My Summer Of '72
This boy was hurting... Issue #6
ifOnlyi… hadn’t fallen asleep on the beach, suffered severe burns, and never said yes to water skiing, I believe the summer of ’72 could have been the perfect summer. Coming next is a life-or-death story.
I was excited to see my two little sisters when we arrived home in Estoril, Portugal, and I hugged them tightly. I was thrilled as I loved them and had missed them so much. The youngest soon turned four, and the older one turned 10 in the spring. I was sad that I missed her birthday that year because I was at school in America, and she was in Portugal.
My cousin Debbie was older than all of us kids and lived with the family that year. She was a rebellious teenager, and to help keep her out of trouble, she lived with my mother in Portugal for a year. She was blond, tan, and hip to music.
Debbie introduced me to Rod Stewart and Maggie May, which are still some of my favorite songs.
The first time I heard that song was when we went to the beach. It was hot as I remember well that first day on the beach, I fell asleep on my tummy, yes, you guessed it, I got fried, and burnt to a crisp with at least two layers of skin damage.
Welcome to the start of my summer! I was burned so bad I had to lie on my tummy in bed for the first few weeks, as I was raw and blistered up. ‘Why didn’t Debbie wake me up sooner?’ I wondered. She was a hot teenage girl with many friends, so she wandered off to visit with them while I was being cooked all by myself. LOL.
Once I was pretty well healed, I went out to play with the Geese, Chickens, and our donkey. This Donkey had a name too, my mother named it PK’s ass. Named after my father, so every time she yelled for him, the donkey would go nuts and start he-hawing until we came out and gave him a treat.
My Dad's patience soon wore thin; he laughed at first, but it got old quickly. I don’t think their relationship was going too well, to be honest, at that time. Who would do that to someone they loved? Naming a Donkey after my Dad?
I loved the fresh bread rolls that an old man brought daily. He would pull his old wooden cart, built in the 1800s, up the hill, and I would run out onto the street to buy a few dozen of these incredible bread rolls for the family.
The same man came by once a month with his cart, asking if we wanted our knives sharpened. The cart was the same but had a different set-up for sharpening, and we used it for that as well. Mom loved to cook, really loved to cook.
The big meal of the day was always lunch, and it was a feast. Mom & Dad would drink red wine with lunch. Funny how I recall the wine was in old glass jugs with cords wrapped around the bottles. They took these jugs to the wine vineyards and filled them once a week for a dollar or two.
When our housekeeper cooked, it was mostly fish. My little sister ate with her in the kitchen. I have forgotten her name, but she had a talent! She was able to take the tail of the fish and somehow pull the tail through the mouth. This way, they could eat the meat off the fish's head more easily and not miss anything.
OMG, no chance of me eating fish heads, and if my little sis knew what she ate back then, she would not be happy at all. Just the two of them in the kitchen, and the housekeeper loved that, she said. After lunch, a long, long nap or as they say “Siesta”, too much wine, and too much food. Not for me, though.
It was off to the race track for me. This was a slot car race. You would bring your slot car with you and pay for the use of the track. Kids and adults would come from local towns to race their cars against yours. This was magic!
I loved it, and the cars were bigger than Matchbox or Hot Wheels. They were about the size of your hand. The things you could do to improve the car were endless and costly. I made a lot of friends who didn’t speak English, and I certainly didn’t speak Portuguese either. A few words, yes, but that was it.
In the Summer of ’72, I also learned how to play indoor soccer. It was different from the outdoor soccer at The Howard School in California. Indoors, it was 6 or 7 players only, and the field was much smaller, with walls surrounding the entire area. The walls were used in the game. Players could just hit the ball off the wall or use it in any way to get an advantage over their opponent.
I spent a lot of the summer playing in competitions and enjoyed collecting the badges to be sewn onto my jacket. I had around 80 from the tournaments I played in. I would get one to add to the jacket each time I played. Sadly, the coat, my pride and joy, was stolen about a week before I left Portugal to head back home to California. I was not happy… Now stealing entered my life on top of dares.
We sometimes drove out to a farm, hours away from Estoril, to visit one of my mom's friends, a real-life Padre of the Village. He was someone very special and loved by all. One weekend, we drove up to see him. The villagers hosted a feast of food and drinks. The Padre took me out hunting that morning, a rifle in his arms and the two of us walking and hunting for our dinner. He taught me how to shoot, and not long after, he saw his prey.
A deer! Padre took the rifle and, with one perfect shot, killed the deer. Dinner would be served with fresh Venison for everyone. I tasted Port that night, as I know the Venison was marinated in lovely ruby port! Yummy. I don’t even remember what else I ate. I know it was a very special meal for me, and the Padre’s blessing was a special touch.
On the drive back to Estoril, we were packed into two cars. My Mom and little 4-year-old sister were in the back of Mom's friend Boris’s car full of goodies and leftovers, as well as plenty of bottles of that fabulous red wine. I was in another car along with friends and family. All of a sudden, with wet roads, Mom's car fishtailed and went off the ledge, rolling over several times.
Mom was in the back seat in the dark of night, and she felt her body very wet, sitting next to my sister. She thought it was blood; it looked like blood through the misty reflection of the headlights. She freaked out and screamed. I heard the scream and knew this was not good. Perhaps my mom or my little sister had been hurt badly.
Boris got out of the car, trying to wave someone down for help. During that time, Mom felt broken glass she thought might be from the windows that had shattered, but only the front window was broken, and she was in the back.
Where did all this broken glass come from? It was the red wine bottles that broke when the car rolled over, and it was the red wine that was all over my little sister, not blood as she imagined. Thank God my little sis made it through her second crash with Mom, the first was when she was in Mom's belly.
Yes, Mom's belly! A Driver went through a red light, hit my mom's car head-on, and split the front end. Mom was over 8 months pregnant. This was not good; the car was done, but not Mom. Back in 1969, cars were built tough, tough enough to withstand a head-on collision with no significant injuries.
I look forward to sharing more of my life stories with you
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ifOnlyi… short stories are published chronologically, and follow my life growing up in California from 4 years old. If you’ve just found me, the stories will come together when you start reading from….Issue #1