Category Archives: Summer in the Waiting Room

Summer in the Waiting Room: Chapter 1 (excerpt #9)

Summer in the Waiting Room, ,
Tower Hall, San Jose State University (SJSU file photo)
Tower Hall, San Jose State University (SJSU file photo)

Blogger’s note: The following passage is the from my manuscript of Summer in the Waiting Room: How Faith, Family, and Friends Saved My Life. It’s the 9th excerpt from Chapter 1: “48 Viewmont Avenue.” I will post weekly excerpts every Wednesday morning.  To read previous installments, go to the Categories link and click on “Summer in the Waiting Room.”

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My sub-standard performance in the classroom finally caught up to me when I met with the school guidance counselor during the spring of senior year to discuss options after graduation. His name was Russell Bailey. Mr. Bailey was a portly Irish man in his late 50s with piercing blue-green eyes, thinning black hair slicked back so it looked like it was stuck to his scalp, and a large head holding thick jowls that hung from his face.

Sitting behind his desk and talking with a booming voice, he looked and sounded intimidating as he opened my file and began to lay out my options. He told me that my poor study skills, a mediocre 2.72 grade point average, and an average SAT score left me with few options other than trade school, work, or maybe, community college. I sat in front of his desk stunned, scared, and confused. Everything had always worked out for me. Assuring Mr. Bailey that my parents, friends, siblings, everyone, expected me to attend college; I quietly listened as he bluntly told me that community college was the only option then.

Later that evening at dinner sitting in the restaurant booth that wrapped around the family kitchen table, I shared the results of the meeting with Mr. Bailey with my parents. My mom looked at me with a puzzled facial expression as my dad continued eating without looking up from his plate or saying a word. I went to bed that night with a huge lump in my stomach trying to figure out how I was going to avoid my parents in the morning.

The next day at school, during the mid-morning break, I was at the table with the guys when a voice over the public address system directed me to go to the office immediately. As I nervously walked to the office, the boys at the table hooted and hollered because it looked like the school boy had finally gotten into trouble. When I arrived, the secretary motioned toward Mr. Bailey’s office where he was standing by the door waiting for me with a forced smile on those heavy jowls.

Walking into his office, I found my dad sitting in the chair I was sitting in the day before with the same beaming smile that attracted my mom so many years before. More confused and nervous than ever, because my dad never took a day off of work, I stood motionless trying to figure out what was going on. Mr. Bailey explained to me that my grade point average and SAT scores met the minimum requirements to apply for acceptance to San Jose State University, and that he would help me through the application process.

Once again, the cocoon saved me, and I was on my way to college, but with major chinks in the armor that had protected me throughout my life.  Registration day at San Jose State was overwhelming with thousands of people waiting in long lines to sign up for classes at the tables spread out on the large lawn of the main quad where the university’s iconic ivy-covered tower overlooked the entire scene. That first semester I took a full load of courses that included classes in science, math, history, English, and basketball for physical education.

Although I lived at home, at school I was on my own; no teachers reminding me of reading assignments, no homework to submit on a daily basis, and just a few mid-term and final exams. Since I loved to read, this was going to be easier than I thought, so I paid more attention to developing a social life as a college student. After classes, I would read a little bit at the library then walk over to the student center looking to meet people.

Unlike high school, however, I was having a hard time making friends. I was still seventeen years old, and SJSU was a commuter college, so the students were on average older than traditional college students, and everyone seemed busy, serious, and in a hurry to leave campus.  Fortunately, football season was in full swing, so I went back to the comfort of the cocoon and used my status as a student to secure tickets to take friends, who were either working or trying to figure out what to do next life, to Spartan Stadium to tailgate, check out the girls, and watch college football.

Soon I began to leave campus right after classes like the other commuter students, bypassing the library and student center, and heading straight home to read before I went to work at the shoe store or, on my day off, hook up with the guys to drink beer and hang out. My academic performance was predictable; I earned a “B” in history and English, an “A” in PE, and dropped the math and science classes to avoiding a failing grade.

I once again registered for a full load of five classes the next semester, adding a Spanish class to my schedule of general education courses. I didn’t consult with an academic advisor, so I was taking classes haphazardly, rather than for a declared major or specific roadmap toward graduation. I just wanted to make up for the two classes I had dropped during the first semester. Second semester was more of the same; going to class, doing a little reading and no studying, working part time, and carousing with Rudy and the guys.

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Next Wednesday: Academically disqualified from San Jose State University

Summer in the Waiting Room: Chapter 1 (excerpt #8)

Summer in the Waiting Room, , ,
James Lick High School Administration Office (photo courtesy of JLHS)
James Lick High School Administration Office (photo courtesy of JLHS)

Blogger’s note: The following passage is the from my manuscript of Summer in the Waiting Room: How Faith, Family, and Friends Saved my Life. It’s the 8th excerpt from Chapter 1: “48 Viewmont Avenue.” I will post weekly excerpts every Wednesday morning.  To read previous installments, go to the Categories link and click on “Summer in the Waiting Room.”

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In class I was with the “smart” kids learning about algebra, geometry, biology, and Shakespeare; and after school I was either working part-time at Kinney Shoes or running around with Rudy and the guys.  At first, living in two different worlds worked out just fine as I figured out how to straddle the different social circles. I wanted to be like my friends: cool, carefree, and popular with the girls from the neighborhood, and I also wanted to be like the mostly white kids in my college prep classes and the jocks: intelligent, successful, and popular on campus.

I chose who I spent time with depending on the season. During the fall and winter, when I played on the basketball team, my circle of friends included football players, basketball teammates, cheerleaders, and the “in crowd.”  I would hang out during breaks and lunchtime in the school’s quad to see and be seen wearing my forest green wool and off-white leather-sleeved varsity letterman jacket that my dad could barely afford, but couldn’t wait to buy.

Most of the kids that came from my neighborhood and others like it played baseball, so the springtime would find me sitting at “the table” just outside of the quad shooting the bull with the guys.  I would spend the summer working at the shoe store, playing ball, and staying in the neighborhood.

The system seemed to work. My sister Sisi, who started high school two years after I graduated, would later say that, “you were cool,” and she was always aware of my high school success. “When I went to your games with mom and dad, everyone knew who you were, and when I started freshman year, teachers, coaches, and the juniors and seniors, were all surprised that I was your sister because I was shy and didn’t play sports,” she went on to say.

I seemed to fit in with the school leaders and upper middle-class families that lived in the hills, life in the cocoon at Viewmont Avenue was business as usual, my parents were protective as ever, and Rudy and my other friends protected me as well.  I’ll never forget the day after school during our freshman year when, while playing a game of pick-up football without pads, helmets, or adult supervision, I threw the ball in frustration at a big kid named Gus Rivas because he failed to block for me on the previous play.

It was another one of my risky decisions as Gus weighed about 250 pounds with a huge belly, thick wrists and arms, swollen-looking hands, and a mean streak.  His belly deflected the ball like the bullets jumped off of Superman’s chest as he charged and tackled me to the ground.  I was able to get one ineffective punch in before Gus grabbed me into a headlock and started pounding on my head.  Within seconds, although it felt like years, Rudy jumped on Gus, pulled him off of me, and with my other friends there, loudly encouraged me to run.

Slowly, however, cracks in the protective shell begin to develop. When I was living the high school version of the prestigious life in the quad with the in crowd, I would hear their demeaning and condescending comments about “Mexicans,” “low riders,” and “cholos” (the term used for Mexican Americans who dressed in baggy clothes like the gang culture of the day). They would tell me that I was different from the “other Mexicans” and that their comments weren’t targeted at me.

At the table, the guys would make fun of the “school boys,” the geeks who took college-prep classes, and deride the self-importance of the football, basketball, and cheerleader types. Of course, they would also tell me that I was different than the snobby “white boys” even though I was a school boy myself. I began to feel like I didn’t fit into either of the worlds I was trying to straddle, so to avoid looking like such a geek to my neighborhood friends, I did homework less frequently and didn’t walk everywhere with my books under my arm.

Fortunately, I was good at taking tests to keep my report card slightly better than average. To maintain my place with the popular quad dwellers, I focused on basketball and baseball so I could be one of the “big men on campus.” Despite this new strategy, I continued to feel inferior with both groups, although no one around me noticed the transformation. As Sisi described it, “you seemed everywhere in yearbook pictures and everyone, the kids in the neighborhood and the kids that lived in the hills, enjoyed being around you.”

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Next Wednesday:

Eddie is available to speak at your next event or conference.  To learn more about speaking services click on the “Speaking Engagement” tab under the banner on this page.

To schedule Eddie for your next breakfast, luncheon, or dinner event, e-mail eddie.m.garcia@comcast.net, or call 408-426-7698.

Summer in the Waiting Room, Chapter 1 (excerpt #6)

Summer in the Waiting Room, ,
My mom's favorite picture of me when I was about four years old. (García Family photo)
My mom’s favorite picture of me. I was about four years old. (García Family photo)

Blogger’s note: The following passage is the from my manuscript of Summer in the Waiting Room: How Faith, Family, and Friends Saved my Life. It’s the sixth excerpt from Chapter 1: “48 Viewmont Avenue.” I will post weekly excerpts every Wednesday morning.  To read previous installments, go to the Categories link and click on “Summer in the Waiting Room.”

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My mom was the epitome of the warm and loving maternal parent.  She taught us unconditional love, faith, compassion, and perseverance.  Even during the last days before in her death in 2003, she remained strong in her convictions and her belief that everyday alive is a good day.  While any indiscretion on our part would be met with my dad’s scowls and rebukes, my mom would react with gentle counsel and loving support urging us to do better the next time.

She was our biggest cheerleader encouraging us to be the best we could be.  After all those years of watching me play sports, I’m not sure if mom really understood the complexities of the games, but I did know that she cheered every time it looked like I did something good.  Every morning she would remind us that the day would be a good one because the sun came up and God gave us another day, and after each meal, she insisted that we say “thank you God,” and of course she encouraged us to pray the “Our Father” before bedtime.

My parents, brothers and sisters, and our cocoon on 48 Viewmont Avenue were the center of my universe where I was free to explore my little world. My earliest memory is of an incident that started on the driveway of our house. I was about four years old and playing in the front yard. Those were the days when parents didn’t seem worried that their kids were running around in front of the house. The traffic in our neighborhood was nearly non-existent once everyone returned home from work, and my mom could see the entire yard and beyond from the kitchen window.

It seemed like she always was in the kitchen cooking, washing dishes, or watching over her kids playing outside. Most likely, she was always doing all three. I remember playing on the grass and eyeing the old two-toned orange and white Ford Mercury sitting on the narrow one-car driveway thinking about driving just like my dad. As the car sat majestically on the driveway, I thought about how strong and important I would look behind the wheel. When I noticed my mom had left the window, probably to go to the refrigerator to take food out for dinner, I darted to the car and struggled to open the heavy driver’s side door.

I then jumped onto the bench seat behind the steering wheel and started off on my imaginary road trip. As I spread my arms wide to maneuver the big round steering wheel, I strained my neck as high as I could so that my little head peeked over the dashboard to see the road ahead. Eyeing the gearshift on the steering column, I was ready to kick into high gear just like my dad would to send this big hunk of metal roaring down the highway. There was just one problem, our driveway sat at a slight incline, so as I grabbed the gearshift to make my move, the car started moving – backwards!

The car rolled back slowly off the driveway until it came to a complete stop in the middle of the street. I sat in the car not sure what to do next. My mom screamed from the kitchen window and dashed out the front door to save her baby boy as my dad stood on the front grass laughing. This may have been the first indication that I was willing to take a risk to get what I wanted, and like many other risks I took later in life, not a very smart one at that.

My sister Barbara described me as a little boy who was always smiling, laughing, and playing like I didn’t have a care in the world.  My older brothers and sisters were just that, older brothers and sisters who I admired and sought to be like and, along with my mom and dad, were the heroes in my life. So, I grew up not playing with them, but with the neighborhood kids. We rode our bikes up and down the street, sometimes venturing off a few blocks away to ride in the open field behind St. John Vianney Church, played two-hand touch football in the street and basketball in our driveway, or let the neighborhood girls join us for a game of hide and seek.

Barbara also described me as easy-going and accommodating. My mom wanted me to try out for the elementary school Mexican folkloric dance troupe, so I danced. My dad wanted me to play little league baseball and junior high school basketball, so I played.  I seemed to be good at everything I tried. When I was eight years old, my little league team was undefeated, and four years later I was the winning pitcher in the little league major division championship game.

When I wasn’t going to school, playing with my friends, or accommodating my parents’ wishes, I loved to read. A County branch library was only four blocks away, so I would hop on my bike, ride to the library, go straight to the sports or history stacks, check out some books, and ride back home, avoiding the back fence of the school and other dangerous hideouts like the parking lot behind Ray’s Liquors where the winos loitered.

With one arm steering the handlebars and the other arm carrying five or six books about baseball or World War II, I would rush home where I would excitedly open the books. Armed with this knowledge, I would spend hours on some weekends debating sports and history with my dad and his friends while they sat on the barstools and drank at the kitchen counter. That was my life in the cocoon on 48 Viewmont Avenue, and those around me kept it safe and secure.

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Next Wednesday: The protective cocoon of Viewmont Avenue begins to show some cracks.

Eddie is available to speak at your next event or conference.  To learn more about speaking services click on the “Speaking Engagement” tab under the banner on this page.

To schedule Eddie for your next breakfast, luncheon, or dinner event, e-mail eddie.m.garcia@comcast.net, or call 408-426-7698.

Summer in the Waiting Room: Chapter 1 (excerpt #3)

Summer in the Waiting Room, , ,
My Family - standing L-R: David, Stevie, Patty, Barbara (Garcia Family photo ca. 1966 )
My Family in Front of Fireplace at 48 Viewmont Avenue – Standing L-R: David, Stevie, Patty, Barbara (Garcia Family photo ca. 1966)

Blogger’s note: The following passage is the from my manuscript of Summer in the Waiting Room: How Faith, Family, and Friends Saved my Life. It’s the third excerpt from Chapter 1: “48 Viewmont Avenue.” I will post weekly excerpts every Wednesday morning.  To read previous installments, go to the Categories link and click on “Summer in the Waiting Room.”

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After a few years of marriage and the births of my brother David, and my sisters Barbara and Patty, my parents found that there were no opportunities for them in Phoenix. My dad was going from job to job, many times working two at a time, but none was steady. He scraped enough money together to pay rent on a studio apartment, feed the kids, and buy a broken old Ford to take him to and from his various jobs.

Later in life, my parents would laugh about the time their car had a dead battery and they couldn’t afford to replace it. My dad would get up early in the morning, open the hood of the jalopy and peer into the motor as if there were a problem. Without fail, a Good Samaritan would ask if he needed help and my dad would explain that the battery wasn’t working that morning, and he would appreciate a jump to get the car started. Once his work day was over, he would begin the same routine until a passerby would lend him jumper cables to start the car for the return trip home. This would last for months.

He quickly realized that this was no way to live. He had traveled around the world as a sailor fighting for his country, seen New York City, Boston, and Los Angeles. He knew there were opportunities for those who took risks and sought a better life. So, with a used battery in the rickety car and protests from my Grandma Joaquina, he and my mom packed up their three babies, their meager belongings, my Abuelita Chabela, and headed for San Jose, California, to join his sister Maria, her family, and relatives on his father’s side of the family to find work in the orchards and canneries of the fertile Santa Clara valley.

In San Jose, my parents moved into a relative’s garage until they were able to earn enough money to find a place for their growing family. They found a small apartment not too far away from the town’s bustling canning industry. My Abuelita Chabela took care of the kids at night while my mom worked at the canneries. It’s a cliché, but my dad worked day and nights to earn just enough money to keep a roof over their head and dinner on the table, and there was enough work for my parents to rent a small house in San Jose’s east side.

My brother Steve was born shortly after they moved into the rented house on the east side, and with another baby to clothe and feed, my parents found extra hours working for slave wages in the apricot orchards of the east valley picking the fruit and cutting it for the lucrative dried apricot market. Every bit helped, but they needed steady income to provide stability for their growing family.

During that time, San Jose was rapidly growing and the postal service was looking for reliable veterans to meet the demands of its burgeoning workforce. Soon, my dad’s status as a World War II veteran would pay off when he got a job working at the downtown post office. Although the pay wasn’t nearly enough to meet the needs of their family, the stability gave them a chance to achieve the American Dream and buy a house. They found a house just a couple of blocks away from their rented house.

My parents borrowed money from relatives to put a modest down payment on the outlandish $11,000 mortgage they took to buy the house on 48 Viewmont Avenue. For the next several years, my dad would dutifully drive downtown to the post office to earn a living and my mom would supplement their income taking jobs cleaning houses and working part-time in the cafeteria at the new IBM headquarters in the south side of town. My dad would take every opportunity to work overtime to help pay the bills.

Lucky for them, my abuelita was available to take care of the kids while my parents struggled to stay afloat. This steady way of life continued for nine years and it looked like my parents were starting to slowly build a solid foundation for their family’s future when I arrived.

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Next Wednesday: Chapter 1 continues with my first years growing up at 48 Viewmont Avenue in east San Jose.

Summer in the Waiting Room: Chapter 1 (excerpt #2)

Summer in the Waiting Room, ,
My parents taking a walk in Phoenix, Arizona (Garcia Family photo ca. late 1950)
My parents taking a walk in Phoenix, Arizona (Garcia Family photo ca. late 1950)

 

Blogger’s note: The following passage is the from my manuscript of Summer in the Waiting Room: How Faith, Family, and Friends Saved my Life. It’s the second excerpt from Chapter 1: “48 Viewmont Avenue.” I will post weekly excerpts every Wednesday morning.  To read previous installments, go to the Categories link and click on “Summer in the Waiting Room.”

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My parents were children of the Great Depression, an era of desperate times for all but the richest Americans. For both my parents, poverty was compounded as they were children of widowed mothers who endured the racism and discrimination faced by Mexican Americans of that time. As children, they had no understanding of the American Dream and no real path to achieving it. As adults, they worked tirelessly to provide that opportunity for their children, and the little house on 48 Viewmont Avenue was the base of operations for their pursuit of the dream.

My dad was born Federico Olquín García in the dusty hamlet of Las Cruces, New Mexico, on April 15, 1926. The oral history of my family doesn’t provide much about the first 16 years of his life. This much we know: his parents were Juan and Isabela “Chabela” García, also native New Mexicans, and he had one brother and two sisters.  Juan worked in the dangerous and back-breaking copper mines of southern New Mexico and Chabela tended to the home and their four children.

They lived in a small adobe structure with a dirt floor built by Juan and a younger brother. When my dad was about eleven years-old, his father died of respiratory problems related to his endless hours working in the mines.  With her four kids in tow, Chabela left Las Cruces to join relatives in Phoenix, Arizona. Family stories contend that my dad had to help drive the long and hot road to Arizona. If this is true, his childhood had disappeared in a flash and his years of responsibility and obligation came upon him overnight.

In October 1942, my dad left the small apartment he shared with his mother in south Phoenix to join the U.S Navy. Like many of his generation, my dad shared little about his experience as a sailor during World War II. He told us that he served on the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Wasp in the Pacific Ocean, but recounted nothing about battles and dangerous situations. History tells us that the Wasp engaged in several brutal battles with Japanese aircraft from October 1942 through the end of the war, the time my dad served on the carrier. In a personal log he carried, he wrote in detail about the last days of the war and the Wasp’s return to the United States.

My mom was an only child born to a single mother in on January 31, 1930, in Colton, California. Colton, a busy railroad hub and farming town in southern California, was one of many stops on the state’s farm-working circuit where her mother, Joaquina Othon, and her Tía Lipa traveled in search of seasonal work. My grandmother Joaquina was an independent woman trying to eke out a living for herself and her young daughter. Like my dad, little is known about my mom’s early life.

Within several years, my mom and her mom were again on the road, this time to Phoenix to help Tía Lipa care for my great-grandmother who arrived from Sonora, Mexico, to live out the last years of her life. My grandmother continued working odd jobs as a housekeeper, babysitter, and seasonal worker to support her daughter, sister, and ailing mother. Due to my grandmother’s tireless work ethic, my mom had a financially poor, but relatively stable life during her teen years. It was during this time that the lonely young woman raised by her mother, an aunt, and an aging grandmother, dreamed of one day having a big family with many children and grandchildren of her own.

My parents met during a late summer day in 1949 when my mom went out to the neighborhood park with a cousin to watch some boys play baseball. My mom caught the eye of my dad as he strut around the diamond with a smile that could be seen across the field. He was calling at my grandmother’s front door the next morning respectfully asking permission to talk to my mom.

My dad knew his way around girls from the many ports of call on the trip back to the U.S. after the war and his frequent attendance at south Phoenix nightclubs. But this girl was different: polite, demure, and dignified. Before long, he was stopping to see my mom everyday sitting on one end of the old sofa talking with her as she sat on the other end. Her mom and Tía Lipa sat across the tiny living room knitting a blanket or listening to the radio as the young couple talked, laughed, and sometimes just sat.

Their courtship was a whirlwind. After several months dating in my grandmother’s living room, they were allowed to go out to together to the movies or to share a soda, and six months later after they met, mom and dad were married in a small Catholic church on April 23, 1950. They had no place to live, no money, and no idea what the future would hold. All they had was each other and my skeptical grandmother watching their every move.

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There will be no post next Wednesday. Chapter 1 returns on January 1, 2014, as my parents move to San Jose looking for opportunity.

 

Summer in the Waiting Room – Chapter 1 (excerpt #1)

Summer in the Waiting Room, ,
With mom on the day of my baptism ca. 1964 (Garcia Family photo)
With mom on the day of my baptism ca. 1964 (Garcia Family photo)

Blogger’s note: The following passage is the from my manuscript of Summer in the Waiting Room: How Faith, Family, and Friends Saved my Life. It’s the first excerpt from Chapter 1: “48 Viewmont Avenue.” I will post weekly excerpts every Wednesday morning.

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Chapter 1

48 Viewmont Avenue

The sky was clear and the weather was in the low 50s, a typical crisp November night in San Jose, California. But for my mom and dad, that night and early the next morning wouldn’t be typical at all. As they raced north on U.S. Highway 101 in the their two-toned orange and white 1955 Mercury, they wondered how they were going to make ends meet now that another mouth to feed would soon be added to the family.

 They both grew up in poor single-mother households. Now that they had their own family, they were just getting by living check to check on my dad’s postal worker salary and mom’s odd jobs cleaning houses and working in the canneries. The little creature in her belly causing her so much pain and discomfort would be their fifth child. Nevertheless, both of my parents were excited and happy as the Mercury pulled into the hospital parking lot.

 My dad jumped out of the car to walk her into the emergency room. Wearing a camel colored coat and carrying a small overnight bag, she waddled up the steps to the hospital and breathlessly slumped herself onto the waiting wheelchair. As was the custom in the 1960s, nurses rushed my mom into the maternity room to await the doctor who would deliver the baby and told my dad to wait outside. Hospital volunteers showed him the way to the waiting room to join other nervous, expectant fathers who were smoking up a storm as they paced the floor.

Impatient and restless, my dad didn’t stay for very long. He left the hospital to find a place where he could belly up to the bar and knock down a few whiskey and waters before going back to meet his newest baby. My mom was an old pro, he rationalized to himself, she had been to the delivery room four other times and each time the baby came out without any problems.

Back at the hospital, my mom was going through labor pains as one day ended and another began. The baby would soon arrive as the nurses and doctors prepared for the delivery. Labor for her was not much different than the other four times. Actually, this time seemed to go smoother, the pains weren’t as strong and the actual time in labor was much shorter. Just as my dad predicted, the delivery would be quick and simple.

After finishing his drinks and taking a few more drags of his cigarette, he was back in the maternity ward anxiously waiting for the good news. They had two boys and two girls at home waiting. He was sure this one would be another boy. In the delivery room all was going well. When the baby was finally born, the doctor gently gave the newborn the obligatory slap on the backside and waited for the familiar wails of a new life catching its breath for the first time.

The doctor cut the umbilical cord and the nurses wiped the baby clean before swaddling it and allowing my tired, but happy, mom to cuddle her baby for the first time. As the doctor completed one last check of vital signs, the baby slipped out of his arms and banged its face against the metal railing of the bed. A nurse broke the baby’s fall and prevented a disastrous accident. The baby screamed in pain as the nurses and doctors worked to stop the bleeding that had emerged from the baby’s face. Luckily, that scary incident only resulted in a small scar at the tip of the newborn’s nose.

That baby with the cut on his nose was me, born on November 6, 1963, at 5:25 AM at Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City, California. The third García boy, I was 21 inches long, weighed 7.2 pounds, with dark brown eyes, and lots of thick dark hair. My parents were excited and relieved, especially after the brief scare in the delivery room. That little scar at the tip of my nose would forever find a special place in my mom’s heart.

Exhausted, she suggested a name for me, Michael. My dad wanted to name me Edward. After a few minutes of negotiation, my proud parents settled on a name: Edward Michael García. My dad spent a few more minutes at my mom’s side, slipped out of the hospital, stopped at the watering hole for one more whiskey and water on the rocks, slid onto the front seat of the two-toned Mercury, and headed south for the 45-minute drive to San Jose to tell my siblings that they had a baby brother.

At home, my brothers and sisters, David 12, Barbara 11, Patty 10, and Steve 9, were still asleep unaware of what had happened earlier that morning. When my dad burst through the front door of his modest house on 48 Viewmont Avenue in east San Jose, his four older children suddenly woke up and rushed to meet him to hear the good news.  He stood at the counter that separated the kitchen from the dining room, and excitedly told his kids about “Eddie’s” chubby cheeks and thick black hair, and how he slipped, and cut his nose.  After a few minutes of taking questions, my dad turned to the heavy black phone sitting on the counter and started dialing everyone he knew.

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Next Wednesday: Chapter 1 flashes back to my parents courtship in Phoenix, Arizona .

Summer in the Waiting Room: How Faith, Hope & Love Saved My Life – Prologue

Summer in the Waiting Room, , ,
The Giant Dipper in Santa Cruz, California (photo from Wikipedia)
The Giant Dipper in Santa Cruz, California (photo from Wikipedia)

Author’s note: The following passage is the first installment of my manuscript of Summer in the Waiting Room: How Faith, Hope, and Love Saved my Life.

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Prologue

There are those who say life is like a roller coaster with its ups and downs, and twists and turns.  I’ve loved riding roller coasters as far back as I can remember.  My favorite is the Giant Dipper, a whitewashed wooden 1920s era coaster with bright red tracks that dominates the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk on California’s central coast.  Santa Cruz is about a 40 minute drive from where I grew up in San Jose, California. As my dad drove into town, I remember getting excited to see the high point of the coaster jutting above the squat motels, restaurant buildings, tourist gift shops, and mom and pop stores that lined the streets.

The Giant Dipper was an exhilarating experience from the moment you stepped into the long line that wound its way into the building that housed the coaster station.  While in the safe confines of the fast-moving line, friends and relatives would laugh, joke, and revel in each other’s company, with an occasional pause to watch and hear the frantic riders above squeal and scream as the chaotic train roared by.  I always began to feel anxious excitement when entering the coaster station as riders took their seats on the train.  Soon, I would be securely seated in the two-person car, and without warning, the train swooshed out of the coaster house and quickly vanished into a tunnel.

Adrenalin shot through my body, and fellow riders hooted and hollered, as the train sped through a dark curvy tunnel to a low point before emerging from the darkness and slowly climbing to the first peak with the classic clicking sound of a roller coaster train laboring upward.  Once at the top, the train slowly scaled the peak and screamed down the other side of the tracks in a free fall as it rushed toward the earth.  After a scaling a couple smaller hills and valleys, the train rapidly rose into the sky to reach its highest point before it violently curved downward to its left on the way to its deepest drop.  A few more ups and downs and a slow straight-way led the train to its final resting place in the safety of the coaster station.

My love for roller coasters came from my dad. When we went to the boardwalk, usually because relatives from out of town were visiting, my dad would strut straight to the Giant Dipper. With his trademark mischievous grin, he would egg everyone on to join him on the ride, especially those who looked nervous or scared. My mom never got on the coaster, no matter how much my dad tried to persuade her. My brother Stevie was also a regular holdout, which was funny because he was our family’s tough guy. Stevie had a big heart, but masked it with a perpetual scowl and a look in his eyes that shouted out, “you wanna fight?” He was tough, uncompromising, and angry.

As his little brother, I was regularly collateral damage when he was mad at the world. When Stevie was a teenager, he wore his hair long in the style of a 1970s anti-establishment rebel. Wearing jeans, a leather vest, steel-toed biker boots, and a buck knife attached to his belt, I’m sure he scared people as he lumbered along his way. Despite his bad-boy persona, he was scared to death of that tortuous and seemingly unpredictable roller coaster that overlooked the Pacific Ocean.

Stevie had a big heart, but masked it with a perpetual scowl and a look in his eyes that shouted out, “you wanna fight?”  He was tough, uncompromising, and angry. As his little brother, I was regularly collateral damage when he was mad at the world.  When Stevie was a teenager, he wore his hair long in the style of a 1970s anti-establishment rebel.  Wearing jeans, a leather vest, steel-toed biker boots, and a buck knife attached to his belt, I’m sure he scared people as he lumbered along his way.  Despite his bad-boy persona, he was scared to death of that tortuous and seemingly unpredictable roller coaster that overlooked the Pacific Ocean.

When I was about nine years old, I persuaded Stevie to ride with me.  In line, he had the steely eyes of a gunslinger preparing for battle, but once the train disappeared into the tunnel, he began to scream, giggle, and screech like a teenage girl at a boy band concert.  I laughed harder during the next few minutes than I had ever laughed.  With each dip, twist, and turn, this tough guy with the biker boots became ever more vulnerable to the fierce journey of the roller coaster.

As the train slowly entered the coaster station at the end of the ride, Stevie gathered himself, brushed his long, thick mane away from his face, put that bad look back on, and glowered at passersby as if he was about to kick someone’s ass. I didn’t know what was funnier, his screeching on the ride or the mask he put on as soon as the danger went away.  Either way; I sure wasn’t going to ask him.

That was one wild ride.

The first forty-six years of my life followed the path of the Giant Dipper. Growing up in a working-class neighborhood on San Jose’s east side was like waiting in line for the coaster. I loved being in the safe confines of family and friends. From time to time, I would be away from them and hear and see the chaos that sometimes unfolded around me. After high school, I ventured away from the neighborhood to attend San Jose State University with the same excitement and apprehensiveness I felt when entering the coaster station as a kid. I eventually flunked out of college and chose a lifestyle fueled by alcohol, dead-end jobs, and the next party. The ensuing undisciplined meandering through the darkness of life was just like the Giant Dipper’s wild ride through the dark tunnel.

I gradually and methodically pieced my life back together in the same way that the Giant Dipper slowly scaled its first peak. I got married, went back to SJSU, graduated from college, and started a family. Vowing to never fail again, I worked tirelessly, eventually climbing the corporate ladder all the way up to the executive suite and serving in public office. The sudden plunge of the Giant Dipper’s first dip and the following short waves that quickly lead to the coaster’s summit mirrors a crushing election loss and subsequent rapid rise to school board president.

Midway through my forty-sixth year, my wife Sandra and I were approaching our 20th wedding anniversary, our two daughters were healthy and happy, and I had achieved some success in my career and public service. I felt like I was on top of my little world. Like the Giant Dipper’s next move after reaching its climactic high point, my life would soon make an abrupt and furious downward turn and plummet toward its lowest depths, changing my very existence forever. What followed was unimaginable horror intermingled with an incredible spiritual journey powered by faith, hope, and love.

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Next Time – Chapter 1: 48 Viewmont Avenue

NEW FEATURE – Summer in the Waiting Room: How Faith, Family, and Friends Saved My Life

Summer in the Waiting Room, , , , , , , ,
ICU Waiting Room at Kaiser Santa Clara Medical Center
ICU Waiting Room at Kaiser Santa Clara Medical Center

Dear Readers,

For those who believe that they alone hold the keys to their own destiny, God sure has a funny way of teaching life lessons. Due to self-perceived shortcomings, I deemed myself a complete failure by the time I was 22 years old.  With an obsession to excel and a naive quest for redemption, I fought my failure demons for more than two decades working endlessly in my elusive pursuit to find success.

Thinking I had almost conquered the demons, I had a massive heart attack on June 7, 2010.  Ten days later, cardiac arrest caused my heart to stop, and ten days after that, I had an allergic reaction that led to Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), a potentially fatal lung condition that affects just 150,000 people per year according to the ARDS Foundation.  To treat ARDS, doctors medically induced me into a coma and put me on full life support.

Emerging from the coma, I had to learn how to move my limbs, stand, walk, talk, and swallow all over again. On September 21, 2010, 106 days after the June 7th heart attack, I went home. During my long and difficult recovery and rehabilitation, I had hours and hours to think about mortality, God, faith, and the meaning of love, family, friends, and redemption.

Doctors told me that surviving three life-threatening episodes in one summer is a miracle and encouraged me to write about the experience.  With that in mind, I interviewed family, friends, and the medical team at Kaiser Santa Clara Medical Center.  What resulted is a 200-page manuscript I named, Summer in the Waiting Room: How Faith, Family, and Friends Saved My Life.

It’s the unique and inspiring story of a boy who grew up in a working-class neighborhood, failed at college and lost hope, met and married the love of his life, returned to finish college, raised a family, and built a career in corporate America and public service.  It’s also the story of a man who vowed never to fail again and toiled tirelessly trying to redeem himself, only to find true redemption while in a state of complete helplessness in the ICU.

To share this story, beginning this Wednesday, East Side Eddie Report.com will add a new feature posting weekly excerpts from Summer in the Waiting Room: How Faith, Family, and Friends Saved my Life.  My dream is to someday publish the manuscript as a book, so please let me know what you think.  Also, if you like the story, please share the Wednesday posts with your family and friends.

I truly appreciate you taking the time to read East Side Eddie Report.com each Monday.  I hope the posts are interesting and look forward to Summer in the Waiting Room bringing you back every Wednesday too.  If you have any suggestions or comments, please send them along.

Gratefully Yours,

Eddie García