My father, Jacob, and mother, Eunice, were married on June 14, 1942, in San Francisco. Both had been divorced a year earlier. She was twenty-eight and he was thirty-three years old. They chose the fourteenth because both their birth dates were on the fourteenth. Dad's birth date was September 14, 1908, and Mom's was February 14, 1913. They met by chance when he stopped and offered her a ride to work. During the war it was common to offer a ride to someone. Almost everything was rationed during the war, and that included gasoline. Mom was working at Ben's Cocktail Bar on Divisadero Street in Fresno. Dad worked a few blocks away on Van Ness Blvd. After work, Ben's bar became one of Dad's many stops for a drink or two. He always dressed sharp in a suit and fedora, similar to movie stars in the 1940s—like Humphrey Bogart did in Casablanca. He drove a new car and had money to spend. Most of the young men were off to fight World War II, and he'd bar hop, chasing all the young ladies. They outnumbered the men four to one. My mom, Eunice, was a beautiful young woman with three children who was down on her luck.
My mother brought three children from her first marriage. They were nine, eleven, and twelve years older than me. It was 1953 before we were reunited with my half-brothers, Bill, and Rich. They were Italian through and through, reared in little Italy in Oakland, California, by their father. Both were Golden Gloves fighters and tough guys with black belts in the martial arts. One served in the U.S. Marine Corps and the other in the Navy during the Korean War. Rich was an aspiring entertainer and could sing just like Dean Martin and dance like Fred Astaire. For a while, Rich was part owner in an Italian Restaurant and Dance studio in Las Vegas. He never made it big but made a living singing and dancing. Before Bill moved back to California, he was a police officer in Tennessee. In California he was the private eye type and a bodyguard; he did detective work most of his life, except when he owned an Italian restaurant in Orange County. Iris was my half-sister on my mother's side. Iris's first marriage at fourteen produced two boys; Robert and Richard.
Mom was first married in 1929 at the age of sixteen. Her first child was named Charles William Donald Astone born on August 4, 1930 and died on August 17, 1930. She had a sixth-grade education and had learned to cook Italian from her first mother-in-law. She was a child-at-heart. She didn't keep house or cook very well, but you always knew she loved you.