Most remembered X-Mas Gift.

For a short period of time after the big divorce, my mother decided she needed to get out of Eureka. So she moved the 5 of us children (my mother and father had 10 kids between them) to Petaluma in the early 60’s. (We moved 10 times by the time I was 12.) My mother had no real marketable skills, as she was a housewife. She ended up a clerk at Western Auto in downtown Petaluma. The winter of 64’ was slim finances for our family. We lived in front of a chicken farm in a 2 bedroom house. I had an Army cot in the dining room. (I was youngest in the pecking order. My mom slept on the couch. When X-mas rolled around there were really no big expectations. But my mom came through with a stocking of candy and oranges and gifts to boot. She gave me a miniature steam engine. For the life of me, I had no idea what the purpose of the machine was, and I could never get it to work. Everyone received some sort of eclectic gift that my mother had bought out of the stores clearance bin. I am sure it was one of the hardest X-mas she had to endure. God, I loved that woman. She ended up moving us back to Eureka and was able to land a union clerk’s job at Baza’r and ultimately buy a house at 2491 Russ St on the corner of Harrison in Eureka. Her union status changed our life immensely, but to this day, out of all the other gifts I received through the years, I remember that gift most of all.