Day 36 of 100

“Baloney with no rind. Coming right up.”

My mom and father got divorced when I was somewhere between a year and a half old and two. I certainly don’t remember much of it, but I do know we ended up in East Palo Alto soon after it happened.

While it was murky, I do seem to remember people coming in and out of the apartment. Apparently one of these folks smacked me once and was thrown out of the house. I don’t remember that, but I do remember sitting on my mom’s lap while she cried telling her that everything would be ok.

At some point a long-haired hippie looking midwestern guy moved in across the way. For those that aren’t familiar with Northern Californian apartment complexes, most had car ports underneath the apartments with a driveway often separating the two.

This hippie dude drove in with his grandfather, who was well weathered from his Michigan farm and was quick to smile. I once got him a book of baseball pitchers including one from 1905 that he reminisced on seeing in person. But that is a story for another picture.

My mom started dating the hippie’s roommate, but that apparently didn’t last long, and she soon was dating the hippie. He had a serious 1970’s mustache, long hair and a quick smile like his grandfather. He listened to old records on an old record player with speakers he still has in his house. It was in his little apartment I first listened to Pink Floyd and the Allman Brothers long before I knew what music really was.

He had strange eating habits. Only ate green vegetables, took the rind off the baloney, and didn’t put milk in his cereal. His mom told me that he ate baby food applesauce until he was 12 years old. His mom was amazing and her death was the first death I ever had to deal with.

When the hippie married my mom he was making $500 a month pouring concrete for the city of Mountain View. My mom likes to remind him she was making $525. They married when I was five and when I was seven he adopted me. I remember asking my biological father if it was ok and he said yes a little too fast and that memory has burned ever since.

When someone has a nurture/nature debate I come out clearly on the side of nurture. I am who I am because of that smiling long-haired hippie with the strange eating habits.