Salvador at his Family Reunion
Monte Rio, California
July 21, 2000
The house, built in the 1930s, was reportedly a bordello for a while in the 1970s and early 1980s. That may explain why each bedroom has its own bathroom. Now that feature makes for more comfortable family reunions. The Randolph family held theirs there, and we stopped in to see our old friends Sal, Cheryl, and their young daughter Christina, and to blow a few bubbles along the river.
When I was very young, before kindergarten, my mother dropped me off one day at Cheryl's house. My older brother and hers, Russell, were friends, and mom was probably doing something with them. I was scared to be left alone there, so I cried when mom left me. But Cheryl showed me her toys and we wound up having so much fun, that I also cried when my mom picked me up a few hours later and took me away.
Neither Cheryl nor her mom remember the trauma, but it is burned into the early, psyche-forming regions of my personality.
I didn't cry when I left Sal & Cheryl the other night, but we had an all right time :^).
