Left: ‘Welcome Dodgers’ headline, Los Angeles Evening Herald Express, 1958. Right: My 2nd Grade class photo

My Real Memoir: Newspapers and Talking Birds

Dad Was Ambitious to a Fault

But he’d dropped out high school to shoot bad guys who surrendered before he got there. And his only real job to date had been as an unskilled loading dock worker for the Los Angeles Herald Express. So, when he was offered a coveted Herald Express newspaper dealership in a brand-new suburb, he and Mom considered it a life-changing opportunity! But…

It would be some time before enough customers lived there to put gas in our two cars and tuna in our two cats. Newspaper dealers were expected to not only hire paper boys and collect subscriptions, but to build up “their” territory — if they wanted to keep it. So, along with knocking on doors, Dad found another way of growing our little domain:

He Took Over the Local Newsracks

Every day, he’d stock the racks with newspapers, put new headline cards in them (“Space Race Heats Up!”), and empty their cash slots of shiny new dimes and nickels. Which helped cover our huge $100 a month mortgage payment. But it also meant, he worked sunrise-to-sunset seven days a week. So, if I wanted any Dad-time, I had to go to work with him.

For a while, that meant riding along on this rack route. We’d talk, sing “My Friend the Witch Doctor” along with the radio, and shout “Tequila!” each time the sax solo stopped. And then I’d help Dad restock the racks, and get a cold Dr. Pepper (my drug of choice) as a reward.

My Absolute Favorite Stop…

…was “Gus’s liquor store.” Dad would greet the owner while I talked to Pretty Boy the mynah bird, who blithely greeted customers as they entered. But the preeminent event always came when I asked Pretty Boy, “Where’s Gus?” and initiated the greatest recurring comedy bit in cross-species history!

Pretty Boy would screech, “Here, Gus!” in his best mock-human voice. And a moment later, Gus the hound dog, dubious protector of the storage room hooch, would come loping in, and look groggily up at the owner. The owner would say, “Don’t look at me, Gus, I didn’t call you.” And then Gus, who to his dying day never dreamed that birds could talk, would–after I gave him a sympathetic head pat or two–lope lazily back into the storage room. At which point, Pretty Boy would guffaw “Ah-hah-hah-hah-hah!” till the cows (and other gullible species) came home.

No one will ever convince me that bird didn’t know exactly what he was doing. And so did I when I spent time with Pretty Boy, Gus…

And Dad.

To read My Real Memoir from the start, click here. To read the next episode, click here.