Dad worked at the Chevron refinery in the town of El Segundo where we lived, and he was a reserve police officer in possession of a police department issue .38 revolver, along with a really awesome police uniform. It was quite a thrill for a little boy to watch his dad put on that uniform, strap on that gun, and leave the house some evenings for dangerous police work, which I later learned involved waving at car radiators as he diverted traffic away from Oak Avenue on Friday nights at our high school football games.
I remember that I never saw Mr. Ford ride his horse. I think they were both too old for such an effort. I do remember that they would walk together slowly and laboriously behind Mr. Ford's house from the stable to almost the top of the hill on Acacia street and back. It was all open land back then, and I think some of the vacant parts belonged to the Fords. What did not belong to them was not fenced, so they had nearly the entire hill to themselves. They walked together like two old friends, or maybe something even closer than that, just the two of them. I imagined that somehow they talked together, but I suppose that is a silly notion, a horse talking to a man. The horse did not have a halter and bridle on these walks; he would just stay in stride at a slow pace right next to Mr. Ford, and when Mr. Ford turned, the horse would turn right with him, as though they had discussed it ahead of time.
Sometimes the horse would stop and reach his long neck down to nibble at some scruffy vegetation. Mr. Ford would just wait for him to finish, not being in a big hurry ever. He would occasionally pat the horse and sort of nuzzle the horse's head with his head as he patted him. Eventually, they would finish their walk and Mr. Ford would sort of guide the horse back to his stall and rub him and brush him and pat him and talk to him and then go inside the house, I suppose for his dinner. Whenever Mr. Ford would exit the back door, the horse would look up directly at him, I think hoping he would get some patting and rubbing, or just hear the sound of his friend's voice. If Mr. Ford moved in the direction of the stall, the horse would move toward him and kind of snuffle. If he moved away from the stall, the horse would stand still and watch him for a while and then resume eating or whatever he was doing, I guess, understanding that Mr. Ford did not have time for him at that moment.
I had no idea that my dad was going to shoot Mr. Ford's horse and only discovered what he had done when he walked sadly back into the house carrying a bag from which he extracted his revolver. He put it back in its shiny police holster and set it on that high shelf that I could not reach at the time. He was a bit pale and tense when he told my mother that he had done it, he had shot the horse.
Mom kind of shuddered and looked very sad at Dad, who, actually, didn't look so hot himself. He was kind of shaky. He had the look of someone compelled to do something really ugly that he might have dreaded doing. I guess since Dad was much younger than Mr. Ford, he had to do what the old man asked him to do. I can't imagine anyone refusing Mr. or Mrs. Ford anything, since they were the oldest people on Earth. They were old enough to be my dad's grandparents, and I knew his grandparents were not living, because they had gotten too old and died. My folks told me that happened to old people, but I would not have to worry about that for a very long time, they said.
A household with two automobiles was a bit of a novelty in 1949. In fact, a housewife driving a car was not all that common, really. A housewife older than dirt driving very, very fast must have been an item destined for folklore status at some point. I don't remember who told me that the Fords were older than dirt. I had not considered the age of dirt before, but once I did consider it, I thought it quite remarkable that someone could be older than that.
My dad really cared for the Fords, as did my mom. They exhibited great respect and kindness toward them. If my dad was tense or angry and Mr. Ford happened by, Dad's manner would change; he would soften and relax somehow. He would pay very close attention when Mr. Ford spoke to him. My mom would chat on the porch or front lawn with Mrs. Ford and smile and laugh a lot, and Mom's eyes would shine afterwards. Mrs. Ford was a rather large woman compared to the moms in the neighborhood. She would embrace my mom and call her Honey, as though she were addressing a young girl. My mom would just disappear into Mrs. Ford's big arms. When Mrs. Ford laughed, which she did a lot, her upper body would shake, and everyone around her would laugh, just because her laugh made them laugh. Someone said that was because of a contagion.
The Fords were always nice to us kids in the neighborhood. We would gather around the stall right by the street where Mr. Ford kept his horse. I think Mr. Ford had the stall just there so that the horse could watch the traffic and see what was going on in the neighborhood. Mr. Ford would pick some of us smaller ones up in his arms in turn to give us a better view. Sometimes, he would let us touch the horse's forehead, which was long and had a white spot in the middle between its ears. That was actually kind of scary, and he had to coax some of us a bit, always assuring us that the horse would not hurt us. Since it was Mr. Ford, and we trusted him completely, we braved it and cautiously touched the horse's forehead and pulled our hands back really quick. I remember the smell of the horse; kind of a deep, sweet, sort of sweaty scent mixed with the smells from the stall. Somehow, I kind of liked the smell.
I always thought it remarkable that someone so old could pick up anything, let alone a few small children in succession like that, but Mr. Ford could, even though he moved much more stiffly and deliberately than anyone I knew, being so old and all. I always thought Mr. Ford did this just to be nice to us kids, but my dad said that he might have done it to get his horse some companionship as well. I don't know, I felt as though the horse didn't mind us being there all that much, but It was like he would look at Mr. Ford for reassurance, as though he were asking, "Is this okay, really?", or "You sure these kids won't hurt me?". At least, that's what I thought because Mr. Ford would pat the horse then and say really comforting things to the horse, and the horse would endure us as long as Mr. Ford was there. I remember that the horse seemed to move much like Mr. Ford, really stiff, as though it hurt him to move. The horse seemed to do many of the things Mr. Ford did, as though he were mimicking the old man. My brother said that was a silly notion. I suppose he was right.
Well, anyway Dad had to shoot the horse because Mr. Ford asked him to, and when someone as old as Mr. Ford needs a favor, you do it. That's just the way it works, and I could not imagine it being otherwise. I don't know what happened to the horse after that. Well, I'm sure he died, of course, but I don't remember a horse ambulance coming, so I thought maybe Mr. Ford buried him in the back. But then I thought that would be unlikely because I doubted that Mr. Ford could dig a hole big enough for the horse or even a bird. I don't remember my dad or any of the neighborhood dads digging a big hole in Mr. Ford's backyard, and my dad would surely have been involved in a big project like that at Mr. Ford's house. I have no idea. All I know is we no longer got to look at the horse, and Mr. Ford did not get another horse to replace the one that Dad shot.
We talked about the horse and the fact that my dad shot it quite a bit in the neighborhood, which took on a feeling of sadness now. Mr. and Mrs. Ford did not appear outside so much anymore. Something had really changed, and I was a little uneasy, even kind of scared somehow. Mom and Dad were kind of quiet and sort of going through the motions of things rather than doing things quickly and enthusiastically, as they usually did. When we kids played in the streets, we didn't yell and scream quite the same either; we were just a bit more hushed. I don't know, it was just not as much fun and not, well . . . comfortable.
Mom would go across the street once or twice a day to the Fords' house, sometimes carrying a dish of pasta or something. She would spend some time there and then come home, sit down, sigh, and look very sad. I did not know what was going on. Dad looked worried and sad at times during the days when he was home. He walked over to the Fords a couple of times and came back looking sad as well and would sit cupping his chin in his hand and go deep into thought, the kind you did not interrupt.
It went on like that for some time, weeks maybe. One day it seemed like a lot of commotion had started up, and I didn't understand it. Mom and Dad moved around really fast and purposefully after they got this phone call. Dad walked quickly out of the house and Mom looked troubled. She had on her apron and was wiping her hands on it long after they would have been dry, but she kept on rubbing them. She sort of crossed her arms but had one hand covering her mouth, and her eyes were watery. I was upset at I don't know what, just whatever was wrong, and clearly something was wrong. I wanted to go outside, but Mom said I had to stay in for a while and be near her. She gave no reason, and somehow I decided not to ask why; she just did not want me to go outside, which was unusual because it seemed she always wanted me outside until dinner time. I skimmed through the funnies in the newspapers, and since my big brother was not home, I got to browse through some of his stack of comic books, which I ordinarily would not dare go near. It was a really big stack. Mom would sometimes glance out the front window, and when she did I would join her.
"What are you looking for, Mommy," I asked? "Nothing, Baby, nothing," she said and then went into the kitchen to do whatever it was she did in there every day.
A couple of vehicles arrived in front of the Fords' house and men got out and walked into the house. My dad was still there. I felt something different, kind of a buzz going around as people began appearing on their front porches or lawns looking toward the Fords' house. It went on like that for some time with my mom making occasional trips to the front window and then back to the kitchen. I could not guess at what was happening and I just knew that I had best not pester my mom with questions she did not want to answer, and she made it clear that she did not want to answer questions just now.
"Daddy's coming back," I said standing at the front window.
I heard the loud noise of my mom dropping a pot on the counter top before she came into the front room wiping her hands on the apron again. She went to the door, opened it and looked at my dad as he crossed the lawn. Through the window I saw him purse his lips and shake his head slowly with the saddest look I had ever seen on his face. Mom started crying, my dad took her in his arms, I started crying, not knowing what exactly was wrong, just that my mom was crying and that usually set me off as well. They sort of stood in the doorway holding each other, Mom crying and shaking and Dad more erect with his jaw set and his eyes watering, holding and patting my mom softly.
I had witnessed scenes like this only once or twice before. I knew that sometimes adults cried and got upset and needed holding like my dad was holding my mom and I never knew the cause exactly, but I knew that something sad had happened and that eventually things would just right themselves without my ever knowing much about the cause or the cure. I guessed that time took care of that stuff for adults as it seemed it did for me. So, I calmed myself down even before my mom did, and still not knowing what had happened, went back to look at some more of my brother's comic books before he got home, and I'd have to find something else to do. Anyway, since my dad was the strongest and smartest man on Earth, I knew my mom would be okay if he just held her till she calmed down.
Eventually, I made it to the backyard, which I thought was the most comfortable and entertaining place on Earth. We had an outbuilding in the back where my dad slept during the day on those weeks when he had the graveyard shift at the refinery. It was quieter out there and it was a nice, clean, comfortable little room. We also had a garage and an old storage shed that was open on one end. My dad kept his tools and shovels and such in that shed. It had black widow spiders and cobwebs and lizards and just the most interesting old things you ever saw. We had this huge fig tree that grew right by the shed and gave us the biggest, sweetest figs you could find anywhere.
I would climb up the backside of the shed, my brother having showed me how to do it "undetected" he said, and eat those figs till I was sick. We had grapes that I could pick right off the vine. There was a pear tree, an apple tree, and a cherry tree, each of which had a great perch or two for me to climb to and just sit. During the spring and summer, I never had to ask for a snack or tell my mom that I was hungry in the middle of the day. We also had chickens and rabbits. My mom would grab a chicken by the head, twist it in midair tearing the head from the rest of the chicken, and that headless chicken would flop around on the ground for a while pumping blood out of where its head used to be before just falling over. Only my dad and brother could kill the rabbits, for some reason. I was never sure why Dad could not kill chickens and Mom could not kill rabbits, but that seemed to be the rule. I was not allowed to kill anything, which I thought rather unfair.
On this particular day when men came to the Fords' house and my dad had to hold my mom because she was upset and crying, things calmed down near dinner time. I don't remember much about what my mom served us that night, other than it smelled great and tasted delicious, as always. However, it was a memorable meal. After we started, Mom suddenly sobbed and put her elbows on the table and her head in her hands. Dad had to reach over and pat her softly again and sort of rub her shoulder. His eyes got watery, too. Somehow I did not cry this time, and my brother almost never cried anyway. We just looked puzzled about whatever was going on and just accepted that no one was going to tell us anything, so apparently we weren't supposed to know anything. We accepted that, and when Mom stopped crying, we all resumed eating quietly. I made sure that I did not fuss about anything and finished everything on my plate. Mom cleared the table, washed and dried the dishes, swept the kitchen floor, and finally sat down in the front room in her chair near the big console radio. I went over to her chair and put my head on her shoulder, and she hugged me.
"Mommy, someone just drove off in Mr. Ford's car. Who was that," I asked?
"Just a friend of theirs, Honey. He's going to borrow it for a while," she said.
That sounded reasonable to me, and I let the matter go.
I would occasionally see Mrs. Ford in the neighborhood either working in her flower bed or chatting with my mom or other neighbor ladies or driving her automobile very, very fast. She no longer laughed so hard that her shoulders shook, although she still smiled some. My mom had returned to a happier state of being, but still looked kind of distant when someone mentioned the Fords. Something told me not to inquire about Mr. Ford and just accept that his friend was not going to be returning the Model A anytime soon.
My little life progressed as it was supposed to and I do not know when I became aware that Mrs. Ford was no longer in the neighborhood. At some point, I realized that someone else lived in the Fords' house. I don't remember much about them.
I remember a lot of construction on Acacia Street where Mr. and Mrs. Ford had their property. Someone had torn down the open stable where Mr. Ford had kept his horse and built new houses on that spot and in several other spots all the way up the hill where the horse used to graze and walk very slowly with Mr. Ford.
The city had paved the streets in front of all of our houses, and my dad and all the neighborhood dads complained about something called the "assessment", sometimes in rather harsh sounding terms. Our gang had to stop playing baseball and such in the streets once they were paved, but we discovered soap box racers that our dads helped us build. We had to move our pickup games of football and baseball and hide-and-seek to the park behind our house, which was a bit too small, so home runs and crashing into fences became frequent.
When I got older, I kissed Linda Andersen in that park, got in a fist fight with Danny Wright there, and broke my arm falling from the chain-link fence that separated the park from my fig tree, which I thought I could reach from the fence. Well, my brother could, so I tried it. I was less willing to imitate my brother in all things at all times after that. I stopped thinking about Mr. and Mrs. Ford and the horse and the Model A. They were in my life and very important to my parents, but they were gone, and now we had neighbors all over the place who had kids with whom I could play and share our figs and apples and such. We had one of the first television sets on the block, and it absorbed some of my time and attention. I think it was a 10-inch RCA or Magnavox or something. My dad and brother and I watched Rocky Marciano knock Joe Louis clear out of the ring on that television. We were glad that the young Italian won but felt sad that a legend like Joe Louis was no longer the great boxer he once was. My dad said life is complicated like that, and we just had to accept such things. He said sadly that it was the end of an era, whatever that was. My mom watched Gorgeous George and Gino Garibaldi wrestle. We rooted for the nice Italian fella; he always won.
After Mr. Ford, no one kept a horse at their house in my neighborhood; there would have been no room for a horse, anyway. No one had a Model A, either, and no one drove as fast through our neighborhood as Mrs. Ford. I think it might have been the end of one of those eras, or something.