The Great Potato Excursion

The Great Potato Excursion

 

To serve the needs of returning veterans of World War II, developers across America built starter home developments in every part of the nation.  The designs were small, inexpensive to build and qualified for which ever GI benefits program would get them sold and occupied the fastest.  In 1958, Albert and Mary Holbrook purchased on the secondary market.  As first born, and it turns out only, son I was heir to landed parents.  In England such a family would be known as gentry.  In California, USA, we were mortgage holders.

A description of the neighborhood is necessary to set the proper context for this tale. Brookside was built in a small valley situated in what is colloquially known as East County.  This is a misnomer but hardly worth correcting.  The little valley of Brookside had in turn been a reservoir, an orchard and a golf-course.  This final pre-residential development incarnation explained the street names; Par Drive, Fairway Drive, Link Drive, etc.  Though for the life of me I could never figure out what a Niblick was.  At the southern end of Fairway drive was the remains of an earthen dam from the reservoir.  Central Ave had been neatly cut through the dam to allow rear egress from the subdivision into the aptly named community of Spring Valley, which explains the presence of the open drainage ditch bifurcating the length of Fairway Drive to the front (or north) end of the neighborhood at Broadway, the main thoroughfare into the adjacent town of Lemon Grove. To the east and west were the hills forming the little valley. It was all very neatly secluded and a perfect haven for the young families raising their broods.

Those of you born after the baby boom generation may have some trouble visualizing this, but the mid to late fifties were a friendlier, safer, more innocent time.  The Greatest Generation had grown up mostly in rural America where crime was rare and tragedy more often associated with farm machinery accidents than nefarious activity.  It is no wonder then that our parents were quite comfortable letting us travel about our little enclave with a freedom unheard of today.

Even at the age of five, as long as I told my mother to whose house I was going for a visit, I roamed at will.  Every family in the neighborhood had children somewhere between newborn and high school.  Mothers stayed home and no waif was ever far from adult assistance if needed.  Our favorite activities included playing work-ups baseball in the middle of Par Drive (yes, right out there in the middle of the street… the drivers operated at sane spends), army (sometimes fighting off the Germans, sometimes the Russians… we were a bit time confused), hide and seek (seems I was always it) or using bacon on kite string to harvest crawdads from the Fairway Drive drainage ditch.

But there was always one tether that kept me from straying too far from home… lunch.  I just couldn’t risk missing my Franco-American spaghetti while taking in the latest episode of Romper Room. I was a Do-Bee!  So whatever the day’s activities included, I was sure to be within a couple of blocks of home.  A boy needs his nourishment.

Then, during summer vacation between first and second grade, I saw a television show in which some adult was explaining that if necessary, potatoes could be eaten raw.  Incredulous, I asked my mother.  An old farm hand herself, she confirmed that indeed, if one were so inclined one could turn to the uncooked root for survival. A little salt would go a long way towards making it more palatable.  She peeled up a spud, sliced off a bit and let me try it.  While far from the culinary majesty of canned pasta in pink sauce, it was not unpleasant.  And it was portable.

Exploration has always been in my veins.  I yearn to know what is on the other side of the hill, around the next bend, under the rock.  At six (almost seven) years, I had discovered the means that would open up a whole new world to me.  I could carry my lunch and venture as far and back as dinner time allow.  As I stood on the front lawn that day, measuring the mountains to the east, I began to formulate a plan that would lift me beyond the walls of Brookside.

I called a conference with my friends Petey Stather and Craig Starr; explaining the new utility of the potato and the promise of fresh adventures. The hill to the west was ancient orchard and we had explored the hell out of it, preying on sluggish horny toads (the local handle for the great horned lizard) and eating pomegranates when in season.  But at the top of the ridge was Sweetwater Road, a four lane mega avenue that none of us, in our wildest fantasies, could conceive of crossing.  So our course was obvious; tomorrow morning, we each would raid our families’ larders to procure a traveling tuber then head for the hills. We would seek out Shangri-la in the precincts of the rising sun.

The morning of the great adventure, I dutifully finished off my Maypo while getting my moral lesson of the day from Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Green Jeans.  Mother retreated to the bathroom for her morning ablutions.  Under the cover of television squawk I tiptoed into the kitchen to retrieve a potato and a paper bag in which to carry it.  Father was a brown bagger.  Amply outfitted for a day afield, I poked my head around the corner into the hallway and loudly announced I was on my way to Pete’s house.  A muffled, unintelligible vocalization was confirmation enough for me that the message was received and understood.

A few minutes later I was meeting up with my fellow frontiersmen at the earthen dam.  This was situated at the south end of the subdivision and allowed us access to the slope we would ascend without crossing through any of our neighbor’s yards.  There was no reason to arouse the suspicion of any of the mother hens always looking out for chicks straying from the communal brood.

We started the ascent, learning as we went that it was less difficult to navigate the grade using a diagonal switchback approach than to muscle straight up the hill.  We climbed and climbed putting time, distance and elevation between us and the familiar features of the valley below.  The houses, melting into a sea of tarpaper roofs, grew smaller and smaller as we gained height.  Being youthful as we were, none of party owned a watch; or the skill to read one if we had.  We measured time and distance by warmth of the sun and the ache in our chubby little legs.  After what seemed a great effort and even greater progress, we built a consensus that it was time for a lunch break.

As we produced our potatoes from our paper bags, it donned on us that they still bore their brown peel.  We had no knives.  We were too young for Cub Scouts let alone Boy Scouts, where the badge of honor was the ever present jack knife clipped to the web belt.  The only tool we possessed was our intellect; somewhat lacking at age six. The best solution our combined brain power could muster was to just bite into the peel.  The first realization is that potato peel tastes like dirt.  The second surprise; potatoes do not retain their moist crispness when removed from the bin under the sink and carried about in the sunlight and summer air for what seemed like miles and hours. Now they tasted like soggy, milky dirt.  One bite was all any of us could muster; swallowing was impossible. Obviously the technology of portable food was not presently sufficient to meet the needs of the modern explorer.

With our lunch plans scuttled, we focused our attention on next steps.  We clearly must be more than half-way to our unspecified destination; it would be foolishness to retrace our steps now and return to the settlements defeated.  The decision was to shore ourselves up against our hard luck and move ever forward.  Well, any way, Pete would do whatever I told him to and Craig didn’t want to be left alone so we pushed on.

The trek continued; mile after mile, hour after hour, sweat drop after sweat drop.  I began to question my skills as a leader.  Panic was undermining the resolve of the members of our little band.  “My mom is gonna kill me if I don’t get home for dinner,” whined Craig.  Petey just looked at me, the admiration usually reflected n his little eyes having been replaced with the moist beginnings of tears of hopelessness. I could only hope that this was the last ridge between us and civilization.

Cresting the hill, all before us was now downhill.  And at the bottom of this craggy tor was a shining star.  We had found the Texaco station at Broadway and Campo Road.  I knew were okay now, my father traded with this honorable merchant.  Many a tank had been filled while, from the backseat of our pink over cream Buick coupe, I witnessed convivial conversation between dad and Hank.  Surely, he would recognize me and be glad to lend assistance to forlorn travelers.

I was disappointed to discover my personage was not instantly familiar to him.  And it seems that, in the days of cash purchases, he didn’t know Al from Alice.  Yes, I could use the phone to call home, but my old man had better repay the dime next time he filled up.

My mother was surprised to hear my voice on the phone in the middle of the day.  Why was I calling from Pete’s house? It was just three doors down from my own. I was where?   Well, I’d better get my butt home PDQ.  I knew the way from where I was, just walk down Broadway to Fairway and then to Par Dr.  I’d been chauffeured along the route many a time.

Halfway home I could see the Buick approaching.  My dad had come to give us a lift home.  He stopped the car and jutted his angry face out the open window, cigarette sticking out parallel to the ground, “You’d better be home before I get back from the store, or I’m gonna paddle your butt!”   I didn’t recall such anger over previous transgression (and there had been more than a few… after all, I was a curious boy) so I picked up the pace of our little band and moved toward home double time.

I do not remember getting a whooping that afternoon.  I do remember over hearing some inter-parent phone chatter between my mom and Mrs. Stather and my mom and Mrs. Starr.  From time to time my father would lower his newspaper and glower at me.  Why waste words when a stare could wither? But by next morning, the events of the previous day were history and the lessons duly recorded.

Looking back, and bringing things into proper scale, I realize that our great march was probably no more than a quarter of a mile as the crow flies and out total elevation gain was no more than forty feet.  The walk back from the Texaco station took us no more than ten minutes but when you’re racing against a paddling, time seems to accelerate.

In future years I would become a Boy Scout, even a quite respected leader.  Hiking and exploring have continued to be a part of my life.  I have back-packed the Sierra Nevada, dry-camped in the desert and navigated to mighty Colorado in a canoe.  And all these accomplishments began with a raw potato and a dream of adventure in Brookside.  Today, I leave the potatoes at home.