My trip to California is almost over and tomorrow I have lots to do to get ready to go home on Monday, so this will be the last “Family Post” at least for now and I want to thank all of you who have followed along and shared your family stories which make me think all family trees grow some nuts.
But for better or worse they make us who we are and considering who I am, my family’s got some ‘splainin’ to do which is yet another reference to Lucy and Ricky Ricardo and the TV shows we grew up on and this one’s about The Andy Griffith Show and my dad.
And a-way we go, which is a reference to The Jackie Gleason Show, but Google’s AI just informed me it’s actually, “And awaaay we go!”
Either waaay, here’s the story…
When I was a kid, I was about 75 percent sure The Andy Griffith Show was based on my family and I loved the show, possibly because it started in October of 1960 and my dad died in December of 1960, so watching episodes was kinda like watching home movies even though at that point I had no idea what a home movie was.
Nevertheless..
Andy was a small-town cop (just like my dad) wore a police uniform (just like my dad) wore Half-Wellington boots (just like my dad) took his son fishing (just like my dad) and I was the same age as Andy’s son, Opie.
In my half-formed mind, Rocklin, California was Mayberry, my mom was Aunt Bee with a better sense of humor and I wasn’t sure who was playing the role of Barney Fife, but wanted to meet him because I figured he’d be a hoot.
To me, the similarities were striking, but – as I’ve recently learned – in reality there might have been one or two minor differences.
For starters it seems Rocklin, California was known as a speed trap. Back then the main highway to Reno ran right through Rocklin and people would come tearing through, in a hurry to lose their money and/or a spouse, hit the city limits going too fast and get pulled over.
And apparently my dad was the one handing out tickets.
When I asked my mom if that was true, she confirmed it and said that in his first month as a policeman, my dad wrote the most tickets in the history of the Rocklin police department. Mom told that story with pride; like dad saved a drowning puppy or pulled orphans out of a burning building. (No, mom, actually dad was busy fucking over motorists who got caught in our local speed trap.)
Mom says dad “met” a wide variety of people by giving them tickets, including the actor Wendell Corey, whose name may or may not ring a bell, so take a look at his picture:
Wendell was not a household name unless it was the Corey household, but maybe you looked at this picture and thought: “Oh, yeah…that guy.”
Either way we’re moving on.
(Hold on a minute: I just looked up Wendell Corey’s film credits so maybe I could remind you where you might have seen him. He appeared in Sorry, Wrong Number and Rear Window, but for my money the most memorable thing on his resume was Wendell appearing in a U.S. Army short film on venereal disease called Easy to Get. For his sake, I hope Wendell wasn’t a method actor.)
OK, now we’re moving on.
I have never figured out why Johnny Cash played at a fundraiser for my family after my dad’s death; but my mom’s theory is maybe dad gave Johnny a ticket, which you gotta admit would be quite a conversation starter.
2025 Update:
Given my mom’s propensity for mixing up stories and producing Olympic Gold Medal Level Bullshit, us kids figured this Johnny Cash story was a fabrication along with her numerous explanations of the Afterlife, but then we stumbled across a news article about some guy who became a Johnny Cash imitator after seeing Johnny perform in a roller skating rink in Rocklin, California. This was at a down point in the Man in Black’s career so maybe playing a roller skating rink was a gig he’d accept and maybe—once again, maybe—he donated some money to my family because we were up shit creek without a financial paddle and if you’re currently trying to separate the pile of BS from the nuggets of truth, good luck and welcome to my Life.
My dad also gave a ticket to the guy who would eventually marry my sister, James (Marty) Martin and according to our somewhat dubious Family History, Marty wouldn’t date my sister until he heard my dad was dead. (See? That’s where Romeo fucked up; he should have waited until Old Man Capulet croaked and then he could have avoided all that tragic suicide crap.)
It also sounds to me like Marty didn’t want any more speeding tickets.
No Playing Favorites
At some point my mom let her driver’s license expire and dad said if she didn’t renew it and he caught her driving, he was going to give her a ticket, too.
Being a Natural Born Smartass—it’s where I get it from—she pointed out that he was the one who would actually pay the fine and he said it didn’t matter; maybe getting pulled over and handed a ticket by her husband – a story that was sure to get around a very small town – would teach her a lesson.
“He would have done it, too. He would have embarrassed me.”
Mom then told a story about my sister Gloria swimming with some friends at the local quarry – a place she’d been told to avoid – and dad pulling his police cruiser to the edge of the quarry and using the loudspeaker to make the following announcement:
“GLORIA. GLORIA JUDGE. GET OUT OF THE WATER.”
Must’ve worked because my sister got out of the water and my mom renewed her license. Sounds like something Andy Griffith would have done.
Badass Oldsmobiles
According to yet another third-hand story, dad and my Uncle Billy West the mechanic – who was absolutely nothing like Gomer Pyle – souped-up his police cruiser with four-barrel carburetors, a high-performance camshaft and different gears in the rear end and this was told to me by my car-loving brother, Paul T (AKA: Ernest T. Bass) and while I have no idea what any of that means, it sounds awesome.
Apparently, they turned that police cruiser into a low-flying rocket.
According to Paul T – who has a photographic memory for cars and amnesia when it comes to the $20 he borrowed last week – the car was a ’59 Oldsmobile and here’s what one of those things looks like:
Looks like Chuck Yeager oughta be behind the wheel.
My brother Danny dug up this photo of my dad and based on the front grill, that appears to be a ‘57 Oldsmobile and might be the “Golden Rocket 88” which is possibly the coolest car name ever:
Beats the living shit out of driving a Toyota Corolla.
After some haggling, Paul T and I agreed dad probably drove the ’57 Olds at one point, but then replaced it with a ’59 model, painted silver, which I vaguely remember. But whatever the hell dad was driving, sounds like after he and Uncle Billy got done with it, his police cruiser would be an impressive piece of machinery.
In the late 1950s when kids with slicked-back hair and hot rods were a thing, apparently there was a park in Roseville where the hot-rodders hung out and according to Paul T, whenever my dad showed up to check things out, someone would say:
“Here comes Judge, Jury and Executioner” which I can’t believe I never thought to put on my business card.
Seems dad didn’t mind letting the kids know his police cruiser was badass and you didn’t want to mess with him or that Oldsmobile.
2025 Update
When you’re a kid people can tell you there’s a guy in a red suit who brings children gifts on Christmas and a bunny who distributes candy on Easter and a fairy who gives you small change for teeth and since you haven’t yet learned that adults spend about 83% of their time lying their ass off, you believe them.
But then you grow up and start using whatever part of your brain hasn’t been already worn out and ask: why was my dad cruising around Roseville, intimidating kids when he was cop in Rocklin? Wasn’t that out of his very limited jurisdiction? I never heard about Andy arresting people in Mount Pilot.
Now if you’ll excuse me I’ve got to go tell some kids about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the somewhat creepy Tooth Fairy.
Man Or Myth
When my mom gets on a roll about my dad I’m never sure how much to believe; she makes him sound like King Solomon in a squad car.
According to her — just like Andy Griffith — whenever people in town had problem they’d call on my dad, even if it was a mostly-non-cop problem like a baby falling out of a high chair, a run-over dog or a truck stuck under a bridge.
My mom used to tell the story of some guy trying to get his truck under a low bridge, but wedging it in so tight he couldn’t move forward or back. Nobody knew what to do until my dad arrived and said:
“Let some air out of the tires.”
Which, if it actually happened, is pretty damn smart. But when I recently asked my mom about it, she had no memory of the bridge, the truck or telling me that story. This is why you write your stories down while you can still remember them even if it’s some crap your mom made up after seeing it happen in a movie.
When writing your Personal Family History, just remember my mom’s #1 Rule:
“It’s not lying if it makes a story better.”
An Eye-witless Account
OK, I know this next story happened for sure, because it happened to me.
One day I was walking home from Rocklin Elementary School when I saw two kids – twin brothers – beating the shit out of classmate.
Having grown up on Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy and Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe, I knew it was my duty to step in and save my classmate. And as soon as I did and the twin brothers focused on me, my classmate ran off and left me fighting those two kids on my own, so fuck my classmate and if I’d known what a little asshole he was, he would have three people beating the shit out of him.
As has been noted elsewhere: No good deed goes unpunished.
And now a digression about that Commando Cody picture: So this dude’s super hero uniform is a leather jacket, khaki slacks and some penny loafers and he’s flying because he’s wearing a rocket pack, which seems positioned to give him third-degree ass burns and there also appears to be no way to steer this thing, so in reality Commando Cody could fire his contraption up, say “Up, up and away!” and rocket sideways into a building.
This is why these were considered “children’s shows”— no adult would buy that crap.
And now back to our most important subject: me. And I certainly hope you buy that crap.
So now I’m fighting two kids by myself and decided to employ a technique I’d learned on Big Time Wrestling which – although it looked like it had been filmed in somebody’s garage – taught me the “Full Nelson” which as anybody with a pocket calculator knows, is twice as good as the “Half Nelson.”
For those of you who didn’t spend time studying the moves of Pepper Gomez, Flying Red Bastien and Haystack Calhoun:
You get behind your opponent, slither both your arms under both his, then raise your hands up and lace your fingers together behind his neck which forces him to raise his arms like an unarmed teller during a bank robbery. (I could also tell you how to get out of a Full Nelson, but for these prices you’re on your own.)
I used a Full Nelson to control one brother and keep him between me and the other brother who was trying to kick me and deliver a Keds PF Flyer to my nuts. That’s when dad pulled up in his nuclear-powered Oldsmobile.
Thank God, Andy of Rocklin to the rescue!
I was expecting a pat on the back, a hearty handshake and a hero’s welcome, but my dad grabbed me by the arm and threw me into the police cruiser and I could tell he was really really really pissed off.
What the fuck?
I tried to do the right thing and save a soon-to-be-off my Christmas List friend, the friend rat-fucked me and ran off, I fought two elementary school thugs to a standstill and instead of a hug and an ice cream cone, now my dad was looking at me like he wanted to use the blackjack he kept in his back pocket.
First thing a cop does when he arrests people is separate them to make sure they don’t get a chance to collaborate and work up a likely story.
So my dad took us all back to Rocklin Elementary and threw me in a room by myself. I was thinking I was about to get my ass whipped even though I couldn’t see what I’d done wrong.
I felt like the wrongly-accused Count of Monte Crisco.
For those of you who don’t have clogged arteries, Crisco was “shortening” used in baking, but it was also pretty good at “widening” and we never used it much anyway because my mom used a coffee can to save the grease produced by frying bacon which meant everything tasted faintly of bacon, which—let’s face it—is a great flavor that will eventually kill you and the only things that won’t kill you have no taste at all.
So I think we can all agree: fuck tofu.
Anyway, at the time of this incident I had confused Crisco with Cristo and thought the Count of Monte Crisco was in charge of some kind of baking empire.
Moving on…
So after water-boarding the Evil Twins, my dad came back in the room laughing.
Turned out he thought I was holding one kid so the other kid could kick him and that’s why he was pissed off. Until the brothers confessed, he thought I had ganged up on a kid when the kids had actually ganged up on me.
My dad assumed the worst and jumped to the wrong conclusion…so I guess he wasn’t perfect after all.
Y’know, those Andy Griffith Show episodes always had a moral and sometimes Opie learned a lesson and every once in a while it was Andy, but no hard feelings and if I could travel back in time I’d still like to talk to my dad:
And ask for a ride in that Rocket 88.
Aha! So it WAS Wendell Corey who discovered VD! I knew it all along and just won a $5 bet with my brother AND got bragging rights. Thanks Mr. J!
This one sure reminded me of my childhood, altho "Chief" Menze wasn't my dad, he was not to be messed with.