Laugh with a Sinner or Cry with His Saints. Robert Ford

      Early ’60s Introduction

      1963

      My earliest memories would be at Huntington Park, Watts District!

      We lived in Albany and Florence in a two-bedroom shotgun shack. I was maybe three or four years old back then. Not to sound vain but a good-looking little shit at that. I had met my first girlfriend. Her name was Sylvia Morgan. She had two brothers David and Joey and a sister Jaenne. Her parents were Henry and Helen. It seemed like Sylvia and I went everything together. Beatles had just hit the U.S. and made their CBS debut on the Ed Sullivan Show. Everything seemed so simple back then. It was two years before the Watts riots broke out. Sylvia’s brother David used to take me on a ride on his handlebars all the time. He was okay at that time, and back then, the LA Dodgers were scouting him. He was a hell of a pitcher. His brother Joey, two years younger, wasn’t bad either.

      It seemed like everywhere you turned, the song “I Want to Hold Your Hand” was playing on everyone’s radio. Rolling Stones were not too far behind. Back then, you were kicked out of the house in the morning and were not called back in until dark and dinnertime. That was summer time, of course. I have a little brother, Jimmy, two years younger. The older he got, he was with our little click all the time. One day, it caught my attention that David was spending a lot of time in his bedroom and was all of a sudden skinny and thin. He wasn’t there anymore. He had passed away from leukemia!

      I cried for two days and nights. He was a very nice young man who put everybody first. This was my first experience with heartfelt tears. J. F. Kennedy died and back then, I did not understand why everybody was crying. But when David Morgan died, that’s when I felt hurt from deep inside for the first time.

      As time went on, the riots creep in on us; it was 1965 or ’66. I was in elementary school. I had brownish red hair at that time and all the black kids nicknamed me little rooster. They would chase me on the black top but could not catch me. I was a pretty fast little shit. We used to walk back home from school, and the kids who could not catch me on the black top would ambush me on the way home and beat me up. Sometimes, I was able to fight back; sometimes not. Depending on how many there would be, I would try to tell my father, but for fathers in the early sixties, it was all about “Get tough or die, kid,” or “Leave me alone, son, the Dodgers are winning.” That’s pretty much where that shit landed. Thanks, pops!

      During that time, we lived on the east side of the Alameda Railroad tracks. It separated a lot of whites from blacks, and you could feel tensions building. Why I did not know back then, but it was building that’s for sure.

      There was an alley behind where we lived, and one day, I was in Sylvia’s backyard. We were sitting on our bicycles when five black kids showed up on bikes. One did not have a bike. He was walking and asked if he could sit on my bike! I told him no and stuck my tongue out at him. He then hit or kicked me in my chin and split my tongue almost in two and rode off with my bike. Sylvia helped me home. We did not have medical insurance back then, so my poor little tongue had to heal on its own, could have used a few stitches! I have a scar to this very day. “I am trying to get tough, pops. How’s the game going?” One day, before the riots broke out, my father took me to his work one morning to pick up his paycheck. He worked nights at that time “swing shift.” I think he worked at Oscar Meyer at that time or CME (California Motor Express), not sure. Well, on the way back home, we stopped at a drive-thru dairy to cash his paycheck and pick up some eggs and milk. Back then, you could do that. I think his check back then would have been about $165 maybe. Anyway, we cashed the check, grabbed the grocery’s, and headed home south on Santa Fe Avenue. We owned a rambler at the time. On the way home, there were some people watching us. They were two black guys in a white pickup truck. They pulled alongside us and stuck a shotgun on the side of my father’s face and made him hand over the money from his wallet. My dad made me crawl into the backseat and just that quick, they were gone, and we were broke once again. I wanted to say “Get tough or die, pops,” but I just kept my mouth shut. I am not sure, but I believe two LA sheriffs pulled over a black woman. Something exploded and the riots were on.

      By now, all hell had broken loose! The sky was lit up orange every night. One evening, my little brother decided to explore the world on his own. He disappeared. We looked for him everywhere in the whole neighborhood; sheriffs were called. My father finally found him. The national guard had set up tanks on the Alameda Railroad tracks as a barrier. And there he was, this little white boy, sitting with the military men eating M.R.E. rations, “Meals ready to eat.” I believe that was the first real ass whooping I ever witnessed. Back then, kids did not have lawyers to follow them around. We were disciplined in the right way with a belt, or you got your own switch off a tree. That’s just how it went down.

      By this time, Bill and Lydia Reeves had come into our lives. They had two girls, Beverly and Brenda. They were either at our house, or we were at theirs. Back then, Friday and Saturday nights were poker nights. The Morgans and the Reeves would come over smoking cigars/cigarettes and drinking Oly beer (Olympia beer). Us kids—my brother, Beverly, and Brenda—were allowed to run around crazy, as long as we stayed out of the way.

      I remember one Christmas I got a set of tiger-striped drums. It was a nice little complete set. My brother and Brenda snuck into the bedroom and poked holes