Overcoming George

Because of having to work for George so much of the time, I missed many of the teenage experiences that my friends were enjoying and I really never did learn very many social skills or develop much self-confidence. I primarily worked on survival skills. I think those are still intact. While being a teenager, I tried to look cool but I am sure the façade was obvious.  On this house-building job I was only a grunt. I was not trusted to do anything important like saw wood, make measurements, make important decisions, etc. I shoveled trenches, dug and bricked up the cesspool, hammered and other repetitive tasks where I would not mess anything up very bad.

After this house was finished George put it one the market and it did not sell right away. I was in high school at the time and got myself suspended from school for two days for a stupid act. While walking down an outside hallway during class I let out sort of a catcall into a room where the door was open. The teacher came to the door and told me to come back, which I did not do. Just then, my favorite teacher, Mr. Cole, the metal shop teacher, happened to be coming from the other end of the hall. He had me go back to the teacher who wanted me and I was soon sent to the Vice Principal, Mr. Bergstrom. “Bergie” felt that the infraction of rules was severe enough to warrant a two-day suspension. George noticed that I was not going to school the following morning and I told him why after he asked me. He then told me to go over to the Second Avenue house and pull the weeds out of the front lawn. I got in my 1933 Ford, drove over there and pulled out several boxes of weeds which took a long time. He came home in the evening and told me “I thought that I told you to pull the weeds from the lawn”, implying that I never pulled any weeds at all. I said I did pull weeds. He said, “You did not”. I gave him a dirty look and started to walk away. He said, “Never look at me that way again”. As I walked from the living room into my bedroom I glanced back and gave him another dirty look. He promptly ran after me into my room and started to pound on me as I was lying on my bed. He was six foot tall and of medium build. I was five foot six or seven and weighted about one hundred thirty pounds at most. I was able to get up from the bed and began to run out the front door and down stairs. I yelled to him “you dumb son-of-a-bitch”. I had never said anything like that to him before. Like a shot, George took off running after me down the stairs, out the driveway and down the center of Lower Azusa Road. I was terrified and happened to look back and saw that he was gaining on me. All of a sudden the mythical wings of Mercury must have attached themselves to my shoes and I took off running like I had never run before. George, the smoker, did not catch me, fortunately, or I am sure I would have paid dearly on the side of the road with many bumps and bruises and perhaps broken bones. 

Panting heavily, I did not know what to do or where to go for the night. I had to have a place to sleep so I finally went to my friend Dick Ferris’s house on Roseglen Street and asked if they would let me stay for the night. They said, “Yes”. The next day after I got up, I went back to the Arcadia house to pull more weeds from the front yard. That afternoon George drove up in broad daylight and walked up to me on the front lawn and said “stand up and take it like a man”. I stood up and looked him in the eye, expecting the worse... 

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