In the late 1940's, we still lived in our little two room house on a one acre farm on Sherman Way in Van Nuys.
These were hard times for my Mom and Dad in many ways. I have this memory that, somehow, Thursday evenings seemed like a time when tensions would be especially high at home and I felt that I just had to escape any possible arguments or yelling.
I felt guilty because part of me wanted to stay and somehow make it better. But another part just wanted to run away.
On such occasions, I sometimes would head out the back of our place, squeezing behind the worn-out chicken coop, and cross the vacant lot behind us to Wyandotte Street. About a block west lived my friends,
Reid and
Earl.
I'd find a place to sit on their braided circular rug and hang out with their family and watch "The Ruggles" or "The June and Stu Erwin Show" or some other TV show about unreal families.
At the time, my father was a probation officer for the City of Los Angeles. (He had been an attorney in New York.) He was working on the narcotics squad.
One of the adventures my Dad shared with me concerned a young man who was being transported to a detention camp several hours drive north from Los Angeles.
"All right,
Wilson. Watch your head," my Dad cautioned. "I'll be sitting with you in the back seat."
"Hey, my name isn't Wilson. It's
Sonsini."
"Sure, I know. Just relax. We have a long ride ahead of us."
"But my name is Sonsini."
The prisoner repeated himself several more times.
The probation officers sympathized with him and tried to reassure him that the place they were going to was more like a camp and it wouldn't be that bad and he would out in less than a year.
The prisoner slowly repeated, "My name is Sonsini."
Some hours later, the three men in the car pulled into the correction facility.
"Here's your man," the probation officer driving the car said to the officer in the receiving area. He handed over the paper work.
"Thanks. You guys want a Coke, there's a machine inside" he replied as he checked over the papers.
"Hey, wait a minute! There's an error on this form. The numbers don't match. This guy isn't Wilson!
It was a very long drive back to Los Angeles.
(To be continued)