A picture of downtown Watsonville, Ca. three years after I was born and six years before my father made a Commie speech in the park that bordered on Main Street. I loved Watsonville when I was a kid. Louie and Jackie( my older brothers) and I had a ball robbing the FIVE AND TEN. My older brothers would raise a ruckus in the back of the store while I stuffed THREE MUSKETEERS candy bars and Hershey KISSES into my pockets. Since Daddy was always somewhere carousing and drinking we learned how to steal pork and beans from the corner grocery so we wouldn’t go hungry. We got hot, fresh baked bread from the bakery because the fat lady who owned it would only come downstairs from her apartment when the front door ding-a-linged. I was always the one who rushed in–grabbed a loaf and was out the door in a flash. For entertainment we stole empty gallon jugs from garages and we’d sell them to the junk man for five cents. The Pajaro movie house (a half a block from the left side of this photo) only charged a dime Sometimes we would pay to get in but other times we managed to sneak in and hide behind the velvet curtains in the balcony until the movie started.
Louie and Jackie protected me from the school bullies when we weren’t playing hookey.They also taught me how to use my fists.