The Last Visit

The Last Visit

Gary E. Grissom

I turned 80 on May 20th. Looking back on my life, I realize I’ve had a good one. Not all good of course, but mostly so. However, I must admit that I cringe when I recall some of the stupid things I did or said in my days of misspent youth. For instance, there was a wild night in Tijuana when a friend and I outran some cops to avoid being taken to jail. We had defended a young woman who slapped a jerk for pinching her on the butt. But the cops had only seen us fighting the creep who had accosted her and we were lucky to get away ...…for time in the Tijuana jail was hard time and it took a lot of money to bail you out. Another memory is the time I was so drunk that I was talking to Richard Boone in an episode of “Have Gun Will Travel” on my friend’s color TV set. I was kidded about that for years. Another instance was when I told some sailors that the cat house they were entering was terrible, and then having to run from a pimp who overheard my warning to them and had pulled a switchblade knife on me. There was also the time when my friend Steve read excerpts from a porn novel before we went into church and lusted after all the sweet and innocent girls in our age group. Not long after that though, there was an incident that caused me to convert to Christianity on an early morning return trip from Tijuana. My good friend, Dennis, was driving his VW Bug while I slept in the passenger seat and two of our friends were also sleeping in the backseat. Then, in an instant, I awoke and looked to my left to see that Dennis was asleep at the wheel and we were drifting into oncoming traffic. As I grabbed the steering wheel, he woke up and took the wheel from me and drove us to the safety of our lane.

“Oh my God Gary! I was asleep at the wheel and you probably saved our lives. Whew!”

“Wow! I just woke up a couple seconds ago myself. Man, someone’s watching over us!”

When Dennis dropped me off at my home, I went in and saw that my Mom and Dad were dressed up for church. I gave my Mom a hug and she told me I smelled like a brewery. As she walked out to the car I said, “If I wasn’t so sleepy, I’d go to church with you.”

She looked surprised and then said “This is no time for joking. Now take a shower and go to bed, We’ll talk later.”

A week later, I went to the Ocean Beach Baptist church with my parents and sat in the same pew our family had always occupied. A month later, I accepted Christ because I had been awakened both physically and spiritually in the return trip from Tijuana.

Now on this day, for the last time, I’m going to visit the Pt. Loma neighborhood in which I grew up. Yes, it will probably be the last time because I might not make this long drive again from my home in Warner Springs. Also, there is something I need to do. It is very important to me but I won’t do it until later this afternoon. First, though, I want to drive out to the old lighthouse at the end of the peninsula, or point, as it is called. Boyhood friends and I used to ride out there on our bikes and my fox terrier, Migsy, would trot along beside us. Of course, we would have a couple rest stops along the way so that she could catch her breath and I would give her some water from my canteen.

As I drive up Catalina Boulevard, I pass a supermarket that was once named Food Basket. I don’t care what they’ve renamed it; but to me it will always be Food Basket, the store that had the best bakery in town. Their chocolate eclairs and cream puffs cost only a quarter back in the 1960’s and they were the best I ever tasted. Driving on, I pass homes that were built in the 1950’s that once housed childhood friends of mine. Most of those houses were moderately priced for middle income families back then. But now they are priced at well over a million dollars each. In fact, even the simple stucco homes having only one bathroom and a bedroom can go for nearly a million dollars. It’s crazy! I recall my parents told me that they had paid only fifteen thousand for our home in 1949. Then, when my parents divorced in 1973, they sold it for only forty-nine thousand. Damn! If they had only waited about ten years, they could have sold it for much, much, more.

As I drive by open fields of chaparral near the lighthouse, I stop and show my America the Beautiful senior park pass to a park attendant. He smiles and waves me past his gate. I see that there is now a large visitor center with a gift shop and a parking lot. The official name of this lighthouse is the Cabrillo Lighthouse because San Diego Bay was discovered by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo in 1542. Of course, there were already native people living here at the time and they and their ancestors had been here for ages. It seems to me that they were the true discoverers. But as in the same way that Columbus has gotten all the credit for discovering America, Cabrillo gets the credit for discovering San Diego bay. Now I’m not saying that he and Columbus were not brave and adventurous men. They certainly were. But the people who were already living here should not be ignored and blotted out of history.

After parking my car, I walk the path up to the lighthouse and climb its metal staircase and get the fabulous view of the bay below me on the left side, and the beautiful Pacific ocean on the right. I realize how fortunate I was to grow up in this beautiful area. Watching the waves break off Sunset Cliffs, I’m reminded of what I need to do later this afternoon. But before I do, I want to drive back to my old neighborhood and park in front of the house on Tarento Drive in which I grew up. I have corresponded via letters and old photos of the house with the woman who now lives there. I’m hoping she will be home. I know I should call her, but I’ve forgotten to put her number in my cell phone. As I climb down the staircase, I stop and look into the glassed off bedrooms, kitchen, and living room on each separate level. I’m thinking about what a sweet and simple, yet very important, life the light tender and his family had lived out here miles away from everyone else. I have learned that the family’s last name was Kinney and that the man and wife had two children. I’ll bet it got lonely out here though. But still, very beautiful.

Driving back toward Catalina Boulevard, I look again at the wild chaparral and trees bordering the road. I’m now recalling the day a neighbor boy and I got off our bikes and called to Migsy when she suddenly turned off the road to follow a jackrabbit down a trail. As we chased her, we heard her barking and then we were struck by fear when we went around a bend and heard the buzzing rattle of a large, coiled rattlesnake and Migsy being within striking range. I yelled for her to come to me, and looked on the ground for a large stick or rock that I could throw at the snake. Thankfully, the snake then started slithering off into the brush and I was able to grab Migsy by the collar.

Coming back to the present, I’m now turning off Santa Barbara Avenue onto Tarento Drive and I’m fortunate to see that Trish, the current owner of my childhood home, is getting out of her car that she has parked in her driveway. As I park along the curb in front of the house, I honk my horn and wave. Trish waves back and then slowly walks toward me as I get out of my car.

“Hi Trish! I’m Gary Grissom and I’m a member of the family that first owned your home.”

“Oh hello Gary!” she says as she holds out her right hand and shakes mine firmly. “I’m so glad you’ve finally come to see me. Come on in. I want you to know how much I’ve appreciated the letter you sent, and the photos of this house when you and your family lived here back in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s.”

As I follow Trish into my boyhood home, I feel as I have in dreams I’ve had about coming back here. This is sacred ground to me. When she opens the door that leads to the patio, I see that she has made some small changes. One of them was filling the small fish pond with dirt and a bird of Paradise plant, and inserting blue and green stones where the waterfall above the pond had been. As I stare at it, she tells me that she filled it in because she didn’t want her small grandchildren to possibly fall into it and drown.

“Oh of course.” I say. “I can understand that.”

“Come inside Gary.”

As we walk toward the front door, I’m glad that it looks exactly as it did when I lived here with my family. I follow her into the living room and I’m happy to see the fireplace on which my brother and two sisters and I used to hang our Christmas stockings.

“Santa came down that chimney!” I say. “I’m sure of it.”

Trish smiles and says “Come on Gary. I’ll give you a tour.”

The first room we walk in has become Trish’s office where she has a desktop computer, a swivel chair and a printer.

“This was once my two sisters bedroom; but you’ve turned it into a nice place to work.”

“Well, it was once my boys bedroom too, until they grew up and moved away.”

Warm, nostalgic feelings come over me as we move from room to room.

“I shared this room with my brother until my folks added on the family room where he preferred to sleep. This was a very special place for me and it reminded me of that great old song by the Beach Boys. I think it was called “In My Room.” Yes..that was the title. This was where I did my “dreaming and scheming and laughed at yesterday.”

“Oh that’s lovely Gary.”

Now I’m recalling a very personal and spiritual experience I had in this bedroom. It happened one night when I was feeling extremely anxious about my life. I was 22 years old and was deeply bothered about the Vietnam war, the death of high school friends who had been killed there in combat, the difficulty I was having in some college courses, and the fact that some of my friends had overdosed on drugs and died. As I laid in bed, I started sweating and I could feel my pulse racing. Then I heard ringing in my ears and I felt as if my soul was going to fly out of my body and disappear into the universe. I panicked and cried out to God to please, please help me. I was terrified. Then it happened: I felt an invisible presence in my room as a peaceful, soothing, thought wave came to me and told me to go into the family room and play a 45 rpm record. I quickly got out of bed and walked down the hall to the family room where our stereo sat on a table. However, when I looked for the stacks of 45s I kept next to the stereo, I saw that someone had spread them out instead of restacking them. But I realized that it didn’t make any difference because the thought wave I had received had told me to simply play a 45 record. Therefore, I reached over and picked up the first one I touched. My hands shook as I put the little plastic disc into the hole of the record so that I could place it on the stereo and lower the needle. I sat down on a nearby chair and listened intently as a folksinger named Mary Hopkins started singing “To everything turn, turn, turn. There is a season, turn, turn, turn, and a time for every purpose under heaven. A time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, a time to reap, a time to kill, a time to heal, a time to laugh, a time to weep…”

It was the beautiful verse from the book of Ecclesiastes that Pete Seeger had set to music. I felt certain then that the presence I had felt in my room was God, or one of his angels, that had entered my bedroom and then sent me to listen to that beautiful song - so that I would be at peace and slow down and take things one at a time. As the record ended, I felt joy and peace come over me and I was amazed that I had been directed to pick up that particular record. I had been blessed. Out of curiosity, I took the record off the stereo and turned it over. The flip side was Mary Hopkins hit song titled “Those Were The Days.

As we enter the kitchen, I have sad memories of my mother with tears in her eyes while she stood over the sink and washed dishes. Whenever I asked her why she was crying, she would always say she was okay and that her tears were happy tears. I would then dry the dishes for her and she would give me a big hug.

One disappointment I’m having in the kitchen though, is that a cozy red and white booth that was behind the stove is no longer there; and the surrounding walls that had strawberry fields wallpaper has been knocked down. It was such a nice little nook to eat breakfast or to draw pictures. However, I’m not going to question Trish about this change. It might have been removed by the buyer who had purchased our house before selling it to her. But still, I wonder why anyone would destroy something so quaint and intimate.

“Well Gary, now that you’ve seen the inside, let’s go outside to the backyard.”

“Yes, thanks Trish. I’ve always wondered if the peach tree my mother had planted is still there.”

Trish opens the back door of the family room and I follow her outside. I’m sorry to see that the peach tree has been replaced by a healthy avocado tree loaded with baby avocados. They won’t be ready to be picked for another month or so.

“I’m sorry Gary but your peach tree died of old age about ten years ago. It just wasn’t growing anymore peaches.”

“Oh that’s okay. Everything dies in the end and now that I’m 80, I’ll probably be leaving this world in a few years.”

“Me too, of course.”

“But Trish, today I’m going to do something I’ve been thinking about for a long time.”

“What is it you’re going to do Gary?”

“I’m going to rent a surfboard and shoot the O.B. pier.”

“What? That’s dangerous! You could hit the pilings and get killed.”

“Or I could do it and be very happy.”

“Did you ever surf when you were young? And did you shoot the pier then?”

“Oh yes I surfed. I had a nine foot Gordon and Smith board that I bought used for $55 from a wild surfer they used to call Bonzai Red. However, I never got the nerve to try to shoot the pier and I’ve always regretted it. But today I’m going for it because the waves aren’t too big and I'm foolish enough to try."

“Well…Gary I understand. But you won’t have to rent a board because my son has an old board he left in the garage. I don’t mind if you use it and I’ll bet he’s probably forgotten it’s even there. All I ask is that you try riding a couple small waves first to see if you can still stand up.”

“Oh, I think I’ll be able to manage that. Thanks. Let me see that old board.”

Trish takes me into the garage and I see that the longboard is leaning against a side wall. It’s a ten foot Olympic board and has a couple of patches on the left rail.

“It looks good to me Trish.”

I carry the thirty pound board out to my ’62 Ford station wagon and put it through the open rear window.

“I’m going with you Gary and I’m going to film you on my cell phone. Okay?”

I turn around and see Trish smiling with her red cell phone in her hand,

“Hop in!”

Two hours later, we’re sitting in Hodad’s hamburger restaurant in Ocean Beach, watching her cell phone video and laughing at me shooting through two pilings of the O.B. pier, on a little wave on my knees.