And There I Was... Just Minding My Own Business

And There I Was...  Just Minding My Own Business

A Hybrid Memoir

Rawge Jones

Copyright © 2023 Roger Jones

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

Rawge Jones asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Grateful Acknowledgments to My Amazing Friends

Preface

POINT OF LIGHT

A BORDER STORY

WHAT’S IN A NAME

ONCE UPON A TIME…

RIDING THE RAILS

THE 60 WATT CROSS

COCK-A-DOODLE-DOOOOO!

SPEED

PAPA KINLEY

DIRTY JOKES

GALLO DEL DIABLO

TIME TO THINK

MONEY LAUNDERING

LOVE FOR FAMILY

FISHAHOLIC

CLIMBING THE LADDER

RAWGE’S RULES TO LIVE BY

FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION

THE DANGERS OF SCISSORS

TRUST

A HEART’S DESIRE

FEARS

BILLIONS

KEEP ON BEING YOU

FAMOUS LAST WORDS

RHONDA

EPIPHANY!

REBORN GUITARS

CHARACTER FLAWS

LONG HAIR

OUR BUBBLES

AGE

EXPOSED!

SOMETIMES YOU JUST GOTTA RANT!

S&M NIGHT

TREE HUGGER

CLOGGIN’

INTROSPECTION

IT’S A MAN’S WORLD

MY FRIEND, THE MEAN BRAIN

BOUGEE

PERFECT TIMING

I’M 100% SURE

THE PANDEMIC

HOME TEST

A GLIMPSE INTO OUR FUTURE

LIFE IS…

CANARY IN THE COAL MINE

THE GOOD OLD DAYS!

LEARNING FROM THE AIN’TS

ROYALTY

THANK YOU CARDS

NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS

THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS

CARICATURE

FREE ADVICE

Grateful Acknowledgments to My Amazing Friends

I want to extend my heartfelt appreciation to Karen, Bernie, Chris, Rene’, and my wonderful wife Rhonda. You all took my rambling thoughts and managed to transform them into a book!

Preface

Sharing stories has always been a passion of mine, especially those from my own life.

For years, my wife and I hosted a monthly old-time Gospel music concert. Those concerts grew into a regular Gospel Show, with raucous music, delicious BBQ food, and a time for my humorous stories.

But the Pandemic came along and changed everything. Suddenly, we had no concerts and I had no audience. Then, to shake things up even more, I spent all of April, 2020, in a hospital. For a time, I was on a ventilator and my situation looked grim.

I had taken creative writing classes in college, over 35 years ago. Back then, I had dreamed of someday writing a book. The Pandemic and my time in the hospital rearranged my timelines. All of the dreams that I had saved for someday suddenly became things that I needed to do now. I came within a few heartbeats of running out of somedays.

Shortly after I was released from the hospital, I started writing and sharing thoughts each week, on social media. This book was born out of that year of writing.

I’m no longer waiting for someday.

POINT OF LIGHT

The 1960s, in the rural areas of California’s central San Joaquin Valley, may be the most UN-understood time in the history of our nation. No one seems to study it. No one seems to care about it. No one even references it. It was a time-period that was , and then it was not , and then everyone just moved on. It was a brief shadow in our geographic history with too many shiny spots around it to draw anyone’s waning attention. If not for the short-handled hoe, Cesar Chavez, and a few other temporal icons, the whole time and place would be without interest. But it’s a time I remember. It’s when and where I grew up.

During the great Dust Bowl migration, millions of poor farmers and others left the plains states and headed west. Almost a quarter of a million of them poured into California, seeking work and a new life. Though these hardworking people were not greeted with open arms, they forged through hardships and poverty and settled into California farm life. For the next 30 years, they would drag their families along in beat-up cars and trucks, camp on the sides of the roads, and move throughout the state to nurture, grow, and then pick its fruit and vegetables. These sun-wrinkled and leathery people were my grandparents and parents. These were my people.

Though no one cares, the 1960s were a distinctly pivotal time of transition for these middle-America expats. That period witnessed the once-wandering dust bowl migrants pass the shovel, hoe, and knife to the new workforce of immigrant Mexicans. The migrant working whites had mostly found their place in California economics and settled into permanent jobs, leaving the immigrant Mexicans to take over the brunt of the demanding farm work. This cultural and socio-economic shift happened in the span of one decade, and almost no one even noticed.

I remember the time pretty well. For me as a child, the sun rose out of a cotton field, beat down on us all day and then set into another cotton field. Tomorrow, it did the same thing. When it wasn’t hot and dusty, it was rainy and muddy. The beautiful Spring season lasted about a week and Fall seemed even shorter. My farming dad spent his days trying to stay a step ahead of the calamities of weather and nature. My mom spent her days working random jobs off the farm and still trying to keep up the full-time duties of mother, wife, and matriarch. We were poor, just like everyone around us, so no one really noticed it much.

Looking back, it seems that our little community was such an isolated spot. Every adult person thought alike and acted alike. Everyone worked the same basic jobs and made about the same basic money. Everyone had the same gripes, fears, and dreams. Everyone spoke the same, cussed the same and expected the same. Very little influence came into our town and even less went out. Despite the major changes taking place around us, none of the people I knew seemed to change much. If they did, it was at a glacier’s pace, and again, no one noticed.

I’ve tried many times to think back as far as I can. I have fleeting memories of moments when I was very young. I don’t know if they are real or not, as most of them are just flashes of time. I can recall a gift that a kid gave me in the first grade. I can remember getting to walk around with my new shoes on in kindergarten, while the other kids sat in a circle and sang the new shoes song. New shoes were rare enough at the time that it was a minor celebration when any of us poor kids wore them to school. I remember that. I remember my two older sisters taking care of me and running out to pick me up every time I stepped barefooted into a goat-head sticker patch and burst into tears. I remember that well.

But my earliest real memory is of bedtime when I was probably a little less than five years old. We lived in a small shotgun house on a farm, nestled between a 2-story barracks and other farm housing at Wood Ranch. Only a few years before, the clutter of houses were known as Camp 16. These farm labor camps had evolved just enough to no longer be called simply by their number and now each had a name more palatable to its settled white community. It was far nicer to introduce yourself at church or school and tell someone that you lived at Wood’s Ranch. Camp 16, at least in name, was a thing of the past. Times, they were a-changin’!

Shotgun houses like ours got their name from a joke. It was said that if you fired a shotgun through the front door, the bullets would pass cleanly through the house and go straight out the back door. These houses were small, cramped, and cheaply made. Much of ours was made from pieces of other houses and every one of the inside doors was a little bit too short, so when they were closed, there was an odd gap at the top.

Our little house had two bedrooms. Mom and dad had one bedroom and all four of us kids slept in the other. My brother Steve and I slept in a bunk bed, while my two older sisters shared a small bed on the opposite side of the room. Steve was still a toddler, so he got the safer bed on the bottom, while I climbed into the top bunk each night.

This was a time when people lived in fear of their monthly light bill, so any unnecessary lights were always turned off. Nights got dark, both indoors and out. Outside, you could still see the Milky Way and its seemingly infinite number of stars. But inside, it would just get dark.

When we were all lying in bed and mom clicked off the light switch, for a minute or so you genuinely couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. I can remember lying in bed and staring toward the black ceiling. I could usually hear the little black and white TV in the living room, and sometimes a hint of light crept in through the little gap above the door. My earliest memory in life was when I lay in bed, with my head in exactly the right position, I could see a tiny speck of light straight above my spot on the top bunk. If I moved an inch to the right or left, it disappeared. My brothers and sisters couldn’t see it when I asked them about it, and they didn’t believe that I could see it. So, it was special to me, and I fell asleep each night looking at it.

At the time, with my budding little scientist’s brain, I speculated that it was somehow a star showing through the ceiling. I inspected the ceiling during the daylight but could find no hole or other possibility for the light. Our house was rickety and rundown, but it did have a roof and ceiling, so there was no way for a star to show through. I wondered if it were something miraculous and somehow related to an angel watching down on me. Each night, I stared at it, pondered its mystery, and appreciated its company in the dark.

Twenty-five years later I saw the tiny speck of light again. I was a student at the University of California at Davis. I was attending an undergraduate physics class in 26-Wellman Hall, one of the smaller lecture halls on campus. The hall is the basement of a five-story building and had no windows. On the first day of class, I arrived early to ensure I got a back seat near the door. I sat down in the dark room to wait. As I slumped in the theater-style seat, I laid my head back and stared at the dark ceiling. There it was again, that tiny speck of light. If I moved my head in either direction, it disappeared. It was the same speck of light from my childhood.

I stared at the tiny speck and recalled those nights in my little bed. I chuckled at the thought that here I am in a college physics class and still have no idea why there is a tiny star on the ceiling. For the rest of the quarter, I arrived at that class early to sit and stare at the minuscule dot on the ceiling. When the other students would arrive and the lights would get turned on, it would disappear.

I saw the light again about 25 years later. This time, I learned the secret to its existence. My wife and I belonged to a small church in our neighborhood. We played music and did a host of other jobs necessary in a church that never has enough volunteers. We were doing some work on the building, and I had gone there at night to take some measurements of the small sanctuary. When I was finished, I shut off the lights and the sanctuary fell dark. As I was about to lock the doors, I realized that I had left my little notepad on a chair towards the back row of seats. I was very familiar with the sanctuary and could maneuver around the seats in the dark. I found the notebook in the last seat in the back row and decided to sit in the dark and soak in the peace and silence for a moment. It had been a long day and I reveled in the solitude. My eyes looked around the darkness at the faint and barely recognizable shapes; the gathers on the black stage curtains, the pillars and speakers, the silhouette of my guitar against the back wall.

As I looked around the dark ceiling, there it was again. The tiny speck of light was back and this time it was even brighter than I had ever seen it! I slid to the next chair, and it was gone. I moved back and it reappeared. I tested it by leaning to the right and then to the left. With each movement, it would be gone, but it would be back the moment my eyes got into the perfect spot.

This time, though, I didn’t sit and ponder. I calculated as close as possible to where it was located on the ceiling and went to turn the lights on. I walked to the point directly beneath and stared at the ceiling. Nothing. I walked circles to look from every angle, but still nothing. I walked over and opened one door to allow a small amount of light in, turned the lights off again and went back to my seat. There it was again. With the small amount of light coming through the door, I could better pinpoint its location. I made my mental notes and turned the lights on. I walked to the location and scanned the ceiling, but still saw nothing but aging white paint and ceiling texture.

There was a big ladder in the next room, so I wasn’t giving up. I dragged the unwieldy ladder into place and climbed high up to a dangerous point that allowed me a closer look at the ceiling. Even at close examination, the texture looked and felt no different than any spot in the rest of the room. Still, I wasn’t ready to give up. I crawled down and grabbed a flashlight from the soundboard drawer, cut the lights, and again climbed back up the ladder. The moment I pointed the beam to the ceiling, there it was. I leaned in and was surprised to see that a tiny piece of glitter had somehow gotten stuck to the ceiling paint. That’s it. No wormhole through the time-space continuum. No star. No miracle. Nothing but a tiny shred of reflective plastic the size of a grain of sand.

I put the ladder back into the foyer and put all the chairs back into their perfect rows. I turned off the lights and sat back down to stare and ponder the little speck of light. Although I was a bit let down that the answer wasn’t something more grandiose, I still rather marveled that something so small could reflect that much light. As I sat there in the dark, in deep thought about the properties of light and childhood and college years and myself, I felt somewhat convicted. If a tiny piece of plastic the size of an ant’s head could reflect enough light to capture my attention and make me drag around a 14’ ladder in the dark, then what is expected of my ability to reflect light? Surely, a lot is expected of 200 pounds of walking, talking, thinking human being.

As I sat there in the dark, one thought led to another (and another and another). I quietly vowed to reflect more light. I would be brighter. I would try harder to be light, especially when everything around me seemed dark. I would be that glimmer that someone sees when they’re slumped in the back row or the light that a poor kid sees in the dark. I would see all the light in my life and reflect it to the rest of the world.

Just before I got up to leave, I faintly chuckled at God. What a master! He played the long game on me. He helped me see a speck of light when I was five years old, then let it work on my mind for fifty years, before letting it be a life-changing moment… in a little country church sanctuary… in the dark… in the back row… and without a preacher in sight.

A BORDER STORY

She knew in her heart, if she could just make it to the border and cross over, it would mean a new life. There would be jobs and work. She could find housing and put food on the table. Her three kids could have shoes and clothes and attend school. The border was opportunity.

It would be a long journey—over a thousand miles. Her husband was in prison, but she would travel with her disabled brother and his wife. They were more fortunate than many. They had a car and everything they owned was packed inside and on top. They would sleep on the sides of the road and stop to work any odd jobs along the way. With prayers and crossed fingers, they left their homeland.

They had heard stories of the land of milk and honey. But they had heard other stories, too. They had heard of people being turned away or beaten at the border. They had heard of news articles describing the migrants as rapists, murderers, and thieves. The stories told that the children were filthy, infected with diseases, and covered in lice. The writers of those articles went on to say that the invaders crossing the border checkpoint were only there to lie, cheat and steal. There were other articles warning the residents that everyone coming in was there for welfare, and if not, then they were there to steal the locals’ jobs.

The journey was long, well over a month. The old car broke down several times and they slowly sold their belongings to buy parts. Many times, there were helpful strangers with tools and water and sometimes with food. Of course, there were others that looked only to take what little they had. But they moved on, and forward, with the border always on their minds.

It was midnight and dark when they crossed through the border checkpoint. The little group and others drove on through Tehachapi and were in Bakersfield at sunrise. Before them lay the entirety of the great San Joaquin Valley. Before them lay opportunity.

That was my mom’s story. As a child, she and her brothers, my Grannie and her brother and sister-in-law, all arrived here in the 1930s. They left an Indian reservation in Oklahoma to venture to California. My dad and my