NELL, RALPH, & BOB BERGMAN

Alma Tracy, Marie Labriola, Martha Koleski, and Nell Bergman with Robert F. Kennedy, Washington, D. C., 1966.  This is quite a find.  Here is one photograph of our cousin Nell with Robert F. Kennedy.  Here is Bob's obituary.

I don't know when it happened, whether after Ralph's passing or after Nell's passing, but the Bergman family donated their 2000 acre ranch in Virginia Dale to an order of Benedictine Contemplative nuns. 

MA, PA, & JOSEPHINE

At the left is a picture of Ma and Josephine.  At center is a picture of Ma.  At the right is a picture of Ma and Pa.  But you know, I am not sure that that is Pa because he looks so young.

Presumably, this is Ma and Pa.  Cannot tell what year it is.  Mid 1940s perhaps?

This does not look at all like Pa.  Though the hairstyle of the young girl is similar to what I've seen Josephine wear in a few of her pictures, which was popular in those days, I am not sure that that is Josephine either.   The year could have been 1913.  I don't mean to doubt, but I would like better proof.

This is Ma.  I am guessing that the year is 1949 or thereabouts. 

APRIL 23, 2012, 94th AERO SQUADRON

Why is it that John always looks cool, calm, collected, like a seasoned secret service agent?

 I like these two pictures of Charlen.  She should like them too.

JOE WALGENBACH

March 2014: Joe re-tiled his kitchen floor.

MOM'S PLANTS & TREES

I miss Mom.  I miss seeing her in the kitchen cooking her famous mushroom chicken and spaghetti with meat sauce and her signature chili.  I think that that was John Larkin's favorite.  Mom would fix a pot of chili with the knowledge that John and Charlen were stopping over.  John loved Mom's chili!  He'd scoop himself a bowl and add Fritos Corn Chips, cheese, and onions, souping it up, adding I believe hot sauce as well.  That's one memory I miss of Mom--working in the kitchen.

My second memory is watching Mom ironing our clothes.  Her ironing board was up at all times.  She'd lay out the shirt and spray water over the garment to maximize the effects of her ironing efforts.  I remember thinking to myself when I first saw her do this, "Wow!  That was smart."  And it was.  Mom was a smart woman, a smart soul.

On Sunday, February 12, 2012, I wrote:
Mom would ask occasionally how my apartment was coming along.  I told her fine.  I could tell that she hoped that my place was comfortable and clean, which it is.  She asked a few times how my apartment was coming along.  I always told her fine, which it was.  I told her one time that I was thinking about purchasing a leather chair.  That idea filled her with images of a man sitting in a deep and comfortable leather chair next to a floor lamp with pipe and newspaper.  With that one image she built up in her head a man of independent means, enjoying a quiet life at home surrounded by books, classical music, and goo food.  She couldn't have been more right.  My mom loved furniture.  I remember going with her one year to Sears in the Hastings Ranch of Pasadena to pick out a living room set.  This was back in the '70's when ranch style furniture was big.  Mom loved wood too.  In fact, the last pieces of furniture that she purchased were those big wood dressers in her room.  And then she absolutely loved that wood China cabinet in the dining room.  She took great pride in her furniture.

Thursday, June 28, 2012
Mom also loved gardening, or should I say, she loved organizing her garden.  One of the plants that she loved to have both in her front yard and in her backyard was the agapanthus.

A few times I think I heard her refer to them as as the "Lily of the Nile."  The back story on that title is funny.  But she loved these plants.  She had them lined against the fence in the backyard and around a tree in the front yard next to the mail box.

In the front yard, at the northeast corner of the property was a section that we shared with Frank and Brenda Flannigan.  We used to park our metal trash cans in the street for pick-up.  But on the lawn in that section were planted two crape myrtle trees.  Linda across the street liked them so much that she went ahead and planted on near her mailbox, perhaps to match the trees that Mom had out in her front yard.

Also in the front yard, Mom had planted a pine tree.  What kind of pine tree?  I believe that it was a Khasi Pine Tree that is native to the Philippines.

In the backyard, Mom had a variety of plants and trees planted.  One small tree that she hadn't even planted but whose branches sprawled into our yard was Frank and Brenda Flannigan's Bottlebrush Tree, which was to me one of the strangest trees I'd ever known.  The tree did attract a lot of hummingbirds for some reason.

Mom also had an White Angel's Trumpet tree that produced scores of flowers in each bloom.

Mom also had a row of Calla Lillies planted along the back fence.  They were beautiful when in bloom, stalwart stems with beautiful white cups.  Sitting at the dining room table, sipping coffee, eating breakfast, or reading the newspaper, they were always nice to look out at.  Evocative of blessed days somehow.

Mom enjoyed our fairly productive but gnarled apricot tree.  Its growth was deformed it seemed.  And family pruners splintered the poor tree, leaving it look like some ancient thing.

For some reason, I always wanted to touch the tree's sap.
Its early bloom was always beautiful to me.

One of my favorite trees in the backyard was the plum tree with its dark wood and white spring blossoms.

Then of course perhaps my personal favorite was the Chinese Elm tree, which is ubiquitous in the southwest.  My mom didn't like it too much because of all of the tiny leaves on the ground that had to be raked.  But I loved the shade that the tree provided.  I loved its large, scaly trunk.  Was one of my favorite trees.  Its branches always grew into a uniform umbrella.  Pictured second below is the bark of the Chinese Elm that Mom hated raking.

Though Dad appreciated the fruit trees more than anyone because he could feed his kids with them, Mom didn't always appreciate the mess they left.  But she did enjoy the fruit.  At one point we did have in our backyard a hearty and productive peach tree, and Mom loved a sun-ripened peach more than any other fruit.

We even had a banana tree.  My dad must have liked its exotic island look and reminded him of his stay on the Marshall Islands in the Pacific.  The one we did plant in our backyard never produced a single banana.  Not one. But its flowers were quite beautiful.

Though I enjoyed the Elm Tree's thick, scaly trunk, its magnificent form into an expansive umbrella, perhaps the tree I loved more than any other primarily for its beauty is the beautiful magnolia grandiflora tree that Mom planted at the southeast corner of the backyard.  

                                                                    

MOM'S FAVORITE ACTORS

Sunday, March 6, 2011

I know that she liked G. Edward Robinson, loved his acting power and face and admired him all the more because his talented voice and face were used to negotiate any losses he may have endured due to size.
 
I know that she loved, maybe more like admired Fred MacMurray.
 
She did love Clark Gable.  I think that Clark Gable must have reminded her of her Uncle, someone whom she loved fiercely.  And what should be obvious to us all, she loved John Wayne; I mean there was a decanter of John Wayne on the living room brick mantle for years, partly in tribute to the actor but more of a way to keep a presence of Dad around since in her eyes and everybody else's Dad did look like John Wayne.  Yes, Mom loved John Wayne's presence, his voice, his figure as an American.  She accepted his physical prowess as an athlete at USC, the probable hero as a cowboy in early westerns, the hero of choice to fulfill America's role as leader in the world--strong, determined, humble, fair, and likeable.  John Wayne idealized America.  Coming out of a war that rationed butter, meat, and their physical presence with each other but certainly not their love, as is made clear by the devoted proclamations in their war letters, each was happy to be with the other, sharing a candy bar on the steps of some monument in each other's arms with a view of some part of Los Angeles, or enjoying a milkshake at Clifton's Cafeteria on Broadway to live and relive the storied and star-struck days of pre-war Los Angeles.  Dad and Mom both knew sacrifice like nothing we could imagine.  What little script Dad got in the war, he sent home to Mom and to his ma and pa, our sporadically-employed truck driver and mechanic.  The war helped to diffuse individual hardships into shared sacrifice, which helped to ease and set aside individual longings.  Each worked to help each other until that faith in the collective, in the war stopped paying dividends to one's personal needs for love, for safety, for creating.  Some of our best years are in childhood; thankfully, not all of the best years are.  But whatever one missed in one's real life, we could find an inspiring substitute in the stories and performances of the movies.  And certainly Mom loved the movies, Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable, Edward G. Robinson, Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Boris Karloff, Bella Legosi, Gene Kelly, Jimmy Stewart, Fred MacMurray, Ida Lupino, Van Johnson, Lana Turner, Ava Gardner (she did not understand her marriage to Sinatra), Vivian Leigh, Claudette Colbert, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, and Joan Fontaine, whom I know she loved.  Mom had an appreciation of and a liking for classical sensibilities and tastes.  She did not understand the hype of Alfred Hitchcock.

She liked Frank Sinatra but used to laugh at him because she remembers him early in the industry as a scrawny boy with protruding ears and trying too hard to produce a lilting voice.  I think that she laughed, too, at his appeal to the young girls, at the silliness of teenie-boppers going gaga over Sinatra.  And it was funny.  That image of Sinatra as a young boy contrasted with his "Chairman of the Board" image later in his career tickled mom.  Mom enjoyed seeing Sinatra at the Palladium in Hollywood with Dad but I remember her tones about Sinatra as a singer were that she could not take him serious.  He was hype, not a star; not, that is, until enough years accumulated in his career.  She liked other voices.  She loved, no, she adored Bing Crosby.  All of his songs; she found his voice comforting.  She appreciated his lyrics and his efforts and play with a song.  She loved his efforts to entertain, and why not?  Mom herself  liked entertaining,  liked having fun; she was a kind of director to her babies, whom she adored, orchestrating activities, and adventures.  She was a young girl all of her life, a perfect match for our adventure-seeking, adventure-loving Dad.