Not even for a cable car ride
This story has been told before.
In February of 2014, to be exact, when The Legal Genealogist was in California for a different speaking engagement.1
But it’s a story that deserves to be told again, and it surely came to my mind yesterday as my host from the California Genealogical Society drove me around San Francisco and I was transported back to the days when my family lived, for few brief months, on the other side of this bridge that you see here.
Because there’s something about California…
My father was a chemical engineer for Shell Oil Company during much of my childhood and, shortly after I started second grade, he accepted a short term assignment that took us to California. We lived for those few months in the town of San Rafael, in Marin County, on the far side of this bridge.
I was six years old that year when my father accepted that temporary assignment, but I remember so much about it. My best and worst memories of California…
I remember that we rented a house high on a hill and I remember walking down about a kazillion steps on hillside sidewalks to get to the Short Elementary School… and I remember choosing to walk up the roads on the way back because it was easier than climbing all those steps.
I remember that it was winter much of the time when we were there, which means the rainy season. I remember keeping a change of clothes at school because, often as not, we’d arrive drenched to the skin.
I remember being taken out into the backyard to watch that newfangled miracle of miracles — a satellite passing overhead in the night sky.
I remember visits from my Uncle Bill, who was in the Navy. I remember he always brought us presents. I remember the huge dolls he brought us with articulating elbows and knees and wrists and ankles.
And I remember that my mother, for a short time during this temporary assignment, turned into a complete and utter raving lunatic.
There was something about California that made her decide, for heaven only knows what reason, that it was time my sister Diana and I learned to eat… liver.
Now as far as I’m concerned there is absolutely no redeeming social value to liver.
I am informed by my oldest brother that having one inside my body is good for me, and I’m willing to believe him: he’s got a medical degree and I don’t.
But on my plate? No. Nope nope nope won’t do it can’t make me.
And that, as I recall, is basically what both Diana and I told our mother when she decided we had to eat the liver.
First she tried bribery. If we would eat the liver, we could go for a ride on the San Francisco cable cars.
Hey, I’m six years old. I’ve lived six whole years without cable cars. I figure I’m good for at least another six without cable cars. I’m not taking bets on living til morning if I eat the liver.
Next she tried disguise. Yeah, sure. Considering the… um… how to put this delicately… stench that cooking liver makes, disguising it is not really going to work very well with a pair of grammar schoolers.
And then she put her foot down.
We would get nothing to eat, she decreed, until we ate the liver.
We held out for three days.
She gave in.
And that is beyond a doubt the worst memory I have of life in California. (Well, maybe the biting, pinching, hair-pulling brat of a cop’s kid who lived down the road would come in as a tie, but…)
What’s that? The best memory? Oh, yeah. That.
Well, some 20 or so years after we left California, I returned for a visit. I went to San Francisco. I rode the cable cars.
Now I know San Francisco. I know its diversity and its tolerance of the eccentric.
But I am also reasonably confident that there are still people who were there that day whose own memory is occasionally stirred. And I’m sure that they smile when they remember the nearly-six-foot-tall woman riding up and down the streets on the cable cars, grinning from ear to ear and screaming into the wind:
“And I didn’t eat any liver either.”
Nope nope nope won’t do it can’t make me.
NOTE
- See Judy G. Russell, “Something about California,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 1 Feb 2014 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 23 Sep 2017). ↩
Oh, my gosh. I still have the memory of sitting at the kitchen table for hours because I would not eat something. I don’t remember what it was but my mom had to finally give in. And at six months pregnant I fell in the street trying to board a moving cable car! At least I didn’t join my Mom and Grandmother, who both were Hit by streetcars in Chicago!(Separately.)
We all share these childhood experiences, don’t we?
Thank you, Judy!!!!!! Best break from this Pro-Gen assignment that I have taken yet . . . . . . . lol. I think I need to share this with my own mother, though she didnt get quite as gungho as your mother!
🙂
What a small world. My father was a chemical engineer for Shell Oil and lived in San Francisco for a little over a year 1960-1961 before he decided to go to law school in Houston. What was your father’s name? I’ll ask my dad if he crossed paths with him.
Hugo Geissler, assigned for the most part to the NY office.
Oh Judy can I relate! My brothers and I hated liver too. Wouldn’t eat it, just wouldn’t do it. My mom tried telling us it was hamburger, the stench revealed her lie! Maybe it was some advertising on TV saying liver was essential to the health and wellbeing being of children.
Whatever the reason, I’m awfully glad I outlived that part of my life… 🙂
Liver was cheap when we were kids–no doubt one reason my mother, at least, served it several times, telling us how good it was for us. The house rule was that we had to eat at least two bites of everything served, or no dessert. Liver, no, never, we complained! My brother, sister, and I objected vociferously every single time. Finally, our father said, “I don’t like it either, but if I can eat it, you can too.” That was the last time she tried to serve it to the family! But the neighborhood women got together for a liver lunch whenever it was on sale.
Unfortunately, my father thought the stuff was wonderful. No ally there!!
I remember my father liking “lands fry and bacon” but it’s not for me. I had tried it but it is the texture that I really hate along with the smell or taste. I will have some over processed pate that has practically no liver taste left though. Thanks for sharing this story, most enjoyable and brought back memories too.
I think I could detect anything above a nanogram of liver in a dish.
My mother gave us liver to. But I was the only one that liked it. My brothers and sister hated it and would not eat a single bit of it. Now that it is later in life I still like to eat liver. The problem is that I can not get my wife of 50 years to make it for me. So the only time I can get it is when we got out to eat.
You can have all of mine, Brian. No problem. 🙂
Hilarious!
Yeah, my mom served liver because it was “full of iron and vitamins”. She also subscribed to the cod liver oil health benefits– ask me what I think of “appealing mint-flavoured” cod liver oil (even worse than the plain stuff).
I swear at one point, she’d serve liver at least monthly (or so it seemed). Her attempt at disguise was to cover it in cheese (with a tomato for those who’d eat ’em- also not me). In our house it was: you will finish what’s on your plate or suffer consequences. I did find you can actually literally choke/gag-down liver one bite at a time with a large swig of milk- I pretty much never let it touch my tongue.
The real absolute worst was when she prepped one of a couple of recipes of *chicken* livers usually in some sort of fried onion, cream +/-mushroom sauce. Because kids love those ingredients, right? I could smell that outside and many times seriously debated staying out past dinner time and pretending I had gotten lost– would have been in major trouble for even trying.
I think she finally only quit serving these when it became hard to get the organ meats in the stores.
Funnily I do love liver sausage and pates. And, I love me a steak n kidney pie. Haven’t had in years as I cut out meats. But, those sure were tasty.
Loved your story!
All organ meats are nasty, but liver is positively vile.
My husband and I joke that our prenuptial agreement was that I would not cook liver and he would not eat it! It’s been 55 years and we still stick to that. I’m in total agreement with you–nope, nope, never.
🙂
Fortunately, my parents didn’t like liver! The first time I visited San Fransisco was in 1972 and my camera & travellers cheques were stolen from my locked car. A naive Canadian
That’s definitely not the memory we’d like you to have of San Francisco!!
So many liver haters and I’m another one. Rather bite into a ten-penny nail touch that stuff. Just the thought of it makes my liver quiver. Reading this blog was good for a laugh, I could just see you and your sister setting there staring at a piece liver…ugggggg!
It’s probably genetic, cousin Stan! 🙂
I remember my mother and grandmother trying to get me to eat herrings, which they thought a delicacy. Unfortunately I gag on even I fish bone. After about three years of twice yearly visits to Doncaster they finally decided I wasn’t kidding when I gagged. I never had to try and eat another herring
Fishy fishes are also high on my “nope nope nope nope” list.
Liver and Brussel Sprouts was my chosen birthday meal. My sisters claim it was just to make them miserable
It surely would have made me miserable.
In the late ’80’s & early 90’s I was visiting my mother’s older sister to “pick her brain” & do oral history. On several occasions I took her out to lunch as a Thank You. She always ordered liver and onions!!! I could barely watch her eat. My vote is with yours Judy – never, no way, no how!!!
Loved your story, Judy. I did not realize you were that tall! For some reason I pictured you as about my size (very short). Maybe because we’re both outspoken…? I was so fascinated by the cable cars, and begged to be taken on them when I visited cousins in California- sure can relate to that part!
Anyway, almost afraid to post about liver. It was served often at our house. My mom knew how to cook it (heat not too high, not too long) so it smelled and tasted delicious. My brothers and I loved it. Also love chicken livers- a special treat at Grandma’s house (they raised chickens and sold eggs for a living, so a steady supply). I have some in the fridge right now. Glad you reminded me- know what I’m having for lunch today!
Yuck yuck yuck. You can have all the liver that would otherwise go on my plate. And yeah — I’m just a bit under 6′ tall.
My mom sliced liver into thin strips and gently sauteed it in butter with mushrooms and served it over rice. Same with chicken livers–we loved it. Unfortunately, she never met a green vegetable she couldn’t cook until it was limp and grey and then she’d pour Cheez Whiz over it. Truly dreadful.
We lived on Clark St, just around the corner from Short School! That was a long time ago.
thank you for the post on 23and Me–the notice was in my junk mail folder.
I wish I knew what our address had been in San Rafael. I really only remember that it was high on a hill.
Are there any old phone books available to look up the old address?
Not that I’ve found so far, but I haven’t exhausted possible sources yet. The real hitch is, we were only there for five months in a rented house.