Farmer?

“Yeah, my dad is a farmer – want to make something of it?”

That’s what I felt the years at Franklin Elementary School in Santa Monica, where my friends’ dads were all “businessmen,” whatever that was. They wore the infamous white collared-shirts to work, and suits, or so I thought.

My mother, the pianist, caused raised eyebrows, too, but musicians somehow fit the Los Angeles demographic better than farmers. Especially when the farm was 500 miles north in the tiny Dust Bowl settled twin cities of Marysville and Yuba City.

My handsome papa, hazel-eyed and slim-bodied, wore khaki – all khaki. Long-sleeved khaki work shirts, pressed and starched (yes, by the Chinese laundry in Marysville) khaki work pants, rounded leather work boots with plain white cotton socks that came in packages of six. He topped it off with a soft white Panama hat – real Panama.

He was very particular about the hat. We drove 40 miles to Grass Valley once to find a soft new Panama at a particular haberdashery, which probably served the Gold Rush towns the previous century. He found one just to his specifications with a thin black ribbon around the middle. He was so pleased with the hat and the day was so fine, we ended up driving further east 50 miles into Nevada. I was 11, and that was the first time April and I had been out of California. It was a sunny day, but mountain air is colder, and I remember feeling the chill as we walked in our little cotton sun suits through the lobby and theater with the strip show (I saw it) to get to the fancy buffet at the Cal-Neva Lodge. Later I found out it was owned by the Mafia, or at least that’s what reporters for magazines like Look, which was as big as Life Magazine, said.

By the time I got to junior high school, the “farmer” label was beginning to sound interesting to my friends. I found out when my friend Carol saw a boy I liked while we were up at the farm for the summer. She wrote that she casually told him that I was “at the family’s ranch.” She said he asked lots of questions about it. Years later I heard he moved to Oregon to raise horses.