110 degrees magazine - Index

110 degrees magazine - magazine - Index

My folks became migrant workers following
harvests from Geyserville to Bakersfield. My
dad’s first job was on a farm just off Marsh
Creek Road near the site of the present
mobile home park. We lived in a dirt floor
cabin with no running water. Dad was an
illiterate farmer who signed documents all
his life by making his “X” and mom had only
a fifth grade education — but they both
believed that education offered the surest
path out of poverty.
We lived for a year in Geyserville where I
attended first grade. The subsequent year
we returned to Brentwood where I was in
the second grade at Liberty Elementary
School, which was located on Marsh Creek
East of Deer Valley Road. I joined 11 other
students in what would be the final year of
the school’s existence because in the
summer of 1943 Liberty School was folded
into the unionized Brentwood Elementary
where I attended classes until graduating
from elementary school in 1948.
We rural students would ride into
Brentwood on a small bus driven by Mary
Ghiozzi, who is still alive and living in San
Jose under her married name, Ghiggeri.
Mary’s little bus picked up children including
Pombos, Abreus, Hansens, and Ghiozzis
who became patriarchs and matriarchs of
families still in Brentwood. The Brentwood
Elementary school building is still in the
30 www.110mag.com September/October 2008
area, as well, serving as the Liberty Alterna -
tive Ed building.
Five years later I graduated from Liberty
Union High School. I had been class president
for three years and student body president
during my senior year — which
marked the last time I ever ran for any
political office.
Everyone had to work and, while still in
high school, I got a job at Ye Old Hardware
Store when it wasn’t all that old yet. I also
played halfback on the Liberty football
team. The coach, Lou Bronson — father of
“I AM UNWILLING TO LET CANCER BECOME
THE CENTRAL FACT OF MY LIFE.”
Craig Bronson, the recently retired head of
the Brentwood Division of Parks and
Recreation — made a deal with the storeowner
that I would be to work by 4:00 p.m.
To keep that schedule Lou coached me
personally during seventh period, which was
gym class for everyone else.
The Liberty football program fielded
championship teams both years that I
played. I don’t take much personal credit for
our victories because I was an unlikely halfback,
neither tall nor heavily built, but I was
playing alongside some muscular farm boys
that were real competitors.
What I really wanted to do was run track,
but with my work schedule there wasn’t
sufficient time for both sports.
I attended San Francisco State University
when Willy Brown was Student Body Presi -
dent. I got a job as a bookkeeper at
Brentwood’s “Flying A” Service Truck Stop
where I learned more about bookkeeping
and business than I ever learned in my
college classrooms. “Flying A” was a 24-hour
business, which enabled me to work flex
hours. I would usually report for work on
Friday afternoons and work a 40-hour shift
finishing my week’s work by Sunday morning.
I maintained that work schedule all the
way through college.
Following college graduation my dream
was to teach eighth grade. I couldn’t get the
job at Edna Hill because Edna Hill, herself,
together with Gladys Peterson, who had
both taught me, were still teaching there.
However, one day I gave a man who had run
out of gas a lift to his home. He turned out
to be Jim Scott, principal and superintendent
at Knightsen School. He told me, “Call
me if you are ever looking for work.” So
following graduation, I became the Knight -
sen School’s eighth grade teacher.
LIFE AS AN EDUCATOR
I had the time of my life as an eighth grade
teacher. I was short, slightly built, and only
eight years older than my students so I would
sometimes be mistaken for one of the kids.
Five years later I got the job of superintendent
replacing Jim Scott who had accepted a
position in Pakistan as superintendent of the
American School. At 27 years of age I had
become the youngest superintendent in the
history of the State of California.
Two years later Jim returned and Wayne
Boulding, the superintendent of Liberty
Union High School, asked me to work for
him designing innovative educational
programs using Federal grant money. I was
writing curricula for science, bilingual
education, and math — creating educational
modules for Byron, Knightsen, Liberty, and
Brentwood School Districts.
Two years later I became principal of the
Brentwood Union School District, and two
years after that was promoted to superintendent.
I really didn’t want to be superintendent,
or even principal, for that matter; I
merely wanted to teach. But the board
wouldn’t let me off the hook; they weren’t
going to interview anyone else.
I finally told them, “I’ll take the job but I
won’t sign any contract. If I’m ever unhappy
with the job I’ll give you two weeks notice.
If you ever aren’t happy with me you give me
two weeks notice.”