Ha Ha It's Moanday

Yep, it's your Monday and I (hehe) don't have to go to work! In fact I'm not even doing much around the house today, cause I'm a lazy sod....but oh well.

Mum and Dad sure weren't lazy.....they worked from morning till night plus a lot ...all their lives.

I remember in Hayward, California....1961...I was a freshman in high school. Mum would get up at about 5am, make lunches for the four of us...then walk to the bus stop 3 blocks away, catch a bus to just south of Oakland (about 20 miles) and work as a secretary until 3 pm.....then catch a bus to down town Hayward, stop in and check on the store and Dad....walk home (another 5 or 6 blocks uphill), and cook us dinner. Dad, always a late riser, would get out of bed at about 730 or 8 and drive to the store, where he would stay until after we closed at 6pm.....usually get off work about 630 or 7 and take me home (I worked at the store sweeping and stuff from 4pm on). Then dinner and while Mum cleaned the dishes and washed clothes, Dad would start his bookwork for the store....sitting on the couch, work spread out on the coffee table and the tv on.

In that stretch of time I was trying to behave somewhat. Was just out of my first jolt of juvenile detention and was pretty scared of going back.....still hung around a bunch of baddies at Hayward High....learned how to smoke there (ewwwwww!), and got involved in trying to be a "bad boy". It's really amazing how wonderful my parents were with me...all the crap they put up with.

Dad and Mom were so much like everyone else of their times....they wanted a better life for their children. The problem was, Dad...just never really understood that a better life for the children meant that they didn't have to work from can til can't like his generation had to.

On top of that, I wasn't exactly the poster child for "Johnny Too Good" (see above detention reference).....

But oh Lord, they sure did the best that they could with all they had.....We kids never new we were poor, and we never wanted for love. Unfortunately most kids don't come with good sense and ethics installed....oh well.

I was the lucky one, I was born in 1947....first child, doted on by one and all.....Kris was born in 19....OK, I won't tell... but there was a "slight" gap in ages.....let me put it this way, when I went off to my junior year in college, she was entering junior high school!

Poor Mom and Dad.....in between us there were 3 other children, that didn't make it. All I can remember is Mum being sick an awful lot.

The folks were very private people...didn't show strong emotions often to us kids. I never saw them raise their voices to one another, and on the obverse, never saw them get very mushy either.

At the time of Mum's passing, I found a box of cards and letters from one to the other of them.....shock would be the mildest way to describe it. I never saw them give birthday, anniversary, Christmas cards to each other......however ... in that box were those cards from each of them for every year they were together...along with all their love letters of the early marriage....

I'm getting goose bumps just thinking about it now, and some tears...they loved each other so very much. But, it was a private thing to them.....they new each others love and commitment, they didn't need to show it to the world.

Frank & Virginia Spencer.....

I love and Miss them to this day, and that's OK, because they are with me now, both in spirit and with what they imparted into my soul......took me a long time to realize how truly special they were.....now I can't think of two more wonderful people that ever lived

Frank & Virginia Spencer