The Field

I'm frozen in my thoughts while sitting in my car in the parking lot. I am considering a few square acres of asphalt and concrete. The little painted lines show us where to park, I suppose, to maximize parking space. Someone's small stroke of genius so many years ago.  


Ah, the land of Los Angeles where most have a car, few carpool, everyone complains about traffic and parking lots become hunting grounds while tempers flare and hand gestures are the preferred way to communicate. Concrete trails lead to bistro tables and an eatery, a furniture store, the proverbial nail salon and everything in between.


Although I see life before this oversized strip mall, others likely only see a few stores where one can easily pick up an over-priced cup of Starbucks Coffee or an imagined healthy Jamba Juice which is laden with hundreds of hidden calories. And, we wonder why we are broke and overweight. It’s all too easy. When did life change into a mecca of inconvenient convenience?


Knowing this is the final resting place of my four little friends, I ponder yesteryear and imagine the parking lot as it was: a dirt field with tumble weeds that will eventually be blown down our street through the fenceless neighborhoods which meet Hawthorne Boulevard. 


Just beyond the field, a few tumbleweeds are collected by mom and then, using silver spray paint and a few decorations, they are transformed into snowmen, Los Angeles style. I can smell the odor of trash burning in our backyard incinerator while the neighbors are hanging sweet smelling laundry. I feel the sense of innocent security enjoyed during the 1950s which pours into our nestled neighborhood of cookie cutter houses.


We lived in a typical tract house built after the war and during the baby boom. It was a small three bedroom, two bath house with a washing machine in the garage. Dad had a large family room built onto the back of the house. The large old brick fireplace with a thick wooden mantel held our Christmas Stockings.  A fresh tree was placed near the sliding glass door and the smell of pine needles permeated the air. 


When I’m in the area, I pass by the house. It is completely different and doubled in size now. I only recognize it because I remember the address. I wonder what life would have been like if we had stayed there and not moved to Thousand Oaks. Would my parents have been happier together?


Mom stayed home while dad worked. Every house in the neighborhood had children. One family had twelve children and ate dinner outside on a picnic table, but most families had a more manageable two or three children. There was always something to do because there were so many of us in the neighborhood. Baseball games, bike riding and tetherball were favorite pastimes. The dads would join us in neighborhood Kite Flying contests. I remember these days as carefree and family centered.


The homes were built close together. My friend Sally lived down the street and Linda lived next door her. Their bathroom windows were close and their secret call was “OllieOllieOx” in a high pitched singing voice. Hours were spent giggling and chatting on both sides of the two windows with bathroom doors securely locked. I was part of the not-so-secret meetings during sleep-overs.  Years later Linda took her life.


Mother warned me about the dangers of the vast amount of untouched land surrounding our little neighborhood. I clearly remember the little girl on the news who had fallen into the abandoned well. She lived in another state but this tragedy was national news.  Mom said there could be an abandoned well in this field as well. I heeded her warning and only went there once when there was a purpose. I went with her and she held my hand. I was likely only five or six years old and remember the sadness I felt that day. If I had listened to her about another warning we wouldn’t be out in this dangerous field carrying a shoe box, a cross and a shovel. At least that’s how I felt at the time.


Just two weeks before we headed out to that field, I went into the garage with mom to help her with the laundry. Actually, more than likely it was to ‘watch’ her do the laundry. We heard some squeaking noises coming from a corner inside the garage and upon investigation, hidden from view, were four kittens. The mother was noticeably absent. 


 I was a magnet to the kittens and mom had to drag me away from them. “Leave them alone, Karen. Don’t handle them too much or they will die.” But I couldn’t help myself and didn’t want to believe that they would die because I loved them. I picked them up to play with them at every available opportunity. The kittens sucked on a cloth soaked in formula that mom gave them.


But, they were too small and weak to live. One by one the kittens died; all on the same day. Mom went into the house and brought back a shoebox. I helped her carefully placed each kitten into the box. We set out to bury them in the dangerous and frightening field. I wasn’t afraid because mom was there with me. I was sad, partly because the kittens were gone, but mostly because I thought that I was the cause of their deaths.


It was a few years later when the field was plowed and asphalt was laid. The little wooden cross mom and I constructed for the burial site had likely withered away by then. Block wall fences were built and the incinerators and cloths lines disappeared. I was nearly eleven when my new sister was born. Less than two years later the house was deemed too small and unfit for our growing family. It was time to move on. The ‘For Sale’ sign appeared and within a short time we moved to Thousand Oaks, a small town, but emerging community with new fields to explore.