I was thinking about being a child in the 1950s and what that was like

 There were two periods where life was terrifying. One when I was 2 with whooping cough until they angels came and saved my life. And the second terrifying time was from age 10 to 15 when I had many night time seizures any one of which could have easily killed me and would have if I wasn't as young and resilient and strong as I was. because these types of seizures often kill adults over 30 where they have likely strokes or heart attacks from the stress they put on a human body.

However, being young and strong enough I survived all this.

However, I was thinking tonight how nice mostly life was between ages 3 and 10 when I had my seizures often at night from a rock climbing concussion around age 9.

So, at 3 years old I was in Seattle Washington and It was 1951 then but by 4 years old we moved to Vista, California which was a completely different place to be. I soon got beat up by a neighbors father because I had gotten into an old car of his that was open with his son and played with the steering wheel like I was driving the old old car. This was pretty strange because nothing like this ever happened to me in Seattle and if it had my father or Grandfather would have killed them literally because that is exactly how my father and grandfather were which was pretty normal for the 1950s then.

So, I started Kindergarten in Vista then in 1953 I believe in the fall when I was 5 years old and I remember I didn't ever like taking naps and never took forced naps at a certain time at home ever. If I wanted or needed to take a nap anytime I wanted to I did but not on some kind of schedule ever.

However, they made us bring a bath towel and then we were supposed to take naps on the hard floor which wasn't at all comfortable. This I hated about Kindergarten and the kids on the school bus were not nice either. These two things I hated about Kindergarten in Vista.

I could walk to my grade school in El Cajon when we moved there Christmas vacation though and I was put into another Grade School Kindergarten. This was much better for me. I remember playing the Triangle in a school music presentation that I enjoyed a lot. So, this Kindergarten I don't think they forced us to take naps then.

Then I had a friend called Danny Barsocks that lived across the street so I used to go over there to watch Steve Reeves as Superman on TV. However, we didn't buy our own TV until I was 6 or 7 when we moved to Tujunga in Los Angeles County up next to the mountains there. 

In El Cajon (near San Diego) we had a whole house and not just a duplex like in Vista and we lived in a housing development next to the Grade School so this was convenient so I could walk to school with my mother or grandmother. However, I often walked home alone or with my friend, Danny Barsocks. He was 5 too and had a big bicycle so I wanted one too so my father and mother bought me a Schwinn single speed balloon tire bike then. I was proud I had a bicycle too. My father also gave me a jack knife which I promptly put a scar into my right thumb thumb print trying to see how sharp it was. However, I don't remember cutting myself with it ever again after my mother put butterfly bandages on my thumb to keep the wound closed. People weren't so much into stitches then and often used butterfly bandages instead to keep a wound closed. I had to climb up on a 1 foot high block of wood to get on it so I could ride it. But, I got to ride a long ways from home with Danny Barsocks on his bicycle too. One day I followed him off a three foot rise (like a 3 foot high dirt cliff) and wasn't that good a rider on a bicycle yet to do something like this and the pavement shaved off my right eyebrow and eyelashes. But, I soon healed up and soon I was riding my bike with Danny Barsocks again. We were 5 YEARS old and ruled the whole world in our eyes then as 5 year olds.

I owned at least one bicycle constantly until I was out of high school and also at 16 I bought a car with money from working as an electrician in my father's business on weekends and summers from 12 on.

But at 16 when I bought my first of many  cars I started dating a girl 21 and this changed my life a lot too. This would be in 1964 when I was 16. I have always owned at least one car since I was 16 too even now.

Then the summer after I finished Kindergarten we moved again this time to Tujunga because my parents being very responsible people had been put in charge of the Hope Street "IAM" Sanctuary which is the main church in the religion I was raised in in the Los Angeles area (even though there are several others this was the biggest then.

So, then I went to Pinewood School in Tujunga for first and 2nd Grade. One of the more interesting things was that I and my new friend and next door neighbor Danny (who also shot me with a BB Gun in the leg by the way (we were 6) and it left a black and blue circle on my leg about the size of a Silver Dollar.

We were walking home from school (several miles) and a boy from our school (likely a 9 or 10 year old) and remember we were only 6 year old 1st graders banged our heads together and laughed at us as we cried from him hurting us.

So, we took a different route home the next day because we didn't want to go by that Bad Boys house again and get injured again. However, the problem was that we walked across a busy thoroughfare with 4 lanes of quickly moving traffic and people almost hit us many times. Then a teacher from our school that we knew stopped her car and asked us why we were doing this and we told her of the boy who had banged our heads together and hurt us and why we took a different route home. The boy was expelled from school and we never saw him again then.

Then my grandmother tried to come fetch us the next day and broke her ankle over the rocks we had to walk over as children to get home through the hills and trees from the 4 lane highway then. She felt bad what had happened to us but then got injured. We found her moaning on the ground trying to come take care of us both after school within a few blocks of where we lived. As children walking over 6 inch to 12 inch rocks was fairly easy then because we were wild 6 year old boys with BB guns (at least this is the macho way we saw ourselves then).

Then at age 8 we moved to Glendale Closer to the church my parents were in charge of in Los Angeles because it was only a 20 minute to 1/2 hour drive on the freeways from Glendale then to this church. 

We lived 3 different places in Glendale from 1956 until 1969 when I was 21 years old and my parents then in 1969 moved to San Diego where my father took a new job. He found he could make more money in San Diego working as a Union electrician building the Carlsbad Southern California Edison power plant than having his own business as an electrical Contractor in Los Angeles. He did this until he retired from being an electrician in 1980. So, he retired as a Union Electrician in 1980 and he was making I think in 1980 at least 30 dollars or more an hour then which was a lot of money at that time. It would probably be like making 100 dollars or more an hour now. 

The first place we lived in Glendale was near Maple park in Glendale which is just south of Colorado Blvd.