It was in the school library that I discovered science fiction. In a short time I had read every novel there by Robert A. Heinlein. I read other science ficiton too, but Heinlein's books were my favorites. I also read adventure stories about jet fighters and helicopters. I learned how to fly from the descriptions of the controls and practiced controlling airplanes and helicopters in my mind. Later when I took actual flying lessons the instructor told me I had a good feel for it.
Just for the heck of it I built a control-line airplane with a wing made out of a 1/8 inch thick slab of balsa wood. The wing had square ends and square leading and trailing edges Nobody would believe it would fly. It was a small airplane with a 0.049 cubic inch displacement reed valve glow plug single cylinder engine with an integral fuel tank that used methanol and nitromethane fuel. John Humphries was really surprised when he saw how well it flew. I used a square stick of balsa for the fuselage and made it rather long so it would be easy for a beginner to control. John flew it without crashing and as a result he got hooked on model airplanes.
I liked woodshop. I made the traditional napkin holder and finished it with raw linseed oil.
I started hanging out more at "hobbies and toys," what we called Toys Galore on Main Street. Harvey Kitamura, who worked there, helped us boys with our model airplanes and even took John Humphries and me flying a couple of times. He was a wizard with the models and a master of control line, free flying, and radio controlled airplanes. Slot car racing was beginning to become popular and Mr. Miller (who owned the store) and Harvey built a 1/24th scale slot car track upstairs. Sometimes Harvey would let me behind the counter to help customers. He taught me how to count back change, a lost art in the days of computer cash registers. For example, suppose the sale is $18.32 and the customer gives you a 20 dollar bill. You count mentally as you pickup the coins and bills: pennies--33, 34, 35; nickels--40; dimes--50; quarters--75, 19 dollars; ones--twenty. You always pick up the minimal pieces for the correct change that way. Then you close the cash drawer (very important not to leave it open) and repeat the count process out loud into the customer's hand. Note that the method of change computation generally used by clerks these days does not necessarily result in the minimal number of pieces of change.
I had read a magazine article on bonsai, the primarily Japanese art of growing trees in pots. It looked interesting so I dug up one of the junipers in the front yard, pruned it, and put it in a terra cotta flower pot on my window sill and watched it die over the next month or so. I think I tried again before giving up. Twenty years later I would try bonsai again with more success.
Dad had gotten interested in SCUBA diving and he and John and I took an instruction course at the Salinas YMCA taught by Dr. Madison. There was no state certification at that time. Dad had us measured for wetsuits at Duffy's Dive Shop on Lighthouse Avenue in Monterey and a few weeks later we picked up the suits and went ocean diving for the first time. We went on many dives together, often right off cannery row or off the Monterey breakwater.
This page created April 9, 2002.
Updated April 19, 2002.
Updated May 6, 2004.
Updated May 10, 2004.
Last updated July 26, 2006.