CHAPTER 21

HAYWARD

After six years in the farm country of Kings County, and, facing the problem of our boys getting a college education, we were hoping to move somewhere that would be accessible to a university. One bright spring day in 1963 the call came. Would we be interested in Hayward? Art Thurman was the district superintendent who made the offer and it seemed too good to be true. However, there was one catch. The First Methodist Church of Hayward was in a state of shambles because of a scandal ‑‑ it wasn't just one scandal but a series of scandals and it all had seemed to evolve out of a prayer group!

Dick Fitch had been the pastor for about 5 years. The day we arrived the headline of the Hayward paper read "Methodist Pastor Divorces" and there was the story on page one. He was having an affair with the Chairman of one of the commissions. Dick's associate in charge of youth work, Al Lynch, was simultaneously divorcing his wife Fern, who was also the church secretary.

"Small Groups" were beginning to be the fashion, and a study called "Jesus as Teacher" had been the focus for the prayer group that was credited with starting the upheaval. It took us about a year of listening to all sides of the story to begin to understand all the reverberations. One thing that complicated matters was that Dick, who had promised to leave, decided instead to go into the insurance business and set up his office directly across the street from the church. There were people who hated Dick; there were others that blamed Barbara; there were many who simply left the church and wanted out of the whole mess. There were those who said, "The prayer group didn't have anything to do with it‑‑their marriage was already a sham and the small group just revealed the hollowness." There were those who thought Dick was being crucified by gossip and blamed the church; others were furious with the Conference officials who were said to have known about some affairs he had had with other women in the past and had still appointed him to Hayward. Dick was a charmer with the kind of speaking ability and good looks that one needs to be a spellbinder, which did not help our situation. There were times when we felt he played on people's sympathies outrageously. There were times when we counseled with Barbara, then Dick, then Al Lynch, then Jan (Dick's girl friend, who was married but now divorcing), and Fern. Fern seemed to be the most stable one and the most wronged. She was no longer church secretary and that important vacancy had to be filled immediately.

We were frankly told that one reason for Bob's appointment was that he had "a good stable family life". And it was true. People seemed to need the reassurance that there was still some stability in the world. I always thought that the Bishop's wife, Mrs. Tippett, had something to do with our appointment. She had come to speak for our Woman's Society in Hanford. The President met her at the Santa Fe Railroad Station and brought her to our house for tea and to spend the night. The way Mrs. Tippett told the story she was horrified to learn she would be spending the night with a family who had FIVE boys. Bob was away for the evening on other business, but the boys behaved so beautifully that for years she circulated the story around the conference. I don't know what got into them, but they all seemed to sense that company manners were in order. They talked about politics, helped their little brother, waited on table and acted as unlike normal boys as possible except that they were obviously nice kids with a good sense of humor.

We actually moved to Hayward while Charles was an exchange student and Wolfi had taken his place. I wanted to spare Wolfi the trauma of moving and arranged for him to go to Y camp. But he got so homesick that he had to come home. He said he had little enough time left with his brothers and insisted on being a part of our life.

The Hayward parsonage was a split level house on 5th Street, a nice neighborhood about a half mile from the church. It had a nice back yard, good neighbors, shade trees and the house was the first relatively modern home we had occupied. It had a pleasant kitchen and more shelf space than I had ever had before. We loved being back in the Bay Area climate. It was great to be 20 miles from Berkeley and both of our mothers and other family too.

Shortly after we arrived we took our vacation by train to take Wolfi to New York and to meet Charles and bring him home. The exchange year had been a time of growth for all of us. I had asked Wolfi rather late in the year how his attitude toward our American racial problems had changed from when he arrived in the U.S. He thought a moment and then said, "Well I realize it's much more complicated than I did before." I thought it was a good answer. We had hoped he would see the good in black, white and other races.

Imagine our dismay when we overheard a conversation on the train between Wolfi and a middle‑aged red‑necked Southerner who was explaining to this poor foreigner what blacks were really like. In addition to explaining their genetic inferiority, the man added, "Now take their skin...you know, no matter how much they wash, they never get really clean...you know...they can scrub, but you know they're not REALLY...etc., etc." However, I think Wolfi took the comments with a grain of salt.

It was a dramatic departure for Wolfi at Kennedy Airport. When it was delayed an extra hour we all hugged each other and enjoyed our last precious moments all over again. A few days later we were back at the airport to pick up Charles. This time the delay was longer and the parents were becoming visibly tense. Charles was the last passenger to emerge from the plane. He wore a French beret, carried himself like a German and spoke with a distinct English accent. He seemed so grown up.

The whole exchange experience had influenced us in ways that would continue to expand. Charles's German mother, the Countess of Munster (or Mu as she let us call her) came to see us while we were in Hayward. I would always feel grateful for her influence on Charles and their special relationship. Charles learned to appreciate German poets and philosophers; I learned more about German Romanesque church architecture, how to use egg cups, and above all the values and experiences that had shaped her life.

She told us that she had been present at the time that Molotov and von Ribbentrop signed the Soviet Accord at the beginning of the 2nd World War. She was in Protocol, but she had to leave soon afterward because of her husband's connection with the underground. Her husband was a medical officer with the rank of General. He had served on the Eastern front and had suffered irreversible heart damage before he was released. He managed to escape from Stalingrad with some help from Khrushchev (these are fragments of what Mu told us...she would get to that point in the story and then remain silent and one felt there was more to the story that could not be told). I will never forget driving her to Carmel and listening to her account of how she escaped from the Russians at the end of the war. Disguised, hiding under haystacks and in fields, she managed to cross to the Allied section. Then she made a pilgrimage from town to town searching for her husband.

She would go to the hospital in each town to inquire, for she knew he would have to be hospitalized or in some connection with a hospital. Finally she reached a town where she was told that he was an out‑patient. They gave her the address of his room. She climbed the many flights of stairs and saw his card on the door so she knew it was the right place, but he was not at home. The Concierge told her of a cafe where he might be eating lunch so she went there. As she stood in the doorway she saw him at the far table. She did not want to startle him, so she waited until he looked up and saw her. He rose and came to embrace her saying, "It is time that you should find me..." Words on paper cannot do justice to the telling. And many of the details of the story have gone from my memory. But I would always love this brave woman who said that she and her husband had decided after the war to spend the rest of their lives working for better understanding between nations. Soon after their son Alexander was born, her husband succumbed to his war injuries. Her taking Charles as an exchange student was her beginning to fulfill their vow.

There have been interesting visits back and forth through the years. When Alexander spent his holidays with us we found that some of his autocratic manners did not sit too well, especially a scorn for regulations like the "no trespassing" signs at the reservoir, and his certainty about his own rightness. And sometimes the Countess rode roughshod over our ways of doing things. But she introduced us to Edvard Munch, expanded our horizons both in Norway and Germany. We would not forget. After we got home the next crisis was getting Charles into the University. He was refused by Hayward State and Chabot College because he was too late, but when the University saw his credentials he was accepted with a deficiency in Civics which he had to make up. Maja made it possible for him to eat at the Co‑op and found a room for him with a friend on Prospect Street. Tim and Bill had not gone East with us in order to go on a Sierra trip. Bill had had to have surgery on his feet after their hike and I remember the first thing I saw when we met them was Bill's bandaged legs. It was wonderful to be together again. Tim and Bill were immediately accepted into the Mentally Gifted program at Hayward High, but, because David's records were lost in transit, he was relegated to the average class. When I told the counselor about David's accomplishments she agreed doubtfully to "try" him in the mentally gifted program too. And she quickly assured me that that was the right place for him.

Soon after our arrival Bob and I were summoned to a meeting of his colleagues and presented with an opportunity to belong to a therapy group for free. The idea was that the whole Conference felt rocked by the scandal at Hayward (and some other irregularities), and money had been donated to give ministers and their wives this special opportunity with a qualified clinical psychologist named Dr. Forrest Orr. It appealed to me to be a part of a "therapy group". It was very much the "in" thing. On the other hand I said at the outset that our marriage came first ‑‑ and if a therapy group would begin to seem threatening to that I would quit. I didn't fully realize when we started the experience that it was meant for troubled marriages. And we really did not qualify.

But for two years we went faithfully to this group. The membership of 10 or so remained quite stable and naturally one got to know these people very well. But in retrospect I consider it a shallow experience. I did learn some important things though. Forrest was not my idea of a psychologist or a therapist, but he was very patient and good at listening. I guess I always want to like the teacher. And I liked Forrest a lot. I felt sort of devastated a few years later when he divorced his wife. One of the anomolies of our life, Bob's and mine, has been that having a good marriage has been almost a handicap in some areas. While it helped us get the job in Hayward, we quickly found that a no‑no in a therapy group is to hint that you don't have deep underlying tensions.

Of course everyone has some tensions. And one thing I learned from the group was that most of the good ideas one has will be expressed sooner or later by someone else. The smart thing to do is to wait for the other person to express the idea if possible. Do you trust your own inner wisdom or do you lay your soul bare and let the group give you some new kind of wisdom? What is laying your soul bare anyway? With all the palaver, how little we really bridge the "unplumbed salt estranging sea" that separates each one of us. I see the members of this therapy group annually at Conference. I would think that the shared intimacy of those 2 years would have bound us together as friends. But it seems to me that "instant intimacy" is easily discarded and one goes back to "instant politics as usual". In fact I remember when the therapy session ended sort of in mid‑ sentence. No summary of wisdom from Forrest. No evaluation. Just, "Time's up ‑ that's it." Even if we had wallowed in evaluation I doubt if it would have changed much.

The longer I live the more I feel that there are a lot of "givens" in any life or relationship. We don't change each other and there are lots of things we can't change about ourselves. However we can learn ways of dealing with these given qualities. Another thing I learned from the therapy group was that vibrations are real. If you are feeling angry at anyone, whether it is a salesclerk, or a spouse, or sibling, the tension is like electricity. It was easy for me to see that other people were transparent but not so easy to see how transparent I was. For the first time I took the idea of "vibrations" as something I was partly responsible for, and I felt I became somewhat more sensitive to what was going on in group situations. Altogether I enjoyed the therapy group as an experience and I enjoyed talking it over with Bob afterwards. Later we hosted or participated in other "small groups", such as Yokefellows, Time for Reality, a Meditation group and so forth. Self improvement still seems like a good goal, but perfectionism in human relationships seems self‑defeating. I have also been dismayed at the proliferation of personality‑cult small groups. It is appalling to see how otherwise sensible people will allow themselves to be manipulated, as if the urge to be centered on something is so powerful that it makes people very vulnerable.

The church, with all its faults, has offered a tradition that set limitations to the abuses of individuals. At least I think this is true of the main line denominations. It has been a disappointment in my lifetime to see that so many so‑called "intellectuals" with first class minds have been unwilling to work at improving and refining the church, but have chosen instead to let it become more and more vulnerable to the onslaughts of much less enlightened and even dangerous substitutes. The faddish search for answers seems shallow compared to the more tedious Christian answers of patience, fortitude, and wisdom. Often I would feel that pop psychology tends to extol one virtue (especially love or honesty) out of context and unrealistically.

I remember the young couple who wanted to have their wedding vows include a pledge to be "perfectly honest" with each other while leaving out the traditional promises of fidelity. I remarked afterwards to Bob that it had been much easier for me to be perfectly faithful to him than to be perfectly honest,and I suspected the kids didn't know much about either virtue.

One day in early 1965 Charles announced that he wanted to spend his junior year at Cal at Bordeaux on the University Abroad program. My first reaction was, "Charles, it's not your turn...You've BEEN to Europe." But again, Charles was more persistent than I had reckoned with when it came to what was really important in his life.

Meanwhile Ed and Virginia Peet were urging us to join them in a super‑bargain 5 week trip to the Middle East including various stops in Europe. Maja got wind of it and began to put on pressure. She gave us substantial financial help and practically insisted that we should go. She said that it would help Bob in his ministry, broaden our perspective, and that we ought to do it while we were young enough to be active. We would travel by plane to Copenhagen and Paris, then join a British Guide, Derek Cook, who would drive 11 of us by Comer Bus to Munich, Salzburg, down the center of Yugoslavia to Thessalonica, thence to Istanbul, across Turkey to Goreme, down to Tarsus and the Mediterranean, to Antioch in Syria, Aleppo, Damascus, Jerusalem, Amman, Petra, Baalbek, Beirut. From Beirut we would board a Greek Cruise Ship for Cairo, and thence to Athens, Rome, Paris, Copenhagen and home.

The group assembled at the Airport was like a cast of characters in a play. Our leader, Doug Henderson, came on with blustering authority, His wife, Leila was less abrasive, but their pre‑adolescent son Roger was totally obnoxious. Virginia Peet immediately crossed swords with Doug. Rev. & Mrs. Ball and we were the two other ministerial couples. The Balls were well‑ meaning, but Mrs.Ball would have some health problems and her husband would be remembered for being persnickety. The Peets had brought a nubile young girl with them, and the final member of our party was a pastor named Dick Whitmore, who fancied himself to be younger and more sophisticated than his 4 colleagues. He had left his wife and family at home and immediately attached himself as protector of the nubile girl, encouraging her to believe that ministers in general were stuffy, but that he was cut from a different bolt of cloth.

His behavior so outraged some of the other members of the party that there was open gossip and ill feeling throughout the trip. Altogether I never spent five weeks of my life with a more ill‑suited group of people, but now all that part of it seems funny and the glorious memories of new experiences remain. In addition we had numerous adventures. One of the happiest was meeting Bill and his German mother in Salzburg. One of the most joyous evenings of my life was our visit with Bill and "Mutti". The excitement of nearly missing them. The realized ecstasy of reunion. The pleasure of seeing Bill's Austrian mother and her love for Bill. Dinner at the Hotel Europa, breakfast, a quick guided tour with Bill as narrator and we were off again, grateful for each precious moment.

Other adventures like the bus breaking down in the middle of Yugoslavia, on the Mediterranean Coast, and in the hot Syrian desert were less pleasant. When we crossed the border into our only Communist country, Derek warned us not to underestimate the Yugoslavian people‑‑we would find them to be very good people. And we did. We saw wholesome weatherbeaten faces, strong featured peasants who helped us. Many looked as if they had stepped out of a Pieter Brueghel painting. And the primitive wells and agricultural devices seemed remote from the 20th Century too. When Derek stopped to ask directions, a heavy‑set woman, with an enormous sickle in her hand, waved her wicked looking instrument, while she replied in the most helpful way possible. And when our bus broke down, two young fellows stopped and spent a couple of hours improvising a repair that worked to get us to the next city.

While some of us sat under the trees beside the road, a typical peasant couple came by. The man, as usual, sat on the horse driven cart, while his wife walked sturdily behind with a scythe over her shoulder. She smiled as they went by and five minutes later she reappeared with several wizened little apples for us to eat. She could scarcely guess that I would remember this simple generous act the rest of my life. When we returned to Hayward I would feel sick as I walked past the Beauty College next to our church and saw the heavily made up, shallow faces of some American women in contrast to those good well‑lined peasant faces.

Derek was a professing Atheist, having been disillusioned when his good Christian grandmother had died an unnecessarily painful death‑‑if there was a God he should never have allowed it! But he behaved in a far more Christian manner than some of the Methodists on the bus. He enjoyed telling us of all the atrocities committed in the name of Christ during the Crusades. And he loved to tell us about the accomplishments of Saladin and other great Arabian heroes. It was both revealing and challenging, and I came home filled with a new zest for studying history and a new realization of the infinite complexity and brilliance of past civilizations.

I had had little conception of how much of Rome remained all over Europe and the Middle East. Baalbek, Jerash, and Petra filled me with awe. I had expected to feel "let down" by touristy aspects of Damascus, Jerusalem, Bethleham. Instead I was overwhelmed. Everything came alive. Maja was right. It helped Bob in his ministry and opened new horizons for both of us.

We had sat on Mars Hill and watched the moon rise over the Parthenon. We had taken candles and waded through Hezekiah's tunnel under Jerusalem. We had climbed through the carved chapels of Goreme, and over the ruins of cities I had not even known existed. The other women on the trip complained about the hardships we endured and looked forward to being on the Greek cruise ship where Virginia could get her hair done, and we were sure it would have a swimming pool and other diversions on deck. Instead when we boarded at Beirut, we were greeted by hundreds of "deck passengers", Greek refugees. Our party of twelve were assigned to 3 staterooms, each with four bunks. The couples had to be split up‑‑4 men in one, and 4 women in the second. That left Doug and Leila Henderson, their son Roger and Dick Whitmore for the third stateroom.

Bob and I weren't happy about being split up on our first "cruise". But Leila and Doug were furious when the purser informed them that Leila would not be allowed to stay in the same stateroom with another man (Dick Whitmore). It would be immoral... Doug blustered but to no avail. Leila had to sleep with the women deck passengers. She felt humiliated and said the women "spat". Doug threatened and complained that she was close to a nervous breakdown. The purser was adamant. As usual Derek came to the rescue and said he would handle it. He went to see the purser and returned saying it was fine‑‑Leila could return to the stateroom. Doug's jaw dropped and we all wanted to know how he had managed it. "Oh," said Derek, "It wasn't difficult, I just told the purser that Dick was her uncle..." There have been times in years to come when Bob and I have turned to each other and said, "We need an uncle..."

The boat was anchored at Piraeus while we were in Athens. Bob and I thought it would be fun to spend the night ashore together and he asked the purser for a suggestion of a hotel. We managed to thread our way through the narrow streets, but found that hotel was booked up. What we hadn't bargained for was that Piraeus was a typical port town and we were obviously in the sleazy end of the city. We finally found a hotel. But it turned out to be one of the more wild and terrifying nights I ever spent. It was hot. The blaring of music punctuated by sounds like screams and thumps, as if there were battles going on outside, made us cling to each other. We also felt as if we were being bitten by something inside. It seemed to me that I lay awake from 3:30 to 6:00 a.m., listening to the noises, and fearful that Bob would wake up and insist on leaving. As soon as it was daylight we crept back to the ship. One of our favorite movies is Melina Mercouri's, "Never on Sunday", which is set in Piraeus and reminds us of that night.

This trip was a turning point for us in several ways. We didn't care for Dick's behavior, but we certainly didn't identify with the stuffy attitude of Henry Ball and the Hendersons, particularly toward drinking. We had been teetotalers ever since we came to California 21 years before, and it had worked well in raising our family. But temperamentally we didn't feel like blue noses and we began to relax our standards.

When we left Copenhagen we bought fresh Danish pastry to share with Molly and Paul Boerner after we arrived in New York. The ship that was to carry Charles to Bordeaux was tied up on the Hudson River and we were able to board her for a quick farewell before we left for San Francisco.

While we were in Hayward the San Francisco Chronicle ran a series of articles about Homosexuality authored by John Moore who was the pastor at Glide at the time. John had been pastor of the Hayward Church and was responsible for the location and the plan of the house in which we lived. His oldest daughter, Carolyn, was in Bordeaux (1965‑1966) as part of the same student group from Cal that included Charles, and their third and youngest child Annie was a special favorite of our dear neighbors, the Broughers. It seemed courageous of John to tackle a subject that was extremely controversial then. Years later when Carolyn and Annie died at Jonestown together with Carolyn's illegitimate son by Jim Jones, we would wonder if the whole Glide scene might have been a bit heavy for those growing girls. Certainly we could never have imagined such a tragic outcome.

"The answers were blowing in the wind," as the song reminds us, but I did not realize it. In 1966‑67 Charles, Tim and Bill shared an apartment in Berkeley. One night they invited us over for supper and since I had noticed how long their hair had gotten, I tucked my hairclippers and other barber equipment into the car. I took it for granted that they would be grateful, having performed that service for them all their lives. However, when I offered to do it I got turned down flatly. I was slow to realize that they really meant it, and what started as pleasantries back and forth ended up in an argument.

Bob and I drove the 20 miles home home feeling rebuffed. We felt that having long hair in 1967 was not a "moral" issue. It was more of a symbolic statement. But we didn't think they wanted to be considered hippies. Anyway, when they all turned up at our house the next day for the weekend, I got out the barber outfit again. This time the argument really upset me,and I finally fled to our bedroom thinking "I'll show them how they would feel in the reverse position." I daubed my face with as much make‑up as I could smear on and combed my hair wildly. When I reappeared, instead of thinking it was funny, they would have nothing to do with me. I went to bed feeling dismayed and angry.

This was a vivid example to me of how I had to grow up as a parent and realize that they were NOT going to knuckle under. And that was healthy. Actually, a couple of them asked me to cut their hair the next day ‑‑ but I had learned my lesson, and the haircuts were only a trim. One goes along with the conceit that one is well balanced. And it is hard to move over from "raising children" to watch them take over the world, ‑‑ their world. Having Paul, so much younger, in some ways made Bob and me FEEL younger than we really were. Thank God for children who do grow up and teach us that we are not the end of creation.

David would be ready to enter college in September, 1967 and he was enterprising in applying at various Universities and for several scholarship. Among other honors, he was accepted as one of 12 finalists for a Gemco scholarship. He warned us that he didn't stand much of a chance because it depended on a specialty in economics. But we were invited, as parents, along with David, to attend the dinner at which the prize money was to be awarded. I remember being tired and somewhat grouchy during the drive to the restaurant. I thought the whole scholarship scene was exploited for publicity purposes, etc., etc.

When we arrived at the the banquet hall we discovered that State Senator Nicholas Petris and other dignitaries were there. I sat between David on my left and Bob on my right and made desultory conversation with another set of parents across the table while we consumed an elegant meal of filet mignon and appropriate cuisine. Suddenly I felt David touching me. I turned and saw he was choking. I said, "Are you all right?"

He moved his head and I suddenly realized he was not fooling. I said rather loudly to Bob, "We're in trouble."

The next seconds are hard to describe. People suddenly began to crowd around. I think I tried to slap him on the back, but in the end I put what seemed like my whole fist down his throat to bring up a chunk of baked potato skin. By this time David was quite white and clammy. Half the room were on their feet, but as soon as they saw that he was okay they drifted back to their seats.

The next minutes were some of the most exhilarating of my whole life. David sat quietly, not ready to go back to eating right away. I was in ecstasy. I remember thinking, "He's alive. He's alive. He's alive. He's ALIVE! He doesn't need a scholarship. He doesn't need to go to college at all. He's here. I wanted to tell the person across the table that I hoped her kid would win. She gushed, "How did you have such presence of mind? How did you know what to do?" I hadn't the faintest idea. But I still find myself grinning as I type this almost twenty years later. It turned out that he did win $250, the third place award which didn't seem at all important.

I did lots of substitute teaching while we lived in Hayward, almost entirely in the high schools. Occasionally I got called to the Continuation School which was housed in a ramshackle old building. All of the students there had been expelled from high school ‑‑ most had served jail terms. It was a constant challenge, especially for a substitute. On one occasion I was called in to replace a teacher who had to go to court to testify on a major crime. As he showed me around, he handed my a heavy chisel and told me to keep it in my hand all the time I was there. Within five minutes of his departure at least three cherry bombs went off with frightening noise. I was supposed to see that certain cupboards were locked. As fast as I would lock, them they would be unlocked. There was a rickety staircase that led to a loft arrangement used as a dark room. I can't believe I climbed those stairs to see what was going on. I wouldn't do it now for a thousand dollars. I think it was anger that saved me in situations like that ‑‑ a sort of righteous indignation that made me forget myself. My wallet was stolen even though I thought I had a New York Subway graduate's respect for hanging on to my personal property.

Happier teaching experiences were at Hayward High where I basked in the good reputations our sons were acquiring both scholastically and in leadership responsibilities. One of the nicest compliments I received was when a school counselor remarked, "The thing that is great about your boys is that they are not only outstanding students, but they have a good influence among their peers."

One day I was having lunch at Sunset High Cafeteria. One of the left‑wing social studies teachers was holding forth about how awful Billy Graham was. As a mere substitute I should have kept my mouth shut, but I remarked rather casually that I thought a lot of people had the kind of mentality that needed that kind of support and encouragement. If you were more sophisticated that was okay, but etc., etc. Well Mr. T. jumped all over me and told me that this type of bourgeois mentality was what was wrong with the world. Then he launched into a diatribe, explaining to me that within a decade the FAMILY would no longer exist as a social unit. According to him this was a desirable goal that intelligent people should hope for. This was my first encounter with "The New Left". I wasn't able to argue. But it was another step in my awareness of some of the radical thinking that would help to undermine traditional values in the '70s.

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