I was born in mill valley,california. My dad was originally from battle creek,iowa which is a small farming community near Sioux city, iowa. My mom was from mill valley / They met when my dad was stationed on a hill above my mothers residence where they scanned the sky with searchlights looking for enemy planes at the start of world war II. I heard all the stories of black-outs (drills that involved turning out all of the lights to avoid detection by the enemy planes. Things like sugar,gasoline,rubber were rationed during those years by stamps or coupons given to each family. Of course there was a black market for those who were rich. As the war worsened my dad knew he would be deployed overseas. They decided to get married before he was sent overseas. In those days of course there was no skype or even good mail service during the war. Unfortunately all the letters that were sent back and forth were either burned or lost by my mother. My dad had the old version of "ptsd" and had many nightmares and anxiety issues after his return from guadacanal, bougainville,the solomon islands, the phillipines,and many other places that had no names that he could remember. He was blown out of a fox hole by some type of bomb which he suffered a concussion. He was sent home shortly after that. My dad never talked about his time in the army too much except when he had too many beers. As a young child I remember that army star on a lot of my toys. Because of all the nightmares and fevers he suffered from contracting some type of tropical diseases and parasites during the war my mom couldn't stand the sight of his old uniforms and medals. She either gave items away or burned a lot of it.
My mom worked in san francisco during the war as a secretary to some accounting firm. Big hats and big hair were the "rage" back then and she had both. She had very long and deadly hat pins to keep her hat on and in her words for "defense". She also had a daycare when I was really young and sold Avon to bring in a little money when I was older. As a family my dad was always working -everything from a plumber,garbageman,welding,bridge construction, and as a machinist which he learned working in the shipyards in sausalito before the war. Money was usually tight but we were never hungry and a bill collector never came to the door. my perception when I was a child was that my mom always spent more money than we had buying some things we probably could have done without. We had a good life though. I decided when I was young that i didn't want to live like that and I would figure out a way to "live below my means" so I didn't have to divide up my paycheck to the creditors.
My mom's dad was a carpenter and general contractor. My mom had a brother (charlie) and a sister Anne. Charlie lived with his parents his whole life and never married. He committed suicide in the late 1970's after his parents had passed.Her family were all involved in construction . Her dad was the ultimate "rough carpenter" and was a big man for his generation being over 6 foot tall. I remember his hands being huge and rough (my brother was the last of the "bystrom's" with the fingers like large sausages). My grandfather was diabetic and my grandmother used to sharpen his diabetic needles on a sharpening stone in the kitchen. They used glass syringes back then and sterilized the needles with alcohol. I still remember the disgusting smell of the insulin when she gave him his injections. Another habit shehad back then was to leave a small amount of pinesol in a bucket with a rag in the bathroom . They didn't have room deodorizer back then and you would almost pass out from the fumes.we moved to iowa in 1959. i really enjoyed my time in iowa hunting and fishing every chance I got and I could walk to the hunting and fishing areas from my house. You could walk down the street and pass the school with a shotgun (unloaded of course) when you were 12 and nobody noticed.
School spirit was huge in iowa and everybody knew everyone pretty much and their business. my brother was the big sports star and excelled in every sport. Me not so much! The good thing about a small town (<800 people) was that if you showed some effort you would get to play sports even if you had little talent.
