Silicon Valley Party Whore
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Chapter 3, Santa Clara Valley Before Silicon, A Poor Girl Faces The World free porn video
On the morning of June 8, 1950, I met the world in a ramshackle farmhouse surrounded by a pear orchard. As I gasped for air, then screamed to announce the importance of my arrival, the Mexican midwife carried me outside and bathed me in cool water from a hand pump. Properly bathed and blessed in her Mayan dialect, she carried me back to be soothed with the milk of my mother's breasts. My father selected an auspicious spot and buried my placenta and umbilical cord.
The "ranch", as orchards were called, was between Alviso at the southern end of San Francisco Bay, Moffet Field Naval Air Station and the little town of Santa Clara. Its trees were part of a vast lattice carpet of fruit orchards that spread from the Bay to the surrounding foothills of Santa Clara Valley. The fruit grown shifted from pear, to prune, to apricot, to cherry as the elevation rose with patches of dairy, bean, tomato or other farms sprinkled in.
The orchard’s owner had moved into a modern home with my family occupying their dilapidated; old house with farm work in lieu of rent. Dad interpreted my being born in the orchard a good omen for our surname, Lin, 林, which means forest in Chinese. He named me, Zhen zhu, meaning pearl, which he made me learn to write as 珍珠. Mom and a priest christened me Elizabeth. At home, I was tagged Shu by Dad meaning virtuous, Liezel by Mom, a Tagalog diminutive of Elizabeth meaning God’s abundance and simply Sis by siblings.
None then could imagine the tech tsunami coming to change the area into Silicon Valley. I tried to locate my provenance birth ranch recently and concluded it’s either within the San Francisco 49's Football Stadium, next door at the Great America Theme Park or in the parking lot between them. Among the throngs who come, there is a small spot blessed with my afterbirth.
Soon after my birth, our house was demolished and we moved and continued to jump about to low rent, rural, semi-abandoned houses as three siblings were added to my older brother and me, all boys. Once in rent arrears due to penury distress, we hastily packed our few belongings and moved at night.
In 1963, when I was thirteen, we finally settled in San Jose, off Story Road, east of Highway 101, in a vast, low-cost subdivision, known as Tropicana Village. Our eleven hundred square feet, concrete slab floor, low pitched tar and gravel roof and stucco sides enclosed a small kitchen, single bath, and four tiny bedrooms, one of 10,000 hastily constructed in 1958.
The houses had a brick fireplace to proclaim status but they were mostly unused or burned trash. While It became San Jose's east side slum, to us, it was a giant move up, a home with a garage, piped hot and cold water, electric kitchen stove and a living room gas floor heater, where we huddled around on cold winter mornings. Until my older brother was drafted, only I had my own bedroom. We fought to get occupancy of the single bathroom.
The development was a lower-income, working-class, white area, peppered with Hispanics and a few blacks when we moved in as a step up while middle-class whites fled. We were the only Asians, hard to believe now. Driveways, frontage streets, and even front yards were used to repair cars or abandon them.
Mom grew vegetables to supplement our dinner table in the small fenced backyard with my watering and weeding assistance. Dad and my siblings often urinated in the back yard due to bathroom congestion. Mom scolded them to stay away from her garden as they exited the backdoor.
Once a month, there was, the hundred- dollar rent is due, crisis, which often required my babysitting money contribution. I was glad to be able to help.
Dad was Chinese, six-foot-plus tall and of trim and strong build. He had a light tan complexion and a stern face which easily broke into a sincere smile. Gravitas in appearance, he looked like a military officer out of uniform. His voice was resonant, as if in command but he had trouble pronouncing “L” sounds. He was good looking, charming and able to sing but a poor provider. He was good at cooking, siring kids and womanizing.
Mom, in contrast, was Filipina, four-foot nine inches short, strong too but of squat stature with a dark complexion. She was good at having kids; putting up with Dad and making her not enough paycheck on payday meet the next. We lived on the financial edge.
I never saw physical contact between my parents but with five kids, knew something was physical between them in the past. It was a mixed marriage of sorts. I had four known siblings, was the second oldest and the only girl. My brothers, except the older, took after Dad in responsibility but lacked his charm and looks. Some said I was the only one to get these. At five feet seven inches, I was between Mom and Dad but like many things, closer to Dad.
Dad worked off and on but preferred off. What he earned, he mostly spent on himself. He dressed well and wore a suit and tie when leaving the house. His white shirt was starched stiff and ironed by Mom, then me when I was older. His ties were silk, his shoes, wingtips and he always wore a hat. All except the ties and shirts were of a brown hue, darker than his tan complexion which made him appear lighter in color. He had a knack with knots. I loved to watch him knot his ties, typically with a Windsor or Hanover knot. Superstitious, the day’s tie selected was dependent on perceived omens to give him luck.
Dressed, he stood before the mirror, swept his straight black hair back with a comb, then set his fedora atop at a slight downward slant to the right. The only wrinkle detracting from his military bearing was a tendency to clutch his left shoulder and left leg stiffness getting in and out of the car, assumed signs of arthritis. Once satisfied with the mirror’s reflection he strode to the garage.
On his way out, he flipped open his Zippo lighter with a Chinese dragon character, spun the flint wheel with his thumb, the spark ignited the wick and with the wick flame, he lit his morning cigarette. When the door closed behind him, you heard the metallic cluck of the lighter close as he dropped it back into his coat pocket. Ensconced in the car, he cranked the engine alive and backed quickly from the garage to the curb, a whiff of smoke trailing his hand out the car window to mark his departure.
He loved to gamble and was a regular at the Bay Meadows race track in Belmont and at Vahl's, an Italian restaurant in Alviso, which had an illegal card club upstairs.
Putting the top down on a sunny day we drove around as if rich Californians, if a bit out of date. I remember the first one with power windows, I think it was a 1953. Us kids moved the windows up and down in amazement. He parked his car in our single car garage, took it to a car wash on Fridays and bought gas by ordering five gallons, not by dollar amount, which in those days was still under $2.00.
He could play the piano and sing, mostly Chinese songs he sang to himself. While I didn’t understand the words, like Latin Church music I loved listening to the sound of his singing. I remember one song he preferred, The Girl With Her First Love, which he translated for me. He would also sing in English and liked the ditty Yankee Doodle Dandy which always caused me mirth as he struggled with the “L” sound in Doodle.
When he was home, he filled the house with personality if not wealth. He was a good cook, worked occasionally as a chef and made not only Chinese but American and ethnic culinary fare. I learned cooking from him, tried to please him and thrived on his attention. I treasured the times we cooked together or when he let me sing a Chinese song for him even though I didn’t understand the words. He never disciplined us or helped around the house except for cooking. He left the operation of the household to Mom and me when I was older.
Dad's happy go lucky personality gave him many friends but only good time ones. He attracted women, white ones when it was a cultural racial taboo with his looks and charm. Some were so bold they phoned the house to ask for him. Most Friday evenings, he backed out of the driveway without a word and returned either Sunday night or Monday morning. We, kids, pretended nothing was happening but Mom often cried silently before the kitchen window as she watched him drive away.
He never talked about his past. We knew nothing of his parents, immigration status or how he came to marry Mom, or if, they were legally married. We did know he was born in northern China’s Shandong province, was not Cantonese like most Chinese in the area, could speak Mandarin and read and write Chinese, all of which he was proud of.
We knew when Chinese New Year came. He announced what animal the year was, what it meant and then disappeared for three days or more when it arrived. Us kids got our, tao hongbao, our lucky red money envelope, after wishing him good luck with a "Kung Hei Fat Choi!" greeting.
Inside was a shiny new copper penny and a crisp twenty-dollar bill. It was the only time he gave us money. The amount was carefully squandered making Chinese New Year a holiday bigger than Christmas where the gifts from Mom were modest. Before leaving on his New Year escapade, Dad set off a long string of firecrackers early in the morning from the eaves of the house front porch to protect the house and us from devils descending from the sky. Superstitious, he saw odd omens as part of his day’s routine in such things as animals or numbers. A dead bird or the number four meant trouble. A stray cat or the number eight meant good luck as did the color red.
With his Chinatown connections, Dad bought my brothers firecrackers for the Fourth of July. They paid him five cents a pack and peddled them to neighborhood boys for twenty-five cents. The lucrative markup created a temporary, family influx of contraband cash flow and made the Fourth of July our second biggest day of the year after Chinese New Year. The labels had a picture of a Camel, with sand dunes background, emblazoned on colorful red, green and yellow wrapping paper with, "Made In Macau" written on it.
Jo
- 19.04.2021
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