Hayward, California

More early history... After flying to California with Marie... Hayward, California is the next place I remember, although I know we lived in Oakland briefly before it. We lived in a white house with a detached garage. My mother Marie had remarried, Craig. I dont remember the wedding, but I remember being in the sealing room of the Oakland Temple when we were sealed. We lived on a dead end street that had what we called a creek. It was really a man made waterway to handle storm water. There was not often more than a small stream of water running through it and we kids would climb the fence and climb down the ladder into the creek and play down there, probably not the safest thing to do, but we are all still here. Craig had also built us a fort in the backyard. Nothing exciting really, a square box on "stilts" not in a tree. It had a small ladder underneath that went up to a trap door for entry. I learned to ride my first bike here. Craig was all about building things, a machine mechanic/electrician by trade. He would go to junkyards and get old bike parts and make bikes for us kids. They were sometimes cool and sometimes weird, but no one else ever had a bike like ours.

Wedding Day, Craig & Marie

Craig at the time had just gotten out of the Navy and was working for Continental Can Company, I remember the CCC logo. Fred, my natural father, visited us on occasion. I only remember being with him once, he had given Ron, Carl, and I some new pajamas. I dont recall seeing or hearing from Fred again until after I was 18. He was still in the Navy and had received orders to Vietnam. His thoughts at the time were that Marie was making it difficult for him to see us and that it would be in our best interest to think of Craig as our dad, so he gave up his custody and visitation rights.

We lived in Hayward until I was five. I remember my fifth birthday becuase I was sick with a fever and my birthday party got canceled. I do remember eating a piece of cake though. Even though I turned five in Hayward, I was not old enough to enter Kindergarten that year. I remember wanting to be in school like my brothers and "borrowed" one of their math books and started answering all the addition problems I could find. Maybe that is where the math skills began.