I was free to roam the neighborhood streets at the ripe young age of six. Although I think my mother was under the impression I was just staying put in the park right across the street, I was way too curious for that.

My neighborhood, although seemigly very quiet, was teeming with life. Vallejo was a place where returning WWI and WWII veterans made their homes being as they continued to work as ship builders at Mare Island just across the waterway. The veterans had long ago returned from war with their most treasured souvenirs -their wives. It was a true international "village" of sorts. Many of the homes were built at the turn of the century in the classic Greco-Italian Victorian style so famous of San Francisco a few short miles North. Every other old mysterious house that decorated the hilly streets of Vallejo held within its walls treasures from other worlds. I could visit one house and everything is French inside, just like the hostess. Another house would be Italian, complete with pictures of Rome and statuettes and cheribs. Another would be german with coo coo clocks and beer steins over the fireplace. Another could be Filipino filled with wicker, Mohogany and Teakwood inlaid with mother of pearl village scenes. There was a treat behind every door. And each place had its own aroma from the authentic home-cooked foods.

Not having a father, I forged friendships with retired old war veterans who liked nothing more than to teach me to widdle wood or hammer a nail. One old man I used to visit was always in his back yard working on something. He could wiggle his ears and he said he was part Billy Goat. He would always have a bow and arrow for me when I came by, which he widdled himself. And I made friends with old widowed Navy wives who showered me with goodies and romantic stories of lands far far away. My favorite was Annie who lived in a litle yellow and white house with a big porch. Her long deceases husband built their beautiful home with his bear hands. She was from France and she came to America by boat. She had a picture of a mermaid on her wall and she claims to have heard a mermaid singing in the night fog on her trip to America. She also believed in fairies and gnomes and her garden seemed like it was planned as a sanctuary for them all. She would bring out 2 bowls when I came by. one full of change and one full of candie. I would pick out all the silver change and all the coffee candies. but somehow, when I returned, the silver change and coffee candies had replenished themselves. She insisted she never added anything to them. It was magic.

The alley ways were lined with old garages and dented spray-painted garbage cans of all sizes and shapes with an occasional cat leaping out and running for cover into a crack between the shed doors or under an old car left in an overgrown yard to rot. On the main streets was a pool hall, bars, an ice cream parlor, a pizza parlor and the beloved corner stores with soda pop and candy. The candies with little prizes were at the Filpino store. But you had to endure the smell of dried fish. At the pool hall was someone who knew my dad and she let me play pool when no one was there. I could bareley reach the table. In the pizza parlow was a cigarette maching and I'd sneak in pull on all the knobs to see if anything would come out. Sometimes there was change in the coin return. I used to check the coin returns on every machine that had one, often finding change. In front of my little house to the right on Tennessee Street was a small corner store where my mom would send me for eggs, bread, and milk. I recall buying just a cube of butter at times or just a couple of egss taken right from the package. On the other side of my house, across the Veteran's Hall parking lot, was Washington park. The park was a never-ending supply of pop bottles which I would collect and return for a nickle a piece. Being as candy was about 15 cents and sodas about 25 cents, it didn't take many bottles to get my daily sugar fix. And there were plenty of old ladies in the neighborhood who saved them for me. Then, at about age nine, we moved closer to the waterfront and I would catch and then sell live "bullheads" to the sturgeon fisherman. As long as I kept enough change to buy a few live grass shrimp the next morning, I was still in business. For a few long and memorable summers, I had a pretty nice gig going.

I remember following the train tracks to the point where I was the only white person in in the world and an old black man on his porch was tipping his hat as if to say "how do you do?". I remember the hippies that lived down the alley and how they played Creedence Clearwater Revival songs in the back yard. I thought they were the actual band. I remember playing in the clover field next my house. I found a Mickey's beer bottle which had a bee on the label. I thought the bottle was for catching bees. So I did. I remember catching tadpoles and watching them grow into frogs in a jar on my dresser. I remember tree frogs which would leap from my hands and stay hapily on the window, stuck to the glass for days, catching flies. I remember catching little dragonflies that looked like candy. Green ones and blue ones with black bands. I remember a little girl named Angie who was one day older than me and how she made me play house in her garage and how we staged weddings in front of a house near ours that was white with tall pillars and flower gardens on either side, like a church. I remember climbing through fences, over fences, under fences, hiding between sheds and houses, squeezing through chained gates, and climbing on roofs. I remember the smell of tomatoes ripening in the hot afternoon sun and the scent of pasta steaming out through window screens as the setting sun reminded me it was time to head home.