Give 'Em Hill: Summer of youth well-spent

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Jun 19, 2009 | by Angela Hill

When I was a teenager, summer meant suntan lotion and transformer oil. They could have been interchangeable as far as I was concerned.

One day I'd be lounging in the backyard, slathered in Hawaiian Tropic, trying in vain to get my near-albino skin to brown (I always thought suntan oil would make you tan) and the next day I'd be jarred out of bed at 6 a.m., eyes the mere slits of a newborn puppy, to ride to work with my early-bird, man-of-few-words dad (picture Brian Keith in "Family Affair") in our old beat-up '72 Satellite for a pseudo summer job at his electrical transformer manufacturing company in Sunnyvale.

I say pseudo because it's not really a job-job when you're the boss' daughter. Other workers are super nice to you, which is super, of course, but you don't know if it's because you're just the most adorable little pixie they say you are or because your dad quite literally holds their paychecks in the palm of his hand.

It's also not a real job because if you want to go to Santa Cruz with your friends and get a day pass for unlimited rides on the Giant Dipper and inhale wisps of cotton candy before they crystallize in the ocean air, you can totally do it (with a "Pleeeeze, Daddy?" or two) and still have a job when you come back. You don't get reviews, your dad gives you money for Hostess cupcakes on the break truck and you can drive the forklift around in the parking lot just for kicks.

And so it went

Anyway, this was a typical car conversation on each early morning trip up Lawrence Expressway to get to work: (Silence) Dad: How's things? Me: Oh fine. Dad: That's good. (Silence)

See, my mom did all the talking in our family, and we liked that just fine. If she were in the car, she'd bridge the gaps with a running monologue in her beautiful, musical voice, telling of the cat clawing the strings inside the piano that morning, which would remind her about something to do with her childhood friend Matalina Martinelli playing the accordion back in Sacramento, and then there was Erda Mae Beanblossom and Dorothy Gazoulous (she swore those were all real names). My dad would occasionally interject with "Holy smokes!" or "For Pete's sake," but that was about it.

At the plant, I'd often work out in the shop with the guys where it smelled of varnish and oiled machinery and somebody had an Eagles tape they played until it unraveled. The shop guys were always a bit sketchy. Our plant manager, Richard, was a big lumbering guy who lived in a black cloud of despair. He expected life to disappoint, and he was not disappointed. One time he took his Datsun 280Z through an automated carwash and the huge overhead spinning brush came unhinged and slammed down on his roof, crushing it as if it were a fragile Faberge egg. He didn't see the bright side of not being in the car at the time and was extra cranky for weeks.

Jesus and Phil were pretty cool. Outside of work, they hung out together a lot, so everybody called them the twins even though Jesus was Mexican and Phil looked like Ted Nugent. Pete, our delivery driver, was always getting into bar fights. Another guy, who had been married for years, suddenly decided to change his last name to his wife's last name. Not for the sake of feminism, but to avoid someone. Could have been the IRS or the KGB or H.R. Pufnstuff for all we knew, but he was definitely on the lam.

Cool guys, cool girl

I felt very tough knowing this crowd, working on transformers, winding coils or chopping steel at the big metal shear, often to the rhythm of "Desperado." My dad was always sure I could do anything, which was nice, but most of the time I really didn't know what I was doing. He'd show me once how to use the acetylene torch and braze a lead onto the end of the wire, then go off and do boss things, and I was too shy and pretend-tough to ask anyone else. So if your transformer blew up in the last, oh, 15 years or so, it was probably my fault.

This was the last of four companies my dad had started. He was a master of that -- starting companies. Not so much at keeping them going. I don't think he liked that part. He'd get one established, then sell it a few years later and the proceeds would go to the next startup. He was in the midst of another such mysterious (to me) transaction when he passed away.

I remember standing in the empty shop on the last day we would be there, looking around wistfully at the annoying shear and the drill presses and the acetylene tanks, taking in that one last memory like Mary Richards turning off the lights at WGM.

For a guy who didn't talk much, I always wondered how my dad wheeled and dealed and started a business from scratch. I couldn't imagine him having a long enough conversation to buy shoes much less negotiate a lease on a warehouse. Wish I'd asked him how it all worked. There was plenty of time in the car.

Reach Angela Hill at ahill@bayareanewsgroup.com.TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Sunday, June 21, the 172nd day of 2009. There are 193 days left in the year. This is Father's Day. Summer arrives at 1:45 a.m. EDT. -- 1788: The U.S. Constitution went into effect as New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify it. -- 1932: Heavyweight Max Schmeling lost a title fight rematch in New York by decision to Jack Sharkey, prompting Schmeling's manager, Joe Jacobs, to exclaim: "We was robbed!" -- 1948: The Republican national convention opened in Philadelphia. (The delegates ended up choosing Thomas E. Dewey to be their presidential nominee.) -- 1963: The Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini was chosen to succeed the late Pope John XXIII; the new pope took the name Paul VI. -- 1964: Civil rights workers Michael H. Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James E. Chaney disappeared in Philadelphia, Miss.; their bodies were found buried in an earthen dam six weeks later. -- 1982: A jury in Washington found John Hinckley Jr. not guilty by reason of insanity in the shootings of President Ronald Reagan and three other men. -- 1985: Scientists announced that skeletal remains exhumed in Brazil were those of Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele. -- 1989: A sharply divided Supreme Court ruled that burning the American flag as a form of political protest is protected by the First Amendment.