Bill: Pre-Aruba

These are photos from an album I put together in 1976 or so called “Bill – The Story So Far,” supplemented with photos from an album that my Mom put together for me about a year later.

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Short Hills, New Jersey

For the record, I was born March 28, 1958, when we lived in Short Hills, NJ at 42 Browning Road. I was actually born in Orange Memorial Hospital at 4:05pm, thanks to Mom and Dr. Stokes.

The most famous story of my birth is when Dad called home from the hospital to tell my sisters that I was born a healthy boy, 9 pounds 6 ounces, with red hair. Sue remembers all three sisters pressed to the phone together shrieking “RED HAIR!!??” and laughing. My dad snapped back, “Well, it’s better than polio.” And so it was, I suppose. Polio was a big concern back then and the Salk vaccine was quite new. Also, there was some worry about the age of my mom who was nearly 40 when she had me, 9 years after my youngest sister, Laurie.

I don’t have any memories of this early time in New Jersey, but our Browning Road house ended up being a few blocks from the home we later had on Tennyson Court.

Havana, Cuba

We moved from New Jersey to Havana, Cuba in the summer of 1959 when I was one. The Cuban Revolution had just climaxed but the country’s direction was still in doubt. The Cuban strongman, Batista, fled Cuba on January 1, 1959 and Castro arrived in Havana January 8. Even then, it wasn’t 100% certain what he would do. I don’t know the exact sequence of events but our family moved/fled to Miami by the time Castro nationalized US companies including Esso Standard Oil on July 6, 1960. Sue and Laurie remember that the family went to the States for Christmas vacation in late 1959 and never returned to Cuba, so we really only lived there for about six months.

I don’t have any memories of our time in Cuba but a few have filtered down to me. The key ones center around our housekeeper in Havana, Casilda, who quickly grew close to the family and made an especially great arroz con pollo that Mom co-opted into a long-time family recipe.  Casilda would try to get me to “sientate como un caballero” (sit up like a gentleman). My casual posture left something to be desired, even then.

I believe Dad played a role in helping Casilda emigrate to Miami; she lived with our family for a time in Coral Gables before she married and moved on, after which we lost touch, to our regret.

Coral Gables, Florida

When we first came to Florida, we rented a house in Coral Gables, near Miracle Mile, 825 Andalusia Avenue, says Laurie.

I barely have any memories of that house, mostly from a few other photos and films. I’m guessing these photos were from that house when I was about two, but I’m not sure. My earliest actual memory is of a Mighty Mouse toy I had at that house. No idea why, but I guess it was my favorite.

Sue and Laurie remember that our grandfather, Papa (Mom’s father, Allie Glenn Garbutt), stayed with us for a time in the Coral Gables house. Sue remembers riding out a hurricane with him on the porch with glass jalousie windows. I don’t remember him being there but that would have been the only time we met. He passed away in December, 1961.

South Miami, Florida

Within a year or so we moved to a new house in South Miami, not too far from what was then a big new mall called Dadeland. We lived there for about four years.

As a toddler I managed to fall into the swimming pool there not once but twice and thankfully was rescued from the bottom, once by Mom and once by Sue, I think. Evidently, I very gladly just sank like a stone and lay peacefully on the bottom waiting for someone to come get me. I’m glad they did. It would be years, another generation and another house before anyone considered putting a fence around the pool so Scott wouldn’t fall in. Sue’s memory of the pool incident is better than mine:

I clearly remember seeing little Bill fall into the pool during a late-afternoon cocktail party (one too many?). I ran over, and there he was at the bottom, not struggling in the least, with those big brown eyes looking up at me as if to say, “Well?” I remember jumping in and getting him up, and don’t remember any problem getting him to breathe. Just another day.

I have a hodgepodge of actual memories from that house. My grandparents (Dad’s parents), Susie and Pop-Pop would visit from time to time and I remember taking long, slow walks with Pop-Pop around the neighborhood. I think he and I were both happy to get out of the house. There was a grove of mango trees between our house and the house of Mikey Gordon who became my friend; we used to climb the trees, get sticky from the sap and have adventures back there. As we got a little older, Laurie would sometimes set up a steeplechase course around the house and delight in beating us in races.

We had other neighbors, the Pruitts, who had two boys slightly older than me and a daughter, Tori, a year or so younger. Our families were friends and we were often over at their house playing or swimming. I was a very tentative swimmer, attached to a styrofoam belt and very reluctant to get my face wet or head underwater. When I was around 4, I was at their pool, paddling around along with everyone else. Tori, who was younger, smaller and a girl(!), had learned to dive and was showing off to everyone. I felt humiliated, ginned up all my courage and rage, took off my styrofoam belt and jumped in. When I discovered I didn’t melt (thanks, Wizard of Oz) or otherwise die, I was delighted and got applause from both families. After that, I became a fish, swimming underwater and forsaking the floating aids forever. 

I was partial to costumes and uniforms, as evidenced by some of the photos below. The caballero outfit was from a dance performance, probably with my school and others. It was a big production at the Miami Beach Auditorium, where Jackie Gleason did his TV show. I remember being awed by the backstage area, and vaguely recall trotting around onstage with a bunch of other kids.

One of my favorite costumes was a Confederate soldier’s uniform, complete with hat, belt and gun. For a time, when I was maybe 4, I wore it a lot…like every day. One day, I’d gone to the grocery store with Mom and as we were in the checkout line, a man surveyed my wrinkled, worn outfit and said with a sigh, “It’s been a long war, eh buddy?” Mom loved that story and told it often.

I’ve subsequently thought a lot about that outfit and the environment in which it was okay for me to wear it. Particularly since the 2017 protests in Charlottesville, there has been a general reassessment of attitudes about the Confederacy and my uniform was on the wrong side. I carry a fair amount of guilt over my parents’ racism, which was usually covert but sometimes glaringly overt, and my own attitudes which strive to be open and progressive but sometimes are not. I’m not proud of that uniform now, but I was then, and was certainly taught (not just by my parents, but in school and my general society) that the Confederacy was a noble cause.

I went to pre-school at Pinewood Acres, which has since grown much larger (as have I). I don’t remember much of anything about the school, other than getting dropped off there. From the picture, you can tell I was an enthusiastic student.

I recall a few other favorite family stories from this era, more from their retelling than from the actual incidents. One night, Mom and Dad went out and left me in the babysitting care of my three sisters. Len got her hands on a portable reel-to-reel tape recorder that had microphones and Len, Sue and Laurie proceeded to tape an extensive self-produced radio/television program (the entire comic book version of The Horsemasters, originally starring Annette Funicello, remembers Laurie). They got very involved and spent a long time at it. When they finally finished and got around to playing it back, they noticed a quiet, nasally, persistent voice in the background saying over and over, “I want a drink of water.” “May I have a glass of water?” “May I PLEASE have a glass of water?” Eventually, I did.

At some point, we had a cat who managed to climb into the cinderblock wall of the garage and got stuck. We could hear her meows but couldn’t coax her out. Finally, Len’s boyfriend (or maybe husband at that point), Mike O’Farrell, thought of a solution and banged a hole in the wall with a hammer. This caused the cat to scamper further into the wall’s cubbyholes. Mike banged another hole and then another, onward across much of the garage wall. Eventually, the cat was rescued. I think it took far longer to repair the holes.  

One day, we were driving for a long time around Miami with Susie and Pops on a hot summer day, stuck in traffic one of the long, hot causeways on the way to Miami Beach or Key Biscayne. I was scrunched in the back seat, wondering when this misery would end. Susie leaned toward Mom and said, “B-I-double-L sure is being good.” Before anyone could say anything, I muttered “B-I-double-L wishes he’d stayed home.”

I don’t know the exact sequence of events, but while we were in this house, Len graduated high school and married Mike O’Farrell, whom she met in South Miami and whose Dad was an Esso connection (per Laurie). I’m not sure how popular an event her marriage was with Mom and Dad; I have very little memory of the whole marriage though Laurie says there was a proper wedding, and indeed Sue was a bridesmaid along with her best friend and Mike’s sister, Sherry.

Len and Mike’s marriage didn’t last very long, they separated and Len moved back home for a while. I had never heard this bit but Sue says in her comment to this post that Mike started to pursue her and she chased him, which prompted Len and Mike to try one more time together, breaking Sue’s heart (though she did get the dog, Winston, out of the deal). Len and Mike drove cross-country, sold Len’s car (a sporty Monza coupe, as I recall for some reason, that I think Dad bought for her) and lived in Honolulu for some months before throwing in the towel altogether. Dad ended up paying their (or at least Len’s) way back, I think, and Len had to work for a long time paying Dad back…for the airfare and the car.

I’m sure Len, Sue or Laurie can tell these stories in more detail and with more accuracy. This is as much as I recall. [Sue spells out more in her comment at the end of this post.]

One last note about South Miami. Our house was burgled one evening and one of the main things stolen from my parents’ bedroom was a couple of shoeboxes of photos and old films. These were especially memories of my parents’ and sisters’ youth. It was a truly upsetting and petty crime. Mom was pretty sure it was some kids that broke in and thought they were taking something valuable. It was, but only to us. I’m glad we have the remaining photos that we have, but it’s a smattering of what had been a more complete collection. That episode is one of the reasons I’m finally getting around to do this electronic journal, in hopes that a second format will last a longer time.

In the summer of 1964 we learned that we would be moving to Aruba, a small island in the Caribbean about which we knew absolutely nothing. I think we must have already planned a grand expedition of a summer holiday to Mexico and the US West, including the Grand Canyon and Yosemite. It was the most elaborate summer vacation I can remember taking in my first decade. It’s funny how I just have scattered memories of specific places of events; I’ve had to piece together this trip with recollections from Sue and Laurie [see their comments at end of this post] and I’m still not sure we’ve got it exactly right.

The whole family, except for Len, flew to Mexico City where we spent some days touring the city and Aztec ruins (I remember the pyramids at Teotihuacan being impressive) before driving to Taxco, the “City of Silver” a few hours away in the mountains. Laurie adds that we stopped in Cuernavaca, which looks like it would have been on the way to Taxco from Mexico City.

We had a Mexican driver, a grumpy old guy who had questionable control of the wheel on the twisty mountain roads. I remember standing up in the back seat, blocking his view. The driver finally said to Mom, “Lady, won’t you tell your kid to sit down?” which mortified Mom more than me. I believe we went from there to Acapulco. I have dim memories of seeing Acapulco, but I may just be remembering Wide World of Sports shows about cliff divers there.

As best Laurie and I can recall, we then flew to San Francisco, briefly saw that beautiful city for the first time then drove to Yosemite National Park. At Yosemite, we stayed in a cabin in the now-destroyed Camp Curry, saw sequoias and watched the now-discontinued firefall from Glacier Point. From there we headed to Los Angeles via Bakersfield, seeing old New Jersey neighbors, the Humphries. In Los Angeles, we saw some of Hollywood and spent a day at Disneyland. I distinctly remember being terrified of the Phantom of the Opera who hung out by the theater on Disneyland’s Main Street; that had far more impact on me than the rides. Sue says we also went to Knott’s Berry Farm which was a competitive early theme park with more rides, but I don’t remember it specifically.

From LA, we drove to Las Vegas and then on to the Grand Canyon. It was at the Grand Canyon at the end of June when the whole family, except Laurie, forgot her birthday. We had driven all day from Las Vegas, seen the canyon, and had dinner in the big dining room at the El Tovar where we were staying, all without a peep about her birthday. Laurie was sure there would finally be a cake and celebration to cap the meal and when one came out for another table but not her, she was hugely disappointed. Laurie says that Mom used the excuse that they had bought her a guitar (“cheap” says Laurie, “most wonderful” says Sue) in Mexico as an early birthday present and therefore she was covered. She wasn’t; the story — Laurie’s disappointment and Mom’s guilt — lasted far longer.

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Check out Laurie’s and Sue’s comments, below (click on “Show Comments” box), which helped correct the record.

Next Post: Bill’s Story So Far, Aruba

Related Post: Cultural Memories, 1963-1964

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