On March 14,
1958, Carrol was in the Air National Guard. It was before he started flying for
United Airlines. His dad, Winston who had just returned from Iran, was at our
house on Byron Avenue in San Mateo. Carrol phoned and told us to meet him at the
Moffet Naval Air Station in Mountain View in about an hour. We were just getting
ready to leave when all of a sudden the house began to shake. A plane flew over
the house at about 100 feet off the deck and then zoomed upward as the pilot
turned on his afterburner. Wow, everybody ran out into the street wondering what
had hit us. Then back again he came, only this time he was lower. If we didn't
know who it was, we'd have been scared to death. What a way to welcome your dad
back home. When we went to Moffet Field, we couldn't say a word about it or
Carrol would have had his neck in a noose. But it made headlines the next day in
the San Mateo Times.
On November 6, 1960, along came Shelley after two miscarriages. She weighed
in at 8 pounds, 2 ounces. and was born in Peninsula Hospital in Burlingame. She
was not only a cute little baby, but a good little baby. She never gave mom a
bit of trouble until she matured, went to college and developed a mind of her
own. The boys adored her and never hesitated to baby sit when asked.
By the mid sixties, our little house on Byron Avenue was starting to get too
small for the family. So mom went to Foster City and picked out our present
home. In May 1965 we moved out to Foster City. We sold the Byron Avenue home for
20,000 dollars, a profit of 10,000 dollars and put it all into the new home so
we could get a CalVet loan at 4 percent interest, leaving a balance of 15,000
dollars to be paid over 25 years. It was our biggest investment ever, but one of
the best. An 1800 square feet, 4-bedroom, 2-bath, 2-car garage, and a large
kitchen all for 27,000 dollars.
One time, during one of our little neighborhood poker parties, I won 30
dollars, so I invited everyone to go downtown and have breakfast on me. It was
around 12:30 am, so a carpenter named Bill Smith and Jack Sorg, a plumber,
suggested going to the Hyatt Hotel in Burlingame. We jumped in his car along
with a jug of wine. We weren't there two minutes before Bill got into an
argument with another fellow who'd also had too much to drink. We quieted them
down and went into the bar to have another drink. The other guy had two friends
with him, all well dressed. I asked one of the fellows to keep his friend in
check, because if a fight broke out, he and I would have to tangle. I thought
everything was okay until that damned Bill went over and challenged him while we
were all eating. After eating, as we were walking out together, Bill plastered
the guy with a right hand to the jaw. I ambled over to the guy I was talking to
earlier in the bar and said, "Okay baby, let's go." Just as I reared
back to let him have a right cross, I saw a foot miss my jaw. He had tried a
karate kick on me and missed. The guy had street shoes on. He flew up in the air
and landed on his back just about knocking himself out. I said, "C'mon, get
up and I'll give you some more." Lord, I didn't even touch him. About that
time, the police arrived and were putting handcuffs on my buddies. Since they
were in no hurry to get to me, I kind of backed off and started walking out as
if nothing had happened. I got as far as the entrance to the driveway when a big
officer hollered and started chasing me. I ran around the corner and tried to
jump over a drainage ditch but landed flat on my stomach on the opposite edge of
the ditch. Here comes the officer, also trying to jump the ditch, but he didn't
make it either; he landed right on top of me. We both had the wind knocked out
of us. The next thing I knew, we were in a police car heading for jail.
The police phoned my wife and told her they were going to let us sleep it
off. She could come down in the morning and post bail, which she did. It wasn't
anything to really shake me up, but that afternoon the San Mateo Times had a
story about three men being thrown in jail for fighting, a plumber, a carpenter,
and Stanford Bingham, a PE teacher at Borel Junior High School. Now that kind of
shook me up. What would the School District do, fire me or ignore it? Thank
heavens they ignored it.
A few months later, we all got sued by this one guy that Bill hit. He was
suing us for teeth that were knocked out, laceration, and time lost at work.
Fifteen thousand dollars worth. So we had to get a lawyer. The first one we saw,
Mr. Sullivan, scared the heck out of us. I didn't go along with him because he
said he was going to sue the Hyatt for selling whiskey to an Indian. I did take
his advice and homesteaded our house. That way, if they did win the suit, they
couldn't take my home in Shoreview. That's all I had anyway.
I got a lawyer by the name of Clarence Knight, who incidentally is now a
judge. We had to sweat out two years before the case came to trial. And sweat we
did. At the trial, Knight asked me to take the stand. He asked me whether I had
struck the guy that was suing us. I said no. The judge then asked the guy
whether I had struck him and he said no. The judge asked him why he was suing me
then. He said that his lawyer advised him to. The judge then said, "I'm
going to have your lawyer up before the board, case dismissed." We were all
free. Talk about relief. Wow!
One of the things that the Binghams never had was longevity. First it was
dad, then my sister Helen, and then my mom. Amongst my relatives down south, it
was Aunt Carrie, Uncle Lute, Aileen and finally Alverne.
About the only times we were seeing our double first cousins was when someone
passed away. So your mom and I thought it would be a good idea to have a Pow Wow
(a gathering of the tribe) so we could all meet under better and happier
circumstances. So one year we'd have it in the northern part of California, and
the next year the south would hold it. It got a little busy, so we decided to
hold it every other year. Every year we'd elect a Chief and it was his
responsibility to select the next place to meet. I was elected Chief three
times; then I retired. I felt it was an honor that someone else should enjoy.
The south got to fighting each other over nothing at all, so we held the next
four up north, but always invited the southerners to attend. Only a few people
would come up from the south, but the north was very well represented. We always
had the offspring of my brothers, Tom, Kermit, and Winston, and Emily and
myself. We had children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. Their friends
were also welcomed. There were always between 60 and 75 in attendance. At the
1991 Pow Wow, we had kids from Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and
Southern California.
With plenty to eat and drink, the Blue Jacket Pow Wow was always a success. It
was great talking to relatives that some of us hadn't seen for years. And there
was always plenty of action going on such as swimming, horseshoes, sailing,
boating, fishing, softball, tennis, and volleyball, and somehow we always worked
in a hole-in-one contest. This was a way to raise money that the Chief would
send to a worthy cause. My niece, Gladys came up with the idea of holding a
raffle with the winners getting paintings that one of us had done. That really
brought in the money.
There were only a few casualties such as the time that Steven took someone
sailing in my Aqua Cat in the Foster City lagoons and couldn't make it back. Or
the time that Stan Jr. sprained his ankle in a volleyball game, or the time that
Portia got poison oak up at Carrol's place. That was nothing compared to the
embarrassment I suffered when I lost my front teeth.
Steven and Carrol were trying to duck each other in the lake at Carrol's
place. I was in the water at the time and got a big laugh out of it. Just as I
laughed, my upper denture flew out of my mouth into thirty feet of water. Your
mom couldn't believe it when we told her. I offered 50 dollars to anyone to
bring them back, but no luck. The bottom of the lake got churned up so much that
we couldn't see. The next day, I had to go up to Willets to sell some recreation
land, and the following day, I rented a scuba outfit to search for my teeth. No
luck.
A year and a half later, we held the Pow Wow at Carrol's again. When everyone
was around the deck next to the lake, Ronnie asked me to unveil something
hanging on a tree. When I did, there was the ugliest old Indian smiling at me
with my teeth in his mouth. The year before, the lake had had to be drained and
they found my teeth. So Ronnie made an old Indian out of some kind of dough and
stuck my teeth in it. Oh me, what a laugh they got.
The selling of fence material, especially during the summer
from 1958 until 1965, kept us solvent. One time I was selling over on Kehoe
Avenue when an odd thing happened. I was trying to sell this gal some material
when she asked me if I had ever been in Texas. I said, "Yes in
Abilene." Then she asked if I'd ever been in Dallas. Again I replied,
"Yes, but how did you know?" She said a girlfriend had told her. I
didn't make the sale, but when I got home, I got to thinking that this gal knows
more than she's telling me. So the next day I went back to see her. As soon as
she opened the door, I recognized her and said, "Yep, you're the one,
you're Margaret Cole." This was the gal I was really hot for in Dallas
eighteen years earlier. She was also the one that came to see me when I visited
Kermit in 1944. I was very pleased to see her. I tried to start up a
conversation about how she happened to move out here and what her husband was
doing. She cut me short and told me to wait a minute. She went into the house
and came back out with her wallet. She took out two pictures of me, pictures
that I had sent to her when I was down in Panama 17 years earlier. Boy was I
stunned. When I told your mom about it, she said that she really carried a torch
for me, or perhaps a grudge since she wouldn't talk to me. Weird, huh!
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