Excerpt from: The Loop, by Paul Olsen

My first memory was literally burned into me as I fell against the gas heater in Mom and Dad's apartment at 1715 Golden Gate avenue when I was a little over a year old, raising a welt on my left wrist. The scar stayed with me until I was twenty, having crawled a third of the way up my forearm by then as my skin stretched to accommodate the growing body underneath. I think that was also the day my mother had a screaming fit when I refused to eat scrambled eggs and threw everything on the floor. I can still draw a plan of the apartment. That burn planted itself in the back of my memory banks and like a vortex sucked anything else lurking around that day with it. Mom and Dad split up shortly afterwards...maybe Dad threw his scrambled eggs on the floor as well.

The memory flow from childhood really starts at aunt Katy's house at 856 Clayton, just up the hill from the guts of the Haight-Ashbury district where my dad grew up with vivid childhood adventures which he shared with me as I was growing up and where, 20 years later, I was to live a most colorful period in my life during one of the most colorful periods of American history (probably the most "colorful"). This was a big, bulky Edwardian 3-storey edifice over a garage with formal front outdoor staircase, large bay windows, wood wainscoting and plate rails in all the rooms. The best part, though, was the kitchen because that was where aunt Katie hung out.

Aunt Katy was easily the best cook on both sides of my family, including my Grandad who was a professional chef. My cousin and I, being permanently hungry, stuck real close to her. Gourmets that we were at nearly three years old, Ronnie and I would pester her for mayonnaise sandwiches, graham crackers, and milk. We knew all about the good things in life right out of the box.

The goodies were kept in the U-shaped walk-in larder in one corner of which, hopelessly out of reach, was a big Aunt Jemima cookie jar alternately filled with Hydrox cookies or Nabisco Grahams. A magical smell of fresh bread, cookies and crackers emanated from that special corner of the kitchen, and we paid close attention as Aunt Katy opened the cut-glass cabinet doors and worked her magic with the breadboard, knife and assorted breads, spreads, crackers, plates and glasses. Graham crackers quickly became my favorite treat; not only did I like the things, I liked the long green box they came in. In those days, and up until recently, Nabisco Grahams were wrapped in a beige, waxy, semi-transparent paper almost as nifty as the stuff firecrackers are wrapped in. In fact, it's almost the same stuff as Ritz cracker stacks are wrapped in now.

These days, some twits at Nabisco have decided not only to change the box from green to dark blue (BIG mistake), but to replace the wax paper with a clear space-age plastic which cannot be opened by anyone short of Superman. I'm sure this must be the stuff that coats the stealth fighter. I refuse to buy them. They're full of artificial flavor now as wellÅ something the twits at Nabisco seem wedded to. They screwed up Cheese-Nips by soaking them in artificial flavors. Maybe it's because they are part of a disgusting tobacco companyÅ which explains a lot.

A cast-iron Wedgewood stove of gigantic proportions dominated the kitchen. How Aunt Katy managed to drive that thing was beyond Ronnie and me. I was frightened to go near it; that stove was as big as a locomotive and just as dangerous. How it fit in the kitchen was a mystery as well; the house had to have been built around it. Aunt Katy had that fire-breathing metal monster in the palm of her hand and could make it do wonderful things. It didn't scare her one bit.

When Ronnie and I had managed to convince each other we were brave enough, we would to run the gauntlet of the evil bogeyman who lived downstairs in the basement, lying in wait like a submerged alligator at a watering hole whose sole purpose in life was to scare the shit out of us. We would make our way very rapidly through the dark basement, past huge dark shapes where the bogeyman lived, hoping to hell that bastard wouldn't get us before we reached the safety of the light streaming in the rear door which led out to the safety of the back yard.

Now that I think about it, we were pretty brave little fuckers to play Russian Roulette with Mr. Evil himself. I'd want nothing less than a flamethrower if I had to face a similar threat today.

There were lots of potted plants next to the rear of the house, and the damp smell of the soil mixed with the smell of the plants--mostly geraniums--is one I still fondly recall. I get "glimpses" of that smell from time to time and it puts me right back there at the dank rear wall of that big house with all those potted geraniums and that scary sonofabitch lurking on the other side of the wall.

Mom was driving a Buick staff car for a colonel in the army and I would spend parts of my days riding around with her in the big car. I had my toys in the cavernous back seat and would amuse myself when she had to nip in to pick the colonel up or run an errand for him.

She also worked at MacFarlane's candy shop on Market street (near the Big E). I was assigned to the rear room which had a cot for the girls who served at the long counter up front. I remember a parade of pretty women in peek-a-boo high heels coming back to check up on me and to spend a few minutes with me on their breaks. I must have had a fair sampling of the chocs as well to keep me sweet while Mom was up front.

Mom was a beautiful Irish-looking girl with high cheekbones who used to sing with a big band. I think she even made a record or two of torch songs. She used to sing me to sleep with, "How are things in Glocamorra?"

I never found out, I guess it was a rhetorical song. Those Irish are sneaky.

Years later, after he untied the knot with Marilyn Monroe, Mom went out with Joltin' Joe DiMaggio and became good friends with his brothers, Dom and Vince. I think she really liked Joe, because she always spoke so well of him. She said he was a real gentleman. He gave her an autographed baseball for me which years later, in desperation to organize a hot game with cousin Ron, I unbelievably used for its real purpose. It sickens me to think about it now.

Joe never got over Marilyn and made sure she always had a fresh rose at her plain crypt, sandwiched between two unknowns in the tiny, hidden Westwood Cemetery near UCLA. Such an ignominious resting place for such a 20th century icon.