We lived on Gladstone Drive in Sacramento, CA. The street name is not important, but the community created there for me was. I was able to build a semi-extended family with our neighbors.
There was the Osegueda family just next door. They were a very tight Mexican family with five children. I was always closest to the oldest son, Art, simply because he was about my age. Art’s father was “Big Sal”, and he was big. I can still picture him around the house mowing the lawn, washing or repairing the car, or barbequing for the whole family. Having that family around me was very helpful in my growing up years.
There was the Irish’s. They were the sharpest family on the block with a strong matriarch in the mother, Marcel. Chuck, the father, was an executive for the local newspaper in Sacramento, and all the children (four in all), were destined to go far. Here again, Chuck was another father figure in my life.
There was the Sollom’s, a family with nothing but girls, until the last one was a boy after I entered school. I had nothing to do with him because of the age gap. That family too had a great impact on me. It gave me the grounding as to what a whole family should look like and what is possible.
These families were very much a part of my early parenting role models. This is particularly true of the fathers, who were willing to play catch with me or invite me over for a barbeque. In those days, air conditioning was not so common, and we would often barbeque outside to get out of the overheated house in the evening.
I was a sports type in those days and nothing much else. My mother was a book reader and a wiz with the English language. My sister was more of an artist and creative thinker. So, there we were. We were three very different people in the same house.
My life was Little League Baseball, mud football and nothing much else. I did command quite good respect from my teammates and coaches. Even today, I still have strong pictures in my mind of many of those coaches, their leadership and guidance.
Right up and through high school, I was just floating and wander along with no idea where my life was going. Outside of basic mathematics subjects, I was pretty poor in the three “R’s” (Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic). One thing I could do was talk. I used to collect Bill Cosby（＊） standup comic records and memorize the stories. Then, I would go to school and literally present the recording verbatim to the girls in the school to make them laugh. Even in those days, I thought I had a skill of motivating people and changing moods. Other than that, coming out of high school and had very poor study skills. That was when the Vietnam War was at its peak.
High School Picture
（＊）ビル・コスビーはペンシルベニア州出身のコメディア、作家、俳優。しかし、2018年、性犯罪容疑で有罪となり服役中。
There was the Osegueda family just next door. They were a very tight Mexican family with five children. I was always closest to the oldest son, Art, simply because he was about my age. Art’s father was “Big Sal”, and he was big. I can still picture him around the house mowing the lawn, washing or repairing the car, or barbequing for the whole family. Having that family around me was very helpful in my growing up years.
There was the Irish’s. They were the sharpest family on the block with a strong matriarch in the mother, Marcel. Chuck, the father, was an executive for the local newspaper in Sacramento, and all the children (four in all), were destined to go far. Here again, Chuck was another father figure in my life.
There was the Sollom’s, a family with nothing but girls, until the last one was a boy after I entered school. I had nothing to do with him because of the age gap. That family too had a great impact on me. It gave me the grounding as to what a whole family should look like and what is possible.
These families were very much a part of my early parenting role models. This is particularly true of the fathers, who were willing to play catch with me or invite me over for a barbeque. In those days, air conditioning was not so common, and we would often barbeque outside to get out of the overheated house in the evening.
I was a sports type in those days and nothing much else. My mother was a book reader and a wiz with the English language. My sister was more of an artist and creative thinker. So, there we were. We were three very different people in the same house.
My life was Little League Baseball, mud football and nothing much else. I did command quite good respect from my teammates and coaches. Even today, I still have strong pictures in my mind of many of those coaches, their leadership and guidance.
Right up and through high school, I was just floating and wander along with no idea where my life was going. Outside of basic mathematics subjects, I was pretty poor in the three “R’s” (Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic). One thing I could do was talk. I used to collect Bill Cosby（＊） standup comic records and memorize the stories. Then, I would go to school and literally present the recording verbatim to the girls in the school to make them laugh. Even in those days, I thought I had a skill of motivating people and changing moods. Other than that, coming out of high school and had very poor study skills. That was when the Vietnam War was at its peak.
High School Picture
（＊）ビル・コスビーはペンシルベニア州出身のコメディア、作家、俳優。しかし、2018年、性犯罪容疑で有罪となり服役中。
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