friends and remain so to this day, almost fifty years later. We keep in touch via telephone. Janet owned a kiln and opened her home to women who wanted to work with ceramics. She owned a number of molds for ceramic, which she generously allowed her students to use. We met weekly to clean and paint our items, which she then fired in the kiln. It was great fun, and I enjoyed making knick knacks which I gave to relatives. When we moved to Santa Clara in 1960 I became friends with Lupe Daniels, whose daughter enrolled in my Camp Fire Girls class. Lupe and I Chapter 28 - Thelma, page 501

Heyer Saga still keep in touch by phone since she and her husband moved to Amador County after his retirement. I was happy to return to Citrus Heights when Robin moved from State to Federal employment in 1970. It was good getting back into my small circle of friends and acquaintances in that community. After reading a book, The Imprisoned Splendor, published by the Theosophical Society, I became interested in extra sensory perception, reincarnation, and other esoteric subjects. Through a newspaper ad in the Sacramento Bee, I learned of a Theosophical Society Study Group meeting in Sacramento. Janet agreed to go with me to a meeting. It was a bit boring because they simply read aloud from a book, but I was excited to expand my connections. The facilitator, Donna, led the closing with the group chanting Om. Her voice was clear and bell-like. As we got into the car to go home, Janet turned to me and said, I felt like laughing out loud when they did the Oming, but I didnt want to embarrass you. I was glad she had kept silent. Donna opened her Orangevale home to several women who came once a week to a study group. I switched to that and never returned to the evening group in Sacramento. When we moved to Santa Clara in 1968, I was sorry to leave Citrus Heights because of the new friendships in that Theosophical group. Upon our return to Citrus Heights two years later, several members had moved away and the group had disbanded. Janet and Mary became my lifeline again. I had no regrets about moving to El Granada in 1976, but I was terribly lonely. Most of the homes in our neighborhood had working couples, with no one home in the daytime. I began seeking local part time jobs. Work History My first job as typist/clerk in the Adult Education Office in Inglewood ended when complications occurred in my first pregnancy. I resigned and took it easy, but had a miscarriage a few months later. My next clerical job with the Inglewood Water Department, ended when we moved to Fontana. Chapter 28 - Thelma, page 502

Heyer Saga Unwilling to drive to any job over the hill in Pacifica or San Mateo, I found several part time jobs on the coast: 1. Straw Flower Farm in Montara: where we tied bouquets of straw flowers with florists wire 2. Candle Factory in Moss Beach: where I was assigned to a group that packaged scented candles in boxes. 3. I had no regrets about moving to El Granada in 1976, but I was terribly lonely. Most of the homes in our neighborhood had working couples, with no one home in the daytime. For special needs children: Georgina cared for five severely brain damaged children in her home in Moss Beach. 4. TIC (Teaching of the Inner Christ) Church in San Franciscos Bernal Heights: where I did clerical work and ran errands. 5. Half Moon Bay Review, weekly newspaper circulation department: I maintained the circulation files and helped with the weekly address labels. I left the HMB Review to enroll in the pre-nursing program at the College of San Mateo where I took classes in Biology, Chemistry, Biochemistry, Microbiology, Anatomy and Physiology, Child Development, and Psychology, besides the other general education courses. I found the stress overwhelming when I actually began the nursing program itself. I talked with two RN friends. One was head nurse at Seton Coastside Hospital and had graduated from the CSM program and the other RN friend had worked at Mount Sinai Hospital in San Francisco until her retirement some years back. They both shared that the stress level during nursing school was unrelenting. I told Robin I was going to drop out of the program. He urged me to hang in there, but I told him the stress was too much for me. After dropping out of the nursing program, I continued to work toward my A.A. degree in Liberal Arts, completing it and going through the graduation ceremony only to be notified that one three-unit course did not quality as a required course in that field of study. My

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Heyer Saga intention at the time was to transfer to San Francisco State University, but never followed through. So Im almost an A.A. holder. In 1997 a friend mentioned a clerical opening at her place of employment, Wadsworth Publishing in Belmont, California. I applied and was hired to replace the regular employee until her return from maternity leave. When the job ended, my boss, John Zotz, recommended me to the head of the Marketing Department, Stan Evans. I was hired as a part time word processor, typing book descriptions for catalogs aimed for marketing to high schools offering college credit courses. I loved working there. My boss, Karen Richardson, gave permission for me to come in an hour early (7:00 a.m. instead of 8:00) in order to avoid the heavy daily commute traffic over Hwy 92. I moved up to catalog coordinator after a couple of years. Then the marketing department was moved to Cincinnati and I transferred to another department until it was transferred out of state. From there I ended up as Administrative Assistant to a tiny group that marketed directly to high schools. It was left behind when the bigger marketing department moved out of state. In 1993, I retired when I became eligible for Social Security. Robin had retired at the beginning of 1990 and was working at Baraban Securities as a broker. Cindy and Rosie had moved to El Granada where Rosie was enrolled in second grade at El Granada Elementary School, a block from our home. Cindy dropped her off at our house on her way to work. Robin walked her to school and back to our home after school. I joined an adult exercise class at Senior Coastsiders in Half Moon Bay, a 501.c.3 organization for seniors and adult handicapped persons. Thats where I began to finally make local friends, although most of them lived in Half Moon Bay, three miles south of El Granada. Volunteerism In Fontana I served as treasurer for the PTA of North Tamarind School and I volunteered to go door to door soliciting for the Heart Fund. I didnt enjoy soliciting door to door. In Citrus Heights, and later in Santa Clara, I was a volunteer leader of Camp Fire groups. Chapter 28 - Thelma, page 504

Heyer Saga AARP In El Granada, after retirement from Wadsworth, I joined AARP which met regularly at the senior center. Dorothy Tigerman, chairperson at that time, invited me to become the official greeter who stood near the door and offered ID tags to members as they entered. Dorothy did me a great favor by doing that. I learned the names of other members and began to accept that I was a member, not just an observer attending meetings. After several years of rotation of board members, since most members declined to accept board offices, it became my turn to serve as chairperson. As I recall, it was during my term that we finally disbanded the local AARP. I did not take that disbandment as my personal responsibility or failure as a leaderit seemed the practical thing to do. Attendance had steadily declined as members died off or became unable to attend meetings and board members were tired of rotating from one office to another. Senior Peer Counseling In Anna Sewarts exercise class at the senior center, I met Heidi Putzker, She was 18 years older than I and seemed like an older sister to me. Heidi mentioned that the county Senior Peer Counseling program was starting a new training program that I might be interested in. She put me in touch and I trained to become a volunteer Senior Peer Counselor in 1995. This program was organized under the auspices of the San Mateo County Mental Health agency. Trainees reported to San Mateo for twelve weeks, three hours each on Tuesdays and Thursdays for a total of 72 hours of training by county social Workers, Delia McGrath and Carol Bomberger. The five community Peer Counselor groups met weekly with their own social worker supervisor. On the Coastside we met with Jack Wallace, head of the local county mental health office. We received our individual assignments from Jack and reported on them at weekly meetings. I loved Jacks approach to offering advice: another way to look at ----is ---. After a couple of years the group was turned over to Joan Perris, new social worker for Senior Coastsiders. My favorite assignee was a woman in her

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Heyer Saga upper 80s who was born and raised in San Francisco by immigrant parents from Sicily. She was feisty and adorablemuch like my own mother. I loved hearing her stories of dropping out of school at twelve and getting a job in a company that made something large (I dont remember what) out of heavy canvas fabric. The Coastside peer counseling group was disbanded after a few years, apparently because we didnt get referrals from local medical practitioners. Too often we would visit a new referral from Joan and be told by the client that he or she didnt want the service. I wondered if they agreed in the first place because they were charmed by Joan and didnt want to say no to her. After the peer counseling program closed, Anna Sewart invited me to offer Reiki to her exercise class for residents of the Seton Coastside hospital and nursing home in Moss Beach. The residents who took part met in the Fireside meeting room and sat in their chairs or wheelchairs for sitting exercises. Anna explained to the group about Reiki and asked for a show of hands of those who wanted to experience it. I then walked down between the rows, placing my hands on the shoulders and heads of those who had raised their hand. As I started past a white haired woman who had not raised her hand, she suddenly turned her head and said Do me!. After that, she was always one of the regulars to receive Reiki. She was originally from Mexico and supposedly did not speak English. It turned out she understood it pretty well. I always thought of her as Senorashe had a very dignified appearance. About that time, Kate OShea, supervisor of the Physical Therapy department at Seton, invited me to join a new Touch program she wanted to initiate at Seton. I began to eagerly recruit some of my former Reiki students. We were assigned patients and worked with them either in their rooms or in the PT room. The patient I worked with the longest had been at the hospital fifteen years. Part of his skull had been blown away by a gun shot wound and he could not talk. He could write by being hooked up to a contraption that allowed him to grip a pen and laboriously print his messages. I was told that the part of his brain that controlled emotions was damaged. He almost always seemed happy but he could scowl when he was displeased or uncomfortable. Kate confided that she was hoping Chapter 28 - Thelma, page 506

Heyer Saga some pretty girl would become a volunteer and work with him to write about his life. As time went by no such volunteer appeared, so I told Kate I would like to give it a try. She okayed it as long as the patient agreed. He did and we met regularly after that working on his story. This patient had established a bond with Robert, a middle aged man who volunteered in the PT department and happened to be one of my Reiki students. He was willing to give it a try, so I asked the patient whether he would like that. He wrote, Yes, you and Robert take good care of me. After five years of volunteering at Seton, I needed a change because it felt like I was just going through the motionsmy heart was no longer in it, just as it had been when I quit working with Georgina and the handicapped children. So I left that volunteer activity with a light heart. Friends of the Half Moon Bay Library During that period I had also become a volunteer in the Friends of the HMB Library group. Early on, I became the recording secretary. (I see a pattern herehmm did I go around with a sign on my forehead saying Secretary or Clerk? I did enjoy doing that, though). The Friends of the library held annual book sales to raise funds for the library. At my first participation in a sale, volunteers were sorting through the books to separate them into display as novels, fictions, etc. At one point I said aloud to Paul and Peter, two male volunteers, Oh I love this. We are creating order out of chaos. Paul replied, No, its more like chaos to chaos. I cracked up both of them when I said something like, When I talk to you two guys Its like talking to the apostles. Pumpkin Festival The 4H group had a booth at the annual Pumpkin Festival in which they were allowed to sell pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin bread, and coffee to raise funds. Members signed up for time slots and an adult had to be in the booth at all times. I did that when Nona and Rose were members of 4H. Another time, I volunteered too.

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Heyer Saga Reiki at the HMB Senior Center In 2003, I volunteered to offer free weekly twenty-minute Reiki sessions at the senior center. One of my friends, Rose Ann Duncan, agreed to participate. She invited a friend of hers to join us, I did the same, and over time the participating volunteers grew and continues ten years later. Annual Cancer Walk I was invited to set up a table in the tent at Cunha Middle School for participants in the walk. Although Ive been invited back, somehow that has not appealed to me since then. Free Reiki Share Meetings After beginning to offer Reiki classes in my home, I also offered free Reiki Share meetings weekly. I urged my students to participate because regular use increases ones ability to transmit Reiki. Over the years, I have found that those who attended Reiki Share regularly, even if only for a few months, tended to stay with Reiki and use it while those who did not tended to drop it after a while. Center For Conscious Health In the late 1990s a group of five complementary health practitioners formed the Center for Conscious Health on the Coastside. Members met regularly at a local coffee shop. The founders hoped it would create a bridge between complementary health practitioners and the traditional allopathic doctors. That didnt happen--with the exception of two female doctors, who agreed to speak at one of the meetings. All but one of the founders moved away by the year 2000. By that time, I was a member of the board and, like the AARP; the board members were rotating through the offices, trying to keep the organization from folding. When I assumed chairmanship, I sent an email to all the former members asking for input on how to revive enthusiasm and motivate members. Only one person replied, thanking the board for its dedication but giving to recommendations. I reported to the board that we seemed to be beating a Chapter 28 - Thelma, page 508

Heyer Saga dead horsemaybe the group had run its course and it was time to disband. They all agreed. I believed they all wanted to do this but no one wanted to be the one to announce the emperor had not clothes. We had a tad over $1800 in the treasury. One member suggested we throw a big party and invite all the former members to a big blast. I cautioned that since it was a 501.c.3 community service organization, we could not use the funds for anything except the purposes set forth in our charter namely to do with educating the public. We ended up writing a check to the Coastside Collaborative, an umbrella organization for local community service groups. I personally delivered the check to the chairman of the Coastside Collaborative with specific instructions that the funds could only be used for that purpose. I reported to the Center for Conscious Health board members that I would personally see to filing papers with the state to dissolve our group and I would keep the records for the statutory time required. I didnt want this to come back and bite us, as former board members, somewhere down the line. Actually, I still have those documents stored in our garage, ten and a half years after dissolution of the organization. ICAW--International Church of Ageless Wisdom Meanwhile, I had never followed through with intentions to enroll at San Francisco State University. I joined a local womens book club, The Book of the Moon Club, organized and led by Pamela Eakins, PhD. Through that connection, I enrolled in Pamelas classes on Tarot and on The Year of the Goddess. And from there to a two year ICAW seminary. This seminary was a major step for me. Lasting friendships have grown out of it. Mission Hospice training After ordination, I contacted Mission Hospice in San Mateo and enrolled in their training program for hospice volunteers. The training took place over six consecutive Saturdays from 12:00 to 2:30 pm. We were required to attend evening meetings at the headquarters, but I dont remember whether they were weekly or not.

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Heyer Saga I was only willing to volunteer on the Coastside. I never received any assignment. An acquaintance who had also taken the training, but had not limited her participation to Coastside, seldom was called on. Eventually, I resigned. Then in 2006, I enrolled in the Sutter Visiting Nurse Association and Hospice program out of San Mateo. They did not require me to take the training but I did have an interview with the coordinator of volunteers. I specified that I preferred to offer Reiki touch to patients on the Coastside from Montara through Half Moon Bay. My first patient, Michael, was ideal for a beginning volunteer. He was a man around 60 years old. He was not in pain but had low energy and was usually lying on the couch when I arrived. I sat on a footstool and worked on his head and chest, ending with his feet. After the first session, Michael shared that his mother used to massage his feet when he was young. After a few visits, the volunteer coordinator asked if I would be willing to offer Reiki to Michaels wife, Sue, was a former nurse who had taken Healing Touch training in the past. She owned a massage table and, from then on, kept it in the living room for our sessions. The day the chaplain visited, she said beside the head of the table during the session, chatting with Michael in a getting-acquainted manner as I applied Reiki. She asked him what Reiki felt like to him. Michael answered that he always felt peaceful after a Reiki session. The Chaplain then replied that that was a great recommendation for Reiki. Sue received Reiki gratefully. After that, the volunteer coordinator approached me about offering Reiki training to other volunteers. We did that in my home. Hospice volunteering was very rewarding. After about five years with this program two of my assignees died within the same week. One of them was on a morphine pump for pain and did not seem aware that I was there. She is the only one who died during my visit. The other was the husband of an acquaintance of mine. He was very alert and loved to talk. I asked about a large round wood carving over the fireplace, labeled If the Creek Dont Rise. He said most people think that refers to a body of water, but

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Heyer Saga actually it referred to the Creek Indians during early days. Interesting but I have no idea whether that is the real meaning. After five years in the program, I was burning outgoing through the motions. It was time to stop. Currently, I attend a weekly meditation/study group in HMB. In August, I will resume attending the QiGung class, taught by local acupuncturist Judy Pruzinsky, when it resumes in HMB. The BOMC book club meets the first Saturday of every month at the Methodist church in HMB. On the first Wednesday of each month, I meet with five fellow friends who received the ICAW ordination together in 1998. We have tarot readings and go to lunch together. A group of Reiki practitioners meet at the HMB senior center to offer free 20 minute sessions to seniors. I walk above the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve at least once a week with good friend Joysometimes more often, depending on our mutual calendars. My Children What am I proudest of in my children? After starting on this topic, Ive come to realize that proud is not the right word to express what I feel about my children. To me, in that context, there is a definite ego connection inherent in the word proudas if I were responsible for somehow personally creating particular qualities or achievements. The word admire more accurately describes what I feel about my childrens personal qualities and achievements. Collectively, as well individually, I admire each of them for finding their own path and making their way in life on their own. I deeply admire each one of them for maturing into a genuinely good and caring human being. I admire each of my children for completing high school, especially the three youngest who attended alternative schools and, at my insistence afterwards, took the GED test and used the high school equivalency as a springboard for later college entry which led eventually to completion of degree programs in college.

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Heyer Saga None of them was held back in school, although two were recommended to skip a grade in elementary school. I was not in favor of that. In the first case, that childs birthday, late in the year, had made the age difference in the new grade less of an adjustment factor than in the case of the second child, who was already among the younger children in class, with a birthday falling near the start of each school term. Robin was in favor of allowing them to skip a grade because the November cutoff date for enrolling in kindergarten had come just nine days before his fifth birthday and consequently prevented him from beginning school until two months before he turned six. He believed that had held him back from achieving his education goals earlier. Background: In my family of birth, no big deal was made of either grades or education in general, especially for girls. Both of my brothers, Clarence and Hal, dropped out of high school after tenth grade. Clarence joined the U.S. Navy in 1942, just after the U.S. entry in War II. A few months short of the minimum enlistment age of seventeen, he brought home a parental consent enlistment form to be signed by my parents. At first my mother refused to sign but then relented when Clarence declared that she might as well sign, because he would forge her signature anyway. In the meantime, Hal, who was eleven months younger than Clarence, tried to enlist in the Merchant Marines but was turned down because of a hernia. Later, when he brought home a U.S. Navy parental consent form, my mother signed it believing that the Navy would also turn him down, but lo and behold, he was accepted. Like so many girls of my generation, I expected to finish high school and get a job to mark time until eventually getting married. In high school I took secretarial courses to acquire job skills and, upon graduation, was hired as a typist/clerk in the night school office located on the campus of Inglewood High School. I admire my children for breaking through barriers that hampered me in my life, such as learning to swim! I enrolled each of them in summer swimming classes during their early years. As each of them progressed from tadpoles to minnows, etc., in swimming classes, I felt admiration and satisfaction for their achievements because I was afraid of water.

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Heyer Saga Background: After moving to California in 1945, when I was 14, my Dad used to take Mom, my sister Wanda, and me out for drives on weekends. One day we were allowed to invite Annie, a neighbor girl, to come along for an outing to Colorado Lagoon, a protected wetland with a Marine Education Science Center in Long Beach, California. My parents sat on the sand watching the three of us as we frolicked in the water, surrounded mostly by much younger children. We ventured too far out to where the sand suddenly dropped off. We couldnt find our footingthe water was too deep! Annie, who was the shortest, grabbed Wanda around the neck and the two of them began bobbing in the water. I was a little farther out than the two of them. Much younger children were paddling around me as I frantically bobbed up and down trying to find footing. Although I thought I was yelling for help at the top of my voice, apparently no one heard me. My father started for the water but was stopped by the lifeguard who pulled Wanda and Annie. I was in a state of panic thinking he wasnt coming back to rescue me. None of us required first aid but, even so, all three of us were afraid to go in the water from then on. Wanda and I compared memories as adults, sharing that after that incident at Colorado Lagoon, neither of us could stand to have water even hit our face in the shower! We lost touch with Annie after her family moved away and have no idea whether she ever overcame fear of the water. Wanda and I both enrolled our children in swimming classes when they were very young. Wandas husband Ralph taught her to swim, but she never really learned to enjoy it. At age 62, after retiring from my job at Wadsworth Publishing, I began driving our granddaughter Rosie to summer swimming lessons at La Petite Baleen, a private swimming school in Half Moon Bay. Rosie was afraid of the water at first, but advanced to water ballet over several summers. Watching Rosie and the other children learn to swim motivated me to address my own fear of the water. After Rosies class, one day, I asked at the office whether I could take a private swimming class there. Permission

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Heyer Saga was granted on the condition that my private class would be taught one side of the pool simultaneously with a class for young kindergarten aged children on the other side of the pool. By the end of that series of classes, I could manage to get to the deep end of the pool, catch hold of the deck with both hands, take a deep breath, and force myself down underwater. Discovering immediately that my body was buoyant enough to pop me back up to the surface, as far as I was concerned, that was enough--I had conquered a degree of fear of being in water and had no interest in actually learning to swim. Having learned how to tread water, I knew I could survive even if I should ever fall into a body of water! I admire Cindys courage in going through neurosurgery for epilepsy. I admire her for never letting epilepsy be an obstacle. I admire how she raised her daughter, Rosy, who also has matured into a genuinely good and caring person. I admire that Cindy earned a B.A. in anthropology. I especially admire that, despite growing up with a worry-prone mother (whose hobby was worry, according to one of my children during her early teens), Cindy has followed her spirit of adventure throughout lifeincluding spending her junior year of college in Israel, and not being afraid to complete that program despite the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. I admire her for going overseas and returning home more mature and more independent. I admire her artistic creativity and her resourcefulness in meeting lifes challenges. I admire her ability to see the good in others. I admire Dina for deciding on her own to live with my parents during my Dads last year of life, following his treatment for cancer. I admire her for completing the nursing program at El Camino College during that time. I admire her devotion and dedication to her own family. I admire that, despite living in an area tainted by racism, she has sought out and nurtured positive connections so that her outlook on life has not been tainted or diminished by living in that environment. I admire her for attending various local churches, seeking spiritual sustenance on her path, and for leaving those that didnt live up to her spiritual and humanitarian ideals. I admire Chapter 28 - Thelma, page 514

Heyer Saga her music interests--in high school she was in the school chorus performance of Handels Messiah. And I admire her for participating in choral presentations at U.C. Berkeley. I admire her artistic and linguistics abilities. I admire her for earning a Masters degree in Sociology at East Texas University and training, later on, to teach English as a Second Language and then working in that field. I admire the loving, caring way she raised her children. I admire that despite experiencing debilitating migraines, she has faced lifes trials with courage. I especially admire her gentle, loving, and calming presence. I admire Jeffs dedication with which he has pursued his creative path, obtaining a Bachelors degree in Theater Arts at U.C. Santa Cruz, California and throughout his life. I admire his participation in, and enthusiasm for, the puppet shows performed along with Cindy and Dina in the local library. I admire his enthusiasm and especially his gift for imagining plots and then improvising the needed props with all sorts of ordinary things about the household. He wrote, produced, filmed, edited and acted in silent movies made on Super 8 mm film, usually with subtitles. I admire the enthusiasm he took to the summer school film making class at San Juan High School and many of the films he made during that time included his friends, Brian Luke, Carl Olson, and others from the film class. At San Juan High School, he tried out for a role in Dracula, Baby, written and directed by one of the students. He was chosen to play the role of Dracula. I admired that immensely! I was so happy to see him up on stage and so engaged in theater and movie-making. I have admired every performance of his that we have been fortunate enough to see over the years. Whether comedy or drama, I have enjoyed each of them. Most of all, I especially admire Jeff for maturing into a kind and thoughtful man with an essential goodness at the core of his being. Background: Using a library copy of Bram Stokers Dracula, our family around the table at home reading aloud from the book. Jeff came up with wonderful accents for Dracula, Renfield, and Van Helsing. Was it a coincidence that Dracula Baby appeared on the horizon right after that? Or was it fate?

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Heyer Saga I admire Jules for becoming independent at age 17. I was sorry to see her leave home to live in San Francisco, but felt it was very brave of her to do that--I lived with my parents until I married four months before my 20th birthday. I admire Jules for pursuing and getting training in letterpress printing on her own. I admire her sunny, loving disposition as well as her spontaneity. I remember once when a small carnival came to a strip mall in Fontana, where we lived at the time. Jules was about three years old and Winona was a babe in arms. The older children wanted to go on the Ferris Wheel. Naturally, three-year-old Jules did not want to be left behind, so Robin rode with themthe five of them taking up two adjacent seats. I stayed firmly on the ground holding infant Winona in my arms. Each time their seats on the wheel began the descent, I could hear Jules joyous squeals of pure delight. I admire her deep respect for each persons autonomy. I admire her for honoring the deathbed wishes of her husband Chris, despite pressure from others at the time. I admire her for pursuing a Bachelors Degree that deepened her capacity for compassion. I admire Winona for joining the 4H program and taking the animal care to heart. I admire her love of animals, demonstrated by her care for her rabbits and our goat in 4H, her first dog Thora Heyerdog, and her current bassets. I admire the loving way she has raised her three children, who have matured into kind, considerate adults. I admire her for acquiring the CAD (Computer Aided Design) training and then getting a job at the NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field in Mountain View, California. I admire her for pursuing a Bachelors Degree, followed by a Masters Degree at San Jose State Universityprograms initiated while raising her family as well as having full time employment. I admire her creativity shown in her oil and pastel paintings as well as the beautiful photographs she has produced over the years. I admire her good practical approach to life and the way she has incorporated church into her life. I admire her generosity and love of her family of birth as well as her own immediate family. I admire Martha Roses 4H participation. I admire her for learning to milk and for taking turns with Nona in milking Zella, the goat Robin bought in Chino on a trip to Southern California. I admire her for entering one of Chapter 28 - Thelma, page 516

Heyer Saga her chickens in the county fair and for entering Zot, Zellas kid, in a number of local county fairs and finally in the State Fair in Sacramento. I admire Rose for also acquiring the CAD (Computer Aided Design) training and then getting a job at the NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field in Mountain View, California. I admire Rose for moving to Vermont to attend a private school near Cindy during her teens and later on for moving to Massachusetts to study at Hampshire College, Amherst, and the University of Massachusetts. I admire that immensely-- for a shy person, thats huge. I admire her for getting her A.S. degree in GIS (Geographic Information Systems). I admire her independence. I admire her open heart and sensitive nature as well as her deep spirituality. My Gifted Grandchildren We have been blessed with six bright and talented grandchildren and one great grandchild. I look forward to witnessing the further blossoming of their talents in the coming years. First born was bright, articulate, and talented Eileen Rachel Gainer. I admire Eileens courage and strength in leaving Texas, her state of birth, to rebuild her life in the northwestern state of Washington. Two thumbs up for that! I admire and enjoy her creative writing, painting, and photography. About eleven months later, Eileens brother, Ethan Christopher Gainer, arrived. I admire Ethans wonderful musical talent and his sunny disposition. They are a pleasure to experience. Rosa Noelle Heyer came along a tad over fifteen months after Ethan. Her happy personality fits her nickname Rosie. I admire Rosies optimism and practical approach to life. Vanessa Mae Soma was born about fifteen and a half months after Rosa. I admire Vanessas idealism and passion for the law and justice. Less than three years later, Vanessas sister Erica Ashley Soma was born. From her earliest years, Erica showed a talent for gymnastics, dance, and sports. Her athletic ability earned her an athletic scholarship. I

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Heyer Saga admire that ability and Ericas participation in the last two Boston marathons. Kyle Evan Soma joined his sisters two years plus a few months after Ericas birth. I admire Kyles ability to assess a situation and to both take appropriate action and say the right words to be heardadmirable qualities! Great Grandson John Michael Gainer was born on August 14, 2012. At eleven months, we know him by photographs and DVD recordings. He, too, is a blessings in our lives. May each of these dear ones be blessed with the ability to meet lifes challenges with the strength and courage of their parents! Moms Artwork Mom says she started to embroider the deer back when living in Fontana. Then she put it aside while raising the little ones. She finished it after moving to Citrus Heights. She framed it herself, and made the fabric mat border by wrapping bias tape around a cut-out cardboard frame. Brilliant!

This collage was something Mom made circa 2009. She says she became really interested in making collages from a workshop she took sometime in the mid2000s. She made several over the next few years. This one depicts her connection with spirituality and with humanity. I just love it!

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Heyer Saga

EPILOGUE: A SUMMARY
I have climbed to the Pinnacle of tall Mt. Whitney, In Californias Sierra Nevada Mountains. I have looked from there Out across our great land. I have gazed at the great World Ocean, and the Sky, bright and dark. I have trod along The land, and rested On the sand. I have sailed down part of the Rhine River, and less Of the Far-Eastern Russian Amur. I have gone to Egypt, But never down the Nile, Yet lived in California Almost all the while. I long sought my beloved Thelma, But knew her not, ere we met, til she crossed a great plain and Overcame official obstacles to find me.

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Heyer Saga We met because of a common Aim, and raised six wondrous children, All now grown, and even more Wondrous and beloved adults, Six grandchildren, and one great-grandchild, Still too young to safely visit me, as I Am too old to visit him, But his birth deeply pleaseth me, And, as I often gaze At photographs of His fresh young face. I have sought to encourage, inform, And assist my children, But never to force their choices Or their goals. I have brought justice to airline Stewardesses unlawfully forced into Losing their jobs for marrying, When airline corporations set about To end the young ladies wishes to marry, Though California law forbade such outrages. I have been called to improve justice Throughout the nation and even On island possessions in the Pacific Ocean, In Chicago, in Appalachia (pneumoconiosis), Guam, Samoa, etc. I have struggled to bring justice to Injured employees, to help new agencies Without existing Administrative Law Judges To rule in a first case, etc., all to bring What had been lacking before. I always was ready and willing to go

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Heyer Saga Wherever and whenever there was a need For justice not yet enforced. Yet, when any authority refused to permit me To enforce genuine justice, in any area, I left the agency and pressed on in another. When a villainous U.S. president set out to block Justice in the nation, I resigned and retired. Years of spreading, defending, and enforcing What is right was well worth the effort and

Eighty-two years and seven months ago (as of November 10, 2011) I have led a surprisingly long and full life, full of revelations, discoveries, experiences, and opportunities. This life has included responsibility, reflection, experiment, discovery, love, work, and various efforts. From age twelve to thirty-two, a major goal was to change our world to a better place for those who would come after, through a political role. This effort failed in a manner that disproved my ability to play that role successfully. After that, my efforts were confined to narrower and more modest efforts to discover, to share discoveries, to play smaller roles that might make life better at least for some people and to provide for family. Now that I feel my physical strength and stamina and my mental concentration and perception fading, my overarching concern is trying to do more to help my family survive and flourish when I am gone. I hope my teaching helped at least a few people but that I can never know. At least it seemed for a time that in a few cases, at least, I was able to raise the level of justice applied in the administration of the California Unemployment Insurance program, the U.S. Social Security Act, the U.S.

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Heyer Saga Black Lung statutes, and the U.S. Department of Labor Longshoremens Act. Struggle is tolerable, but one moment of mere acceptance of income from a villainous president could not be borne, so at last I retired without a moment of regret. History, like Nanki-poo in the light opera The Mikado, is a Wandring minstrel . . . a thing of threads and patches, of ballad songs and snatches, and beautiful lullabies . . .. It is also a shared memory of a nation, a culture, or more appropriately, our time, of humanity itself, not vicious ambitions and destructive wars. For the Epilogue, 3/28/13: Before my arrival, the Western Hemisphere had begun to recognize the need for democracy, fairness, a degree of independence, peace, and unity among nations. Other nations may have been doing so too, but not many or powerful ones. From the time of Jefferson and his immediate successors, Madison, Monroe, and J. Q. Adams, the ideas of universal male voting, simple and modest rather than outrageous official titles, forging a united America across the country and without imperialism, all became increasingly popular. Although wars were fading out in both our nation and increasingly in Latin America, both economic and military threats continued to trouble many nations. Woodrow Wilson had tried to bring progress and an effective international organization to further stabilize international conditions, but four successive Republican presidents effectively shattered this effort. Clearly our greatest president, Franklin D. Roosevelt [pronounced Rose-evelt but meaning rose field) set out in 1933 to upgrade and update our nation and its institutions and to bring the nation out of the misery and suffering caused by his irresponsible predecessors.

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Heyer Saga For the Epilogue, 5/12/13: Before that, Word War I had destroyed Austria-Hungary, shattered Turkey and some smaller countries, and the most Imperialist powers were still trying to conquer the rest. The result was World War II, with widespread catastrophic disasters, and the vast, worldwide disasters. Nevertheless, Franklin D. Roosevelt used the occasion of all this existing pain and ruin to change this world to a significantly better one than humans have ever had before (in just over four terms before his long, glorious life ran out. His vice President, Harry Truman and a few other outstanding U.S. presidents (John Kennedy, etc.) carried that effort still further). As a result, most of North America, Latin America, European Common Market, South Korea, Japan, many major Island Nations in the Pacific Ocean, parts of India and of North and South Africa now consist of relatively free and somewhat independent nations trying to live in peace with their neighbors. Russia, though, is not yet really democratic, as its citizens seem to want it to be. The rest of Asia, China, and the large middle of Africa remain troubled and troubling. For the Epilogue, 5/13/13: Throughout all of the long time in which humans have lived on earth (except, perhaps, a relatively brief, unproven and unknown time when humans may have been too few to think of such outrageous behavior), some have constantly engaged in murdering other humans, including throughout my life, my beloved wife Thelmas, WWII, then other wars, the creating of the United Nations Organization (UNO), and into the further inexcusable wars of the two Bushes! Of course, even now, not every villain is yet gone Even so, today most North Americans, Europeans, South Koreans, Aseans (peoples of the Pacific Ocean south of Viet Nam: Malaysia,

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Heyer Saga Sumatra, Borneo, Sulawesi, and Java), Australia, New Zealand, India, Pakistan (the two separate nations, West and East, i.e., Pakistan and Bangladesh), Turkey, North Africa, and perhaps Ethiopia, Kenya, and some smaller nations even in the parts of long-downtrodden Africa, all appear to have now chosen to live at peace with each other indefinitely! This is certainly important progress just in our lifetime, especially in light of our incredibly long and wasteful past history. It is certainly a Great Leap Forward, as Mao would have said. Of course, that is not yet the whole story. Much of Asia and parts of Africa are still plagued with internal, competitive, and destructive goals. Some of these are probably small enough that they can be resolved peacefully, in time. A few may require forceful resistance against force to, in time, enable humanity an escape from further useless suffering China now seems likely to be the most dangerous risk. China has largely, if not entirely recovered from its most recent travails in dealing with foreign conquests and intended conquests European incursions and Japan. It has to some degree modernized itself and become a powerful and successful nation. Nevertheless, it has also undertaken the wrongheaded path from that achievement to further conquest of the area that formerly housed Europeans and others mentioned in Chinese history to crush, swallow, and eliminate one complete nation in what has become northwest China. Also crushed and destroyed a second former nation, Tibet, and a portion of northeast India. More recently, although not attacking northward (eastern Russia is too cold?), China claims ownership of essentially all the islands between Japan and China, and presumably further, either south or west. This situation does not appear to bode well. I still hope that they may, of their own accord, relax this revived current spate of imperialism, but that remains to be seen. I shant be around long enough to know the outcome. Let us hope that wiser heads prevail. Beyond China, a whole new Asia has developed, despite considerable further trouble by would-be invaders and conquerors, but I Epilogue, page 524

Heyer Saga suspect that most of those will in due course settle down and abandon their course of insanity and help make the world better for those, who by then, will have survived. For the Epilogue, 5/13, 2013 The birds in our yard have now all completed their billing and cooing, making and mostly completing their nests. Perhaps they have already borne their offspring, though I have not seen them. Now they speak only early and briefly, refining their nests, pursuing food for themselves and their offspring. The trees are mostly quiet, as new young grow, mostly away from our home, because mostly our trees no longer survive. For the Epilogue, 5/14/13: As mentioned earlier or previously, by the time of our honest newspaper (the Los Angeles Daily News, later destroyed and driven out of business), and our greatest American President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, I had realized that humans, through the entire period in which they had existed, had been continuously, busily murdering each other until that time without ever thinking sensibly. By that time, therefore, it was inescapably obvious that this perpetual and altogether evil and pointless practice needed to start being more sensibly corrected or at least trying to improve this utterly insane behavior. For the Epilogue, 5/15/13: When Ethan Gainer was a preschooler, the Gainers visited for an extended period and Ethan got homesick; he only said one word at a time at that age and kept saying simply, Home! Home! For the Epilogue, 5/18/13: Our daughter Winona asked, urged me to write my own autobiography. Accordingly, I set about it. Soon, however, it became clear that as a mere leaf, blown down by a passing wind, the story, although it recorded some passing events, must not be just about me nor mine, or

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Heyer Saga even our entire extended family, but rather about this passing near century, and the names of people and events of this period. Thus, our children, grandchildren, great grandchild, and any others interested may be able to remember some aspects of our time. It is also my hope that these two tiny bits of the past of our entire family may be furthered by discoveries and insights pursued, that it may be added to from time to time, giving it a sense of continuity as time passes and hopefully, our family continues to an ever increased extended family. For the Epilogue, 5/18/13: Dina asked Dad to think of all the advances in science, medicine, technology made during his lifetime. Then asked which would he say was the greatest? He thinks there was not really one greater than the rest. Its the fact that progress is continually made and there is always another step to be made. We never reach the end; we can never say we know it all. There is always more to learn and another advance to be made as long as humans exist. For the Epilogue, 5/19/13: I never cared to be rich, famous, impressively dressed, or any of that nonsense, never expected to be, and never was. What has always mattered has been providing for my beloved wife, Thelma, and our six children and six grandchildren, and our recent great grandchild, and making life a little better for as many honest, hard-working people as possible, by teaching at a number of different levels, and in proper and fair law enforcement. For the Epilogue, 5/30/13: The names proclaimed for a series of organizations invented in the century before I was born (1929) that would be 1829 to 1929, a whole series of fake American names to disguise the intents of self-seeking politicians. There were at least a dozen names, maybe two dozen after the Republicans made their first blunder. A group (Hartford Convention) Epilogue, page 526

Heyer Saga met to secede from the Union it destroyed their credibility so they started inventing names, but that proved inadequate because the people they placed as their nominees were all incompetent. After that various fake British titles were used: Whigs, Tories. The Know-Nothing Party was at the end of that process, they were not fooling anybody, so called it the Grand Old Party, eventually going back to being called Republicans. They were just a bunch of villains, plain and simple. For the Epilogue, 6/10/13: (Dad) I remember Jules was the most enthusiastic of all the children. You (speaking to her) seemed to enjoy everything you did with great gusto. I remember hearing you sounding the most excited. All the children were different. Jeff at the very beginning always saw things, saw possibilities. I remember we had two crockpots (cookie jars), with a sort of head-like thing on the top and you could take it off and put things in there. The two were slightly different. At one time, very, very early, Jeff was very small you could see he had a glow in his eyes and he went to them and switched the tops. The general shape of the beast that the rest of the jar portrayed now was altered. Cindy was more cautious. She told me she had an idea when she moved into some higher grade, that she wanted to do something different, such as pick out an occupation, so she would ask me about it. I dont think anybody else ever asked. They all knew what they wanted to do. Diana was always more subdued, more thoughtful. Nona had a number of talents always very creative, imaginative, inventive, working out various projects, ideas, and undertakings. She is unique in some ways, still creating. I see her with all sorts of animals she enjoyed taking care of encouraging them, enlarging her collection of them, fascinated by their behaviors and their natures and their characteristics. She was a very gentle person.

Epilogue, page 527

Heyer Saga Rose, too. She was particularly adept at being a peacemaker. She was always considerate and self-effacing, and perhaps as the youngest, the greatest beauty. For the Epilogue, 6/12/13, Conclusions (dictated to Jules): At least half a dozen determined attempts to try to summarize my conclusions about my lifetime have been attempted in significant detail, but it appears that some of these have not survived. Therefore, necessarily, I must once again try to proceed to the extent that I can, to try to outline what progress has happened during my lifetime, what tremendous progress has occurred after the long, persistent, vicious, and utterly insane long past, and what still remains for society to do to enable humankind finally to resolve its remaining necessary steps toward a consistent, rational, sensible, and peaceful future for the next generation. In this single, not yet finished century, [as I say from my 84th year] the Western Hemisphere has mostly united into multiple, peaceful, independent nations. However, beyond China and the problems it poses, there are a number of other more Western nations who also face both threats and risks. Most immediate, of course, is India, from which China has already taken a bite, as mentioned above, so there remains an issue to be faced and overcome. Next, for the rest, while much of Western Asia is still thinking in unreasonable terms of various local intrusions, conquests, or other unwise approaches, these nations seem smaller and less dangerous than those mentioned above. In the Pacific region particularly, and even in Northern and Southern Africa, the most mistreated continent in the world, it appears that the beginning of peace and democracy is developing at these two ends of that continent. In between, there are some areas making noticeable progress, some engaged in inexcusable misconduct and would-be imperialism, and perhaps a few cases where steps will have to be taken to stamp out downright villains who have chosen to harm some more central parts of Africa,

Epilogue, page 528

Heyer Saga but which I suspect the rest of that continent will deal with effectively by itself in a cooperative and intelligent way. This is the task of the next generation. For the Epilogue, 6/18/13: Seek not power, but only justice in our land.

Epilogue, page 529

Heyer Saga

Epilogue, page 530

Heyer Saga

APPENDIX A. EARLY INCOME DATA

Income during our first year of marriage and the years of birth of each of our six children (researched and composed by Thelma): Thelma and I married on August 19, 1951. Her federal income tax return for that year shows her gross income as a clerk-typist was $2,630. My parents claimed me as their dependent that year, so we have no record of my income from Sears Department Store and Price Catering. Our joint federal tax return for 1952 shows a gross income of $3,815. Our gross income for 1953, the year of Cindys birth was $2,539. It included $2,513 for teaching, $175 from Muntz TV where I worked from the end of the school year until induction into the U.S. Army, and $438 for military service in the army during the remainder of that year. When Diana May was born in 1954, we were living in El Paso, Texas, where I was stationed at Fort Bliss. My total income from the army that year was $1,211. Jeffrey Thomas was born in 1956, after we were living back in Fontana, California. My gross income from teaching high school and a summer school class was $5,478. Our fourth child, Julie Faye (later known as Jules Faye), was born in 1958. Our gross income from teaching that year was $4,455. In 1960, the year of Winona Aprils birth, our gross income from the San Bernardino County Counsels office was $7,253 plus $124 from teaching. Gross income for 1963, the year of Martha Roses birth, included $11,207 from the State of California and $1,460 from San Bernardino County.

Appendix A, page 531

Heyer Saga

Appendix A, page 532

Heyer Saga

APPENDIX B. GERMAN SONGS OF THE FAMILY

GERMAN LOVE SONG At one time when the family was still relatively small (two adults, plus Cynthia, Diana, Jeff, and perhaps Jules), I began to introduce my children to a few words, ideas, stories, and songs in German, including old love songs or ballads that my father taught me long before. My then current sources were a few simple German-language introductory booklets: I rather enjoyed this family activity, as I believe our children did also. I cant remember what interrupted this practice. It may have been a change of residence, duties, military service, or something else. My favorite German love song that my father used to sing to me: Ach, wie ists mglich dann, Da ich dich leben kann! Du hast das herze mein so ganz genommen ein. Das ich kein andre lieb Als dich alein. Das gloube mir! Translation from memory: Oh, how is it possible, For me to leave thee? Thou hast so entwined my heart That I can consider no other love Than thou alone. Please believe me. From internet, but no English translation: Ach, wie ists mglich dann da ich dich lassen kann! Hab dich von Herzen lieb, das glaube mir! Du hast die Seele mein so ganz genommen ein, Da ich kein andre lieb, als dich allein. Appendix B, page 533

Heyer Saga GERMAN FOLKSONG (18TH CENTURY) Blau blht ein Blmelein Das heist Vergissnichtmein; Dies Blmlein leg ans Herz Und denke an mich!

Blau ist der Treue Schein Blau ist das Auge dein; Fhl ich oft tiefen Schmerz An meinem Herz.

Denke ich ans Blmelein, Denk, dass du ganz bist mein. Hab dich von Herzen lieb, Das glaube mir.

Translation (more or less): Blue is the little flower Thats called forget-me-not; Lay this little flower on thy heart And think of me!

Appendix B, page 534

Heyer Saga Bleu is the true [or loyal] light Blue is thine eye; I often feel deep pain In my heart.

Im thinking of the little flower, Thinking that thou art completely mine; I love you from my heart, Believe it of me [?]. (www.volksliederarchiv.de/text683.html ) -- this site gives more verses but only in German

Appendix B, page 535

Heyer Saga

Appendix B, page 536

Heyer Saga

APPENDIX C. PLACES IVE LIVED

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

Los Angeles, California A Street, Los Angeles, California Nectarine Street, California Trailer Park, California Hunter Street, Fontana, California Army Training Camp Ft. Bliss Army Base, El Paso, Texas Hunters Point, California 7740 Blanchard Street, Fontana, California 5509 Hammond Court, Citrus Heights, California Betty Court, Santa Clara, California 5509 Hammond Court, Citrus Heights, California 915 The Alameda, El Granada, California

Appendix C, page 537

Heyer Saga

Appendix C, page 538

Heyer Saga

APPENDIX D. TO A MOUSE To a Mouse, on Turning Her up in Her Nest with the Plough
Robert Burns, 1785.
Burns original Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie, O, what a panic's in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty Wi bickering brattle! I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee, Wi' murdring pattle. I'm truly sorry man's dominion Has broken Nature's social union, An' justifies that ill opinion Which makes thee startle At me, thy poor, earth born companion An' fellow mortal! I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve; What then? poor beastie, thou maun live! A daimen icker in a thrave 'S a sma' request; I'll get a blessin wi' the lave, An' never miss't. Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin! It's silly wa's the win's are strewin! An' naething, now, to big a new ane, O' foggage green! An' bleak December's win's ensuin, Baith snell an' keen! Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste, An' weary winter comin fast, An' cozie here, beneath the blast, Thou thought to dwell, Standard English translation Small, crafty, cowering, timorous little beast, O, what a panic is in your little breast! You need not start away so hasty With argumentative chatter! I would be loath to run and chase you, With murdering plough-staff. I'm truly sorry man's dominion Has broken Nature's social union, And justifies that ill opinion Which makes you startle At me, your poor, earth born companion And fellow mortal! I doubt not, sometimes, but you may steal; What then? Poor little beast, you must live! An odd ear in twenty-four sheaves Is a small request; I will get a blessing with what is left, And never miss it. Your small house, too, in ruin! Its feeble walls the winds are scattering! And nothing now, to build a new one, Of coarse grass green! And bleak December's winds coming, Both bitter and keen! You saw the fields laid bare and wasted, And weary winter coming fast, And cozy here, beneath the blast, You thought to dwell,

Appendix D, page 539

Heyer Saga
Till crash! the cruel coulter past Out thro' thy cell. That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble, Has cost thee monie a weary nibble! Now thou's turned out, for a' thy trouble, But house or hald, To thole the winter's sleety dribble, An' cranreuch cauld. But Mousie, thou art no thy lane, In proving foresight may be vain: The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft agley, An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, For promis'd joy! Still thou are blest, compared wi' me! The present only toucheth thee: But och! I backward cast my e'e, On prospects drear! An' forward, tho' I canna see, I guess an' fear! Till crash! the cruel plough passed Out through your cell. That small bit heap of leaves and stubble, Has cost you many a weary nibble! Now you are turned out, for all your trouble, Without house or holding, To endure the winter's sleety dribble, And hoar-frost cold. But little Mouse, you are not alone, In proving foresight may be vain: The best laid schemes of mice and men Go often awry, And leave us nothing but grief and pain, For promised joy! Still you are blessed, compared with me! The present only touches you: But oh! I backward cast my eye, On prospects dreary! And forward, though I cannot see, I guess and fear!

Appendix D, page 540

Heyer Saga

APPENDIX E. LADLE RAT ROTTEN HUT

Wants pawn term, dare worsted ladle gull hoe lift wetter murder inner ladle cordage, honor itch offer lodge, dock florist. Disk ladle gull orphan worry putty ladle rat cluck wetter ladle rat hut, an fur disk raisin pimple colder Ladle Rat Rotten Hut. Wan moaning, Ladle Rat Rotten Huts murder colder inset, Ladle Rat Rotten Hut, heresy ladle basking winsome burden barter an shirker cockles. Tick disk ladle basking tutor cordage offer groin-murder hoe lifts honor udder site offer florist. Shaker lake! Dun stopper laundry wrote! Dun stopper peck floors! Dun daily-doily inner florist, an yonder nor sorghum-stenches, dun stopper torque wet strainers! Hoe-cake, murder, resplendent Ladle Rat Rotten Hut, an tickle ladle basking an stuttered oft. Honor wrote tutor cordage offer groin-murder, Ladle Rat Rotten Hut mitten anomalous woof. Wail, wail, wail! set disk wicket woof, Evanescent Ladle Rat Rotten Hut! Wares are putty ladle gull goring wizard ladle basking? Armor goring tumor groin-murders, reprisal ladle gull. Grammars seeking bet. Armor ticking arson burden barter an shirker cockles. O hoe! Heifer gnats woke, setter wicket woof, butter taught tomb shelf, Oil tickle shirt court tutor cordage offer groin-murder. Oil ketchup wetter letter, and den O bore! Soda wicket woof tucker shirt court, an whinny wretched a cordage offer groin-murder, picked inner wind row, an sore debtor pore oil worming worse lion inner bet. En inner flesh, disk abdominal woof lipped honor bet, paunched honor pore oil worming, an garbled erupt. Den disk ratchet ama-knoll pot honor groin-murders nut cup and gnat-gun, any curdled ope inner bet. Inner ladle wile, Ladle Rat Rotten Hut a raft attar cordage, an ranker dough ball. Comb ink, sweat hard, setter wicket woof, disgracing is verse. Ladle Rat Rotten Hut entity bet-rum an stud buyer groin-murders bet. O Grammar! crater ladle gull historically, Water bag icer gut! A nervous sausage bag ice! Appendix E, page 541

Heyer Saga Battered lucky chew whiff, sweat hard, setter bloat-Thursday woof, wetter wicket small honors phase. O Grammar, water bag noise! A nervous sore suture anomalous prognosis! Battered small your whiff, doling, whiskered dole woof, ants mouse worse waddling. O Grammar, water bag mouser gut! A nervous sore suture bag mouse! Daze worry on-forger-nut ladle gulls lest warts. Oil offer sodden, caking offer carvers an sprinkling otter bet, disk hoard hoarded woof lipped own pore Ladle Rat Rotten Hut an garbled erupt. Mural: Yonder nor sorghum stenches shut ladle gulls stopper torque wet strainers. Translation (Little Red Riding Hood) Once upon a time, there was a little girl who lived with her mother in a little cottage, on the edge of a large, dark forest. This little girl often wore a pretty little red cloak with her little red hood, and for this reason people called her Little Red Riding Hood. One morning, Little Red Riding Hoods mother called her inside. Little Red Riding Hood, heres a little basket with some bread and butter and sugar cookies. Take this little basket to the cottage of your grandmother who lives on the other side of the forest. Shake a leg! Dont stop along the road! Dont stop to pick flowers! Dont dilly-dally in the forest, and under no circumstances, dont stop to talk with strangers! Okay, Mother, responded Little Red Riding Hood, and took the little basket and started off. On the road to the cottage of her grandmother, Little Red Riding Hood met an enormous wolf. Well, well, well, said this wicked wolf. If it isnt Little Red Riding Hood! Where is our pretty little girl going with her little basket? Im going to my grandmothers, replied the little girl. Grandmas sick in bed. Im taking her some bread and butter and sugar cookies.

Appendix E, page 542

Heyer Saga Oh ho! Have a nice walk, said the wicked wolf, but he thought to himself, Ill take a shortcut to the cottage of her grandmother. Ill catch up with her later, and then Oh, boy! So the wicked wolf took a shortcut, and when he reached the cottage of her grandmother, peeked in a window, and saw that poor old woman was lying in her bed. And in a flash, this abominable wolf leaped on her bed, pounced on the poor old woman, and gobbled her up. Then this wretched animal put on the grandmothers nightcap and nightgown, and curled up in bed. In a little while, Little Red Riding Hood arrived at the cottage and rang the doorbell. Come in, sweetheart, said the wicked wolf, disguising his voice. Little Red Riding Hood entered the bedroom and stood by her grandmothers bed. Oh, Grandma! cried the little girl hysterically, What big eyes youve got! I never saw such big eyes! Better to look at you with, sweet heart, said the bloodthirsty wolf, with a wicked smile on his face. Oh, Grandma, what a big nose! I never saw such an enormous proboscis! Better to smell you with, darling, whispered the old wolf, and his mouth was watering. Oh, Grandma, what a big mouth youve got! I never saw such a big mouth! Those were the unfortunate little girls last words. All of a sudden, taking off the covers and springing out of the bed, this hardhearted wolf leapt on poor Little Red Riding Hood and gobbled her up.

Moral: Under no circumstances should little girls stop to talk with strangers. Another Moral: Awhile back I learned from Winonas husband, Glenn, that a fleet of villains had seized control of Mothers Cookies and fired all the workers to grab total control. Now they have, as I have understood it to say, set about to permanently capture the entire sources of this Appendix E, page 543

Heyer Saga organization! I could never in good conscience, then, purchase any further such substances or their offers.

Appendix E, page 544

Heyer Saga

APPENDIX F. MOTHER, MAY I GO OUT TO SWIM?

(BATHING SONG) Sung by Julian Eltinge of Cohan & Harris Honey Boy Minstrels (by Lester Keith) A sweet little peach from Manhattan Beach Was strolling upon the sand, And met a young sport from jolly Newport Who thought she was perfectly grand. She murmured to him, Id go take a swim, But I am engaged to be wed, Though its very warm, its very bad form. Yours looks good to me, he said. She answered right away, To Ma I used to say Chorus: Mother, may I go out to swim? Yes, my darling daughter, Hang your clothes on a hickory limb, But dont go near the water. You may look cute in your bathing suit, But act just as you oughter, Now and then, you can flirt with the men, But dont go near the water. This dapper young swell then said to the belle, Please come out and dine with me. Its quit impolite, but come out tonight. I love you and you must agree. She answered in haste, Its very bad taste Appendix F, page 545

Heyer Saga To dine with a stranger Im told. But her taste was fine for champagne and wine, Cost him twenty dollars cold, And afterwards he thought of what her mother taught: Chorus: Mother, may I go out to swim? Yes, my darling daughter, Hang your clothes on a hickory limb, But dont go near the water. You may look cute in your bathing suit, But act just as you oughter, Now and then, you can flirt with the men, But dont go near the water. Dont Go Near the Water (Sammy Kershaw) Your mama used to worry about that big muddy river Honey, do you remember? You let the screen door slam when you stepped off the front porch Then your mama calling, Dont be late! And Id hear your daddy holler, Son, shes my only daughter! Youd stick your nose in the honeysuckle down by the gate. I could still hear your mama calling, Dont go near the water! We fell right in Went over our head But we didnt go near the water Nothing beats the young and sweet And the nights got hotter and hotter We were sure enough getting our feet wet, mama, But we didnt go near the water. Wed hear the rocking chair squeaking As you sneaked up the back stairs Mama waiting like a grizzly bear Appendix F, page 546

Heyer Saga Had to get the honeysuckle out of your hair But in the morning light Youd look her right in the eye It wasnt a lie We didnt go near the water. We fell right in Went over our head But we didnt go near the water Nothing beats the young and sweet And the nights got hotter and hotter We were sure enough getting our feet wet, mama, But we didnt go near the water. Your mama used to worry about that big, muddy river She shouldve worried about me Cause we were sure enough getting our feet wet, mama, But we didnt go near the water Didnt go near the water Didnt go near the water, yeah!

Appendix F, page 547

Heyer Saga

Appendix F, page 548

Heyer Saga

APPENDIX G. A VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS

By Clement Clarke Moore T WAS the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that ST. NICHOLAS soon would be there; The children were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads; And mamma in her kerchief, and I in my cap, Had just settled our brains for a long winters nap, When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash, Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash. The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below, When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer, With a little old driver, so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick. More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name; Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen! To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall! Now dash away! dash away! dash away all! As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky; So up to the house-top the coursers they flew, With the sleigh full of Toys, and St. Nicholas too. And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof The prancing and pawing of each little hoof. As I drew in my head, and was turning around, Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound. He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot, And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot; Appendix G, page 549

10

15

20

25

30

Heyer Saga A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back, And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack. His eyeshow they twinkled! his dimples how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry! His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow; The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath; He had a broad face and a little round belly, That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly. He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf, And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself; A wink of his eye and a twist of his head, Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread; He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk, And laying his finger aside of his nose, And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose; He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, And away they all flew like the down of a thistle, But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight, Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night. 35

40

45

50

55

Robin used to read that poem every Christmas Eve. Dina would get very upset because Rudolph wasnt listed. I remember as a kid when the reindeer were listed that poor Rudolph wasnt there and I became very disturbed. I was sure the other reindeer were to blame because they wouldnt let poor Rudolph play in any reindeer games. She also comments that her son, when he was little, would become confused. How can Santa get down the chimney? When explained by this poem that Santa was an elf, he would disagree because he had seen Santa at the Department store and he was big and fat!

Appendix G, page 550

Heyer Saga

APPENDIX H. JEFFS ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY RESUME

You can see Jeffs extensive Performance Resume in the following un-numbered pages of this Appendix.

Appendix H, page 551

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Appendix H, page 552

Heyer Saga

APPENDIX I. DADS CARTOONS

Some of the cartoons Dad drew over the years are included here. They tenderly express both his love of the subjects, and his love of inventing ways to share these subjects with his children. Beast-Bug Battle and Egyptian Hieroglyphics

Maybe the Beasts-Bug Battle was an illustrated prototype of Dads scientific opus of the natural history of the world? Elemental Flashcards and Parts of a Flower

We dont remember what project the flashcards were part of, but the Parts of a Flower booklet is online at http://www.scribd.com/Tawananna. Appendix I, page 553

Heyer Saga Ethans Alphabet of Machines

Heres the front cover and first page of the Alphabet of Machines that Dad created for his first grandson, Ethan Gainer. You can see the whole alphabet at http://www.scribd.com/Tawananna. Rachels Germs

Here you can see Dads first draft and the final version that he created for Eileen using her childhood name of Rachel. You can see the whole booklet at http://www.scribd.com/Tawananna.

Appendix I, page 554

Heyer Saga Scientists I dont know when Dad drew this comic or for who. But it appears to be an introduction of what it means to be a scientist for some young person in our family. You can see the whole booklet at http://www.scribd.com/Tawananna.

The Three Pigs

The Three Pigs learn important economic lessons from their encounter with the Wolf, go into business for themselves, succeed, and live happily ever after on their dividends. You can see the whole booklet at http://www.scribd.com/Tawananna.

Appendix I, page 555

Heyer Saga Rosas First Chemistry Book This delightfully illustrated booklet entitled Rosas First Chemistry Book, created by hand for granddaughter Rosa, can be seen in its entirety at http://www.scribd.com/Tawananna.

What is the World Made Of? This booklet was drafted using pen and pencil notebook paper, and can be seen in its entirety http://www.scribd.com/Tawananna. on at

Al Jabber Al Jabber (a pun on algebra) was a comic strip I created to help my students learn Algebra. Al had a sidekick, Sime-Owl, (a pun on simultaneous equations, a technique for solving unknowns in algebra).

Appendix I, page 556

Heyer Saga

APPENDIX J. DADS ARTWORK

Dad created lots of art over the years, some of which is included: Dads Egyptian Art

This beautiful drawing of Egyptian text is the spelling of Moms name. Dad presented this to her as a gift. The translation on the right shows the meaning of each character. The left column says: The right column says: Beautiful + feminine ending Th Sweet + feminine ending T Lovable + feminine ending M His Egg = female Year Beloved = 2x1 Loaf of bread + feminine ending = 10x3 Ra + b nd 32 years [32 anniversary, Water = pronounced in 1983] Backbone with ribs + feminine ending = held in Jar for mummified hearts = heart F sound = masculine ending = his

Appendix J, page 557

Heyer Saga At the bottom it reads: Thelma, Beloved of Robin, held in his heart, beautiful, sweet, loveable, his wife. Dads Goddess Figures Endeva is the name of this soapstone goddess carved by Dad circa 1974. Her name implies effort. Shes rising from the ground and reaching for the moon.

These clay figures are based on goddesses of ancient civilizations. All but two were made by Dad circa 1995. In the front row, the figure second from left was made by Winona. The figure second from right was made by Mom.

Dads Painting of Mom

This oil-paint portrait of Mom was painted by Dad by using the trace-by-graph method. It was inspired by a photograph of Mom taken before they married.

Appendix J, page 558

Heyer Saga Dad & Mom in Photographs In 1997, Dad was featured in the Positive Images of Aging calendar. The caption reads, It is not everyone who can take an ancient skill and make it come alive in todays industrialized world. Once a teacher, an attorney, and a stock broker, Robin Heyer is now a folk art woodcarver. The photograph was taken by Cindy.

Mom was featured in the 1998 Positive Images of Aging calendar. Her caption reads, Seminary student Thelma Heyer feels that study of comparative religions has deepened her healthy respect for the spiritual truths and mystical core shared by the world religions and she believes that respect for ones fellow humans and their spiritual beliefs leads to better human relations. The photographer was Yvonne Dillenberg.

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Heyer Saga Eileens Collection of Grandads Art

Eileen says: I have a little rat carved out of wood and painted gray.

I also have a rock that Granddad and I found together at the beach when I was young; he drew eyes and a smile on it. I can't remember when that was, but I'm guessing it was probably middle school / early high school (mid-90's?).

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Heyer Saga Cindys Collection of Dads Medieval Chess Set

I remember Dad carving his chess pieces on evenings and weekends throughout my childhood, even as far back as Fontana. The earliest ones, such as the Red King, Red Queen, both Red Bishops, and the tall Black Bishop, he did on Grandpa Heyers lathe. The rest he carved by hand. I remember each block of wood turning in his hands as he chipped pieces out of it to gradually reveal a rough shape, then recognizable, then more refined. Then glory of glories, time to paint! I remember one block of wood turned out to have a hidden knot in it, so he couldnt carve that knights horse looking forward. He said it didnt matter; hed just turn his head to look backwards which is a good idea anyway when youre in a battle. To me it always looked like the knight had an unusually chummy relationship with his horse. But maybe it was as Dad said; he was checking the enemies behind them. The chess set is standing in and on a wooden box which I was told Grandpa Heyer built by hand. As for the ninth little pawn in Dad's medieval chess set, he was the original pawn made for this set, but by the time Dad Appendix J, page 561

Heyer Saga neared the end of the set, the little fellow looked dwarfed and simplistic compared to his beefier cousins. So he was replaced with a more formidable soldier. Considering how small a shield he brought to the conflict, perhaps it is better that he sits out the games. Dinas Collection of Dads Art Dina took photos of some wooden figurines that Dad made for her. One is a wooden soldier that he made on the lathe at Grandpa Heyer's house. She says: I think I was about 8 years old when he made that for me. The other picture shows some carvings he made when my kids were preschoolers. One is "Grandad" (all dressed in green), one is "Granny" (with a long, red dress), one is Rachel (wearing her favorite "dot dressy"), and one is Ethan (a fair haired baby wearing only a diaper).

So I'm guessing he made them about 1983 or '84. Rachel was 2 or 3 and Ethan 1 or 2. We were living in England I think. I've put them out in front of a small Christmas tree in December every year since then. Because of the white beard and not seeing the real Granny and Grandad any more than once a year, the kids got confused about whether Grandad was Santa (and vice versa). By the way, the carving of Eileen shows her wearing a pink hoodie that's on her head and hanging down her back. She was hot and didn't want to put her arms in the sleeves but was very attached to that jacket and wore it that way. She told Dad it made her Little PINK Red Riding Hood. He Appendix J, page 562

Heyer Saga told her, "I think you mean Little Pink Riding Hood." But no, she insisted she was Little Pink RED Riding Hood! Jules Collection of Dads Art

Heres what Jules remembers: The Mermaid was carved when I was very small. I remember she had bright green hair & fish tail. Now the paint on her fish tail is a bit worn. But shes still a hottie! Next to her is the little Robot. It is bullet-shaped with a red top & otherwise painted silver. It has tiny hooks for hands & tiny rollers for feet. I think something was once pasted to its chest. But it has long since gotten lost. Then is the little Martial Girl. She somehow never got played with much so is still in pristine condition. She has little eye-bolts for antenna! Next to her is Aunt Violet. Dad carved her for me when I was running my bookshop, Aunt Violets Bookbin & Menagerie in Seattle circa 1990. Shes wearing little carved pink glasses & has a white bun hairdo. Then theres the Pirate that I believe Dad carved for Rosy? I believe you gave him to me years ago when Rosy had outgrown him. I might have wanted the Pinocchio Puppet & you made a trade with me?

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Heyer Saga And last is the Big Round Maid. She was carved on the lathe. Very old. Probably one of the first characters Dad carved. Ok. Thats about all I know. Jeffs Collection of Dads Supernatural Chess Set Jeff talks about his photos of Dad's Supernatural Chess Set: This set began with a single piece: the black king which Dad carved as a prop for my Super-8mm film "Don't Get Excited It's Only A Game."

As the photos show, Dad played God and the Devil playing chess. I shot different angles to show different details and I added a few shots of the models for the two kings.

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Heyer Saga I filmed him standing against a blank white wall first as one character and then as the other, and meticulously cut splice-taped the two sequences on top of each other so that the two characters could briefly be seen at the same time.

In subsequent shots of their chess game, I shot past Brian Luke standing in under the Devil's cape to continue the illusion. As their game progresses, they use more and more modern chess sets and we see that the wars of our world are a reflection of this chess game.

At the end of the game the Devil wins and as God grows angry, counsels, "Don't get excited, it's only a game." Moments later he realizes that he, too, is only a chess piece on a larger board.

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Heyer Saga

Through the use of a wide angle lens which kept in focus an actor's hand close to the camera and Dad in his Devil costume on a huge partial chessboard made of red and white cardboards, a great gloved hand reaches down to seize the Devil. This shot was overlapped for three frames with a shot of the same hand lifting the carved Devil chess piece so that the hand more or less seamlessly appears to lift the live action Devil and turn him into a carved king.

Later Dad decided to complete the set, though it took him some years to plan it all out and complete the carving and painting. The Godly side has a bishop and an Islamic Imam for the two white bishop pieces, and a crusader and Lady Godiva for knights. The rooks are chapel bell-towers with differently shaped roofs. The angel pawns were carved from old-style wooden spools and the photos show not only their faces, but their backs so you can see how each was given its own unique pair of wings.

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Heyer Saga

On the Devilish side allowed for both a male and a female version of each back-row piece. Not only is there a king and queen, but the black bishops are a wizard and a witch respectively and the knights are centaurs of either sex. The black rooks are coiled serpents, one of whom, as you can see, has a protruding forked tongue of twisted wire. The upper rim of the wooden spools from which the pawns were carved was mostly removed so that instead of providing the shape of the white pawns' haloes, what was left of the rim represented horns.

The jagged lightning bolt which the Devil originally held was reproduced in the initial version of the black king, but disappeared at some point, either removed by someone who thought it too heavenly a weapon, or perhaps it was hurled at one of the white pieces which approached too close.

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Heyer Saga

I therefore made a silver trident (the so-called pitchforks of medieval devils actually being the trident of Neptune and his Nereids) out of an appropriately shaped device used to hold up a label in the pot of an extinct house plant. This formidable weapon remains in the black king's upraised hand.

I am delighted to have this history-laden chess set on display in my living room.

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Heyer Saga Besides the Supernatural Chess Set, I have one other carving of Dads, the British soldier who once served in the same regiment as Diana's but has a smaller Buzby, if I am correctly remembering the name of that tall fuzzy helmet.

Art Created by Great Grandpa Crocker

This pastel was created by Great Grandpa Crocker. He presented it as a gift to Mom and Dad in the mid-1960s during a visit to the family. The image was inspired by a photograph on a picture postcard.

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Heyer Saga

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