Crack Tales
Episode 2

0:00
Gospel call and blues music.

William
Hey hey hey. I’m William Borden and you’re listening to episode 2 of Crack Tales.

It’s my story and the stories of some people I love about what happened during my ten-year addiction to crack cocaine. 

If you are just starting out with Crack Tales, I recommend that you listen to the trailer and to the previous episodes as there is a story to follow. 

This episode is dedicated to my dear nephew, Stanley Park IV, who is fighting a battle right now. I’d appreciate all your thoughts and prayers and whatever else you have to give for him and for his entire family. Thank you.

A quick warning. This podcast contains adult language and is adult in theme, including frank discussions of sex and sexual violence, suicide and drug use. If you find yourself triggered by any of these topics, please, honor that, and consider carefully whether you should continue.

William singing
Because passing through the eye of a needle isn’t as easy as it sounds, for those like me.

William
In episode 1 we heard that I was born in Des Moines, Washington a suburb just south of Seattle. We’re going to hear more about my start there and what it was like for us as kids.

Our next-door neighbors and life-long friends, the Shields, lived north of us on 5th Avenue South and with their two daughters, Laura and Julie, and my three sisters and I; we were a clan of kids who in 1961 were my sister, Lisa, born the day before my first birthday, me, 1 year old; Julie 2; my sister Kelly, 3; Laura 4, and the guardian of us all, my sister Gail at 5.  0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and four parents – makes 10.

Here’s the oldest of the clan, my sister Gail. 

Gail 2:04
We moved to SeaTac when I was three years old. Dad and mom had never ever purchased a house before that house. We always rented, so that was a celebration for them. The neighborhood was very friendly and I met Laura Shield, our next-door neighbor. She was a little bit younger than me. I do remember the Rambler in the driveway, the pink Rambler.

William
She said, a pink Rambler. We had a pink Rambler station wagon as our first family car and if you haven’t seen one, stop the podcast right now, go to Google and enter “pink rambler station wagon.” You’ll see models anywhere from the late 50’s to the early 60’s and whoa! You’ll see immediately why this little gay boy is proud to call that his first family car.

Gail
I never ever felt unsafe in that neighborhood. It was the Plumbers, the Sarvers, the Doells and then across the street was the Fitzners and then what was our next door neighbor's…?

William
Dunscombs 

Gail
My first memory, going to kindergarten. A scary experience for me because I was the only one going. At least that's what it felt like anyway. We would walk down our street and up the dirt path to the back of the playground and then up to the portable where kindergarten was. And then life started and I had Kelly as a little sister, a baby. I remember her coming home from the hospital. And of course, the famous story is that I asked to hold her and then pinched her really hard because I was very jealous of a baby being in the house. 

William
(Laughs) That’s funny.
 
Gail
When you came home, of course you were different because you were a boy and that was really exciting for all of us to have a different gender in the house. I'm not sure which one of us put lipstick on your head, but somebody did.

When Kelly came, she didn't go everywhere with me but she did spend a lot of time and she was a little mischievous. Actually, she was very mischievous. You, kind of, always had to keep an eye on what Kelly was doing because she could wander off and go do things that she wasn't supposed to do. You, I honest to goodness don't have a lot of memory of spending time with you. I have memories of Lisa and I think because you two were so close, that I didn't have as close interaction with you and Lisa as I did with Kelly. There was what felt like quite a few years difference between me and you and Lisa so.

 You know, mom kind of used me as an extra babysitter and instead of her having to do all the managing of the kids, she would require that I play with you take you where you had to go. We were pretty able to go wherever we wanted to. There wasn't really a lot of issues about taking parents with you up to the woods. I spent so much time in the Johnson woods by myself, it's crazy. We would never let our kids do something like that. We had those camps between the houses.

William 4:57
Between our house and the Dunscombs to the south we had a space in which… I don’t know if my my father built it or we built it. It was a little ramshackle clubhouse type thing, very rustic, and we used it for many many, things but one of the things we used it for was we had a little store. Huge mark-ups on penny candy! 

Gail
You know, we spent a lot of time at neighbors and I think the era of the neighborhood really being your whole family, it was more than it is now. Other people's houses were our family.

I never felt any fear in our neighborhood. It was always just like everywhere was safe. I loved climbing trees. I would climb that first evergreen that was at the beginning of the woods. You know how you walk that little pasture area first and then the woods started about 200 yards in and there was this big pine tree. I would climb to the top of that thing and it must have been at least 50- 60 feet tall. Or at least it seemed like that anyway, and I could climb all the way to the top of that tree and I would sit up there for hours and just watch the world.  

MUSIC

William
Next we hear from my sister Kelly, just two years older than I. She and I were very close as little kids and over time as we became teenagers and adults sort of went in different directions with different friends, different ages of course, but as we passed out of our twenties and into our thirties we became closer friends again and have remained very, very close to this day. A true confidant. 

 Kelly 6:32
I remember the two white chairs that were in our living room and one of them had this weird wire that had poked out of the bottom of it and I remember cutting my leg on that chair – vinyl chairs. I'm sure they weren't leather. They were white. And probably one of the springs had come out and it would cut you on the leg. That's the one thing I remember and then Lisa coming home as a teeny tiny baby. I don't remember when they brought you home but I was three when Lisa was born.   

William
When we were living out in the south end, the Shields were our best friends and I think my company was often girls and I think we all played in the neighborhood with boys and girls.

Kelly
We played with boys and girls… baseball and rode our bikes.

William
But also I think that a lot of the time I spent was with you guys and Laura and Julie and so I'm wondering like you know 'cause we did things like fashion shows and all that kind of stuff and so before we moved did you ever think about my femininity or anything like that? 

Kelly
No, I never thought anything about that you were different or you were more feminine than other boys. You were my brother and we all played together and got along.  

William
Kelly and I shared a room for many years. We had a three-bedroom house and four kids! I remember my dad putting us to bed and we’d insist on him leaving the bedroom door open a bit so he’d close it just to meet the width of his three extended fingers, which were quite large actually. “Dad, leave it at four fingers!” Three was his limit. 

Kelly
I remember when we shared the bunk beds. I don't know how long but it seemed like a long time. I was the top bunk and you were the bottom bunk and I remember hanging down and talking with you, every night, and getting like sort of a dizzy head because I'd be hanging upside down chit chatting with you and I remember getting in lots of trouble for talking after it was time to go to sleep (laughs). Imagine that, you and I the two talkers getting in trouble. And then we played all sorts of silly games... 

William 8:32
Kelly is being very mild when she says that we played some “silly” games because we did things like playing a game called “Stinky Pillow.” (Laughs) I’ll let you imagine what that was about. We also used to pretend that we were looking in a mirror, like, we would both be in our separate bunk beds but we would talk as if we were sitting together looking in a mirror and we’d go “Who are those gorgeous people in that mirror? Oh my god! Look at him! Look at her! And then we’d also play this game where there was one character who always reacted in the opposite way of what would be expected. So we would say things like, “Oh my gosh, my daughter is going to get married!” And the other character would say, “Oh that’s just so terrible. I’m so sorry for you!” Or, “I’ve been really sick lately, uggggh.” “Oh that’s fantastic!” (Laughs) Who knows where things came from?

Do you remember me wetting the bed?       

Kelly
I have a vague memory of you wetting the bed when you were young. I think it was just “oh well that's what happened” or something. I mean it wasn't any big deal to me. Did you wet the bed for a long time? 

William
I don't really remember how long. The reason I asked is because it was traumatic for me because it was kind of like Mom was so disappointed and you know it was always a fucking hassle. They had to change the bed and peeing onto the mattress and I can remember wetting the bed and then curving my body around it so that I wouldn't have to sleep in it and I hated it, and it was embarrassing, and I'm sure Mom was frustrated by it, although she wasn't mean about it, but I think she was frustrated and I think I got some of that.  

MUSIC

William
I can talk to Kelly about peeing the bed or any other trauma because she is and always has been a port in a storm. She has the biggest heart and she’s gentle and she really cares. There have been so many times when I’ve laid my head on her bosom, ample and soft, with her arms around me. From our bunk beds to the current trials and tribulations of life, Kelly and I have always been able to talk openly and completely honestly.

MUSIC

William
Laura and Julie, as I told you before, are the daughters of the Shield family, our dear friends, our next-door neighbors. Laura and Julie have been in my life since I was born and both have been through so much, like us all. Laura’s raised two beautiful sons and now has a new grandson, and she and her husband, Mr. Macaluso, serve up incredible Italian food at their restaurant in Tacoma, Washington, Macaluso’s Italian Restaurant. Do yourself a favor. Check it out. You can find them on the web at macalusositalianrestaurant.com. I can’t recommend them enough.  

Laura 11:29
I remember it was Kelly and Gail and then my sister was born there too. 

William
A year before me. 

Laura
Yeah. I just remember us all like being a big family. It was like we were kind of inseparable and there were times that you know, we were, I mean, we were back and forth and back and forth it was just one house was cleaner than the other. (Both laugh) I remember going over to your house and trying to clean or move furniture and your mom would get mad at me. (Laughs) I was trying to straighten stuff up (laughs). I remember it was always tacos and I was always there for taco night at your house. I do remember one thing is like we'd be over there and I don't know what our parents were doing, but we they’d put us all to bed in the bedroom, so we'd all be down the hall in the bedrooms and they would be out in the living room under blankets with each other (William laughs) and we would sneak down the hall and in your kitchen there was a opening like on the ceiling, and then we'd sneak down and I don't know if it was Gail and I or whoever. We’d get up on the counters and we’d peek over. (Laughs) 

William
Oh, that's so funny. Yeah, cuz there was a space above the cabinets that looked into the living room from the kitchen. How funny. 

Laura
Yeah, yeah. And we did not know what they were doing under (laughs) those blankets. 

William
How funny. Do you think the four of them hung out together a lot? 

Laura
Oh, yeah. I think my mom was gonna leave my dad way, way, way, way earlier and your dad used to come over all the time to our house and talk to my mom. Yeah, he was trying to help her through it. So, your dad was a big, big, big support to my mom. They were very close not like romantically or anything but you know very good friends.  

William
There was a very popular doll when I was a child. Her name was Chatty Cathy, but we had a cat and our cat was named Chatty Catty. Other cat names over the years included Fatface, and then as I matured into a teenager-young adult I went for the much more sophisticated names like Jin Si, Genevieve (who my mom called Jenny), Miss Effie Dupree of New Orleans, who had been rescued by some punk rocker teenagers on Capitol Hill and who I took in and finally today, my current sister and brother felines, Arco and Iris. “Arco iris” is “rainbow” in Spanish. Sissy that walk, girl!

Laura
Chatty Cathy having kittens in the garage (Both laugh). Going up to Lynden with you all it was a great experience. It was a great childhood. Climbing the trees in the woods, in the Johnson woods and sleeping outside in the summertimes. Your dad and my dad pulling us around in sleds in the snow in the back of the car (laughs). And we'd get up and run around the neighborhood in the middle of the night and it's so (laughs). We had we had a lot of fun. Do you remember going to angle Lake for swimming lessons in June when it was absolutely freezing?  

CHRISTMAS MUSIC

William
We heard in the last episode from Kay about our yearly Christmas Eve celebrations. Here’s Laura’s take. 

Laura
It was just sweet you know, we'd go to church. and we'd do the candlelight service which was early then we'd go back to one of our houses and have that oyster stew crab sandwiches and then we'd exchange our gifts which were always the same every year. Lifesaver Christmas book and mittens (both laugh). 
William
The same thing every year. 

Laura  19:00
I was very happy I enjoyed. I enjoyed our church family and then I enjoyed you know yours and then when we moved to the other house, I met a whole new slew of friends, which was really fun and that way when I got into high school, I knew everybody because I'd gone to both junior highs that funneled into the high school. I do remember never feeling like I… I never did any homework and nobody ever at home really encouraged you to do homework. I don't remember feeling like I was that smart, but my mom when she's moving gave me all my report cards and I was like, I got A's in everything and a B in a couple of things. I was like going, well, why didn't I think I was smart? (laughs). 

William
Isn’t that so interesting. This overriding sort of whatever it is, self-doubt or something, fogs your memory of what was true. You know, I used to think I was fat when I was a kid, and I was like… 

Laura
Oh my god! 

William
I was completely skinny and I look at pictures now and I'm like, “Oh my god, I was like skin and bones.” 

Laura 16:02
You were just little Bill and you'd hang out with us. You know, we were just like a family and I had no idea didn't know what gay, ddidn't know that it wasn't normal that you played with us and did dress up and dolls and I mean, remember walking up and down the streets with our buggies and to me, that was just normal. I mean, we did go to the woods and climb trees. 

William
That's such a good point like because as much as we played with buggies we also ran around in the woods together. So it was, there wasn't really like gender roles assigned to those things. 

Laura
Remember, we had the go-karts and we’d go down the streets and we just did everything. It didn't matter. 

William
Next we hear from Julie, Laura’s younger sister, a fierce woman, a mother, She has two sons and a daughter, her daughter overcoming her own challenges and having just married a wonderful man. We’re all so happy for her. And, Julie’s last son, having been born in Julie’s forties, go girl, has just begun pursuing modeling. It’s fantastic. Julie is one of the most compassionate women I know and I am so lucky to call her friend, dear friend. She has a heart whose doors are always open. Julie lost her first son, our dear boy Kellen, when he was just 8 and just a short time after that took me in off the street which marked the end, finally, of my addiction to crack cocaine. We’ll hear more about that in a later episode, but here’s Julie.  

Julie 17:32 
What I remember growing up by SeaTac was being so carefree, because of the way the world is now, completely different, I felt like growing up there was the best place ever. Our childhood was fantastic. Being outside and riding bikes with no helmets and I don't even think our parents worried about us that much. We could ride off, we’d be at the top of the tree, “Hey I'm up here.”  

William
Do you remember you and I running away? 

Julie
I remember that but you know what, I don't remember where we ended up or how come they couldn't find us. Where did we go? I don’t know (laughs). 

William
I think we just went to the Johnsons woods or something, not far away at all. But we had run away from home (laughs). 

Julie
I just remember going down and buying penny candy and making our little stores and then we’d turn around and sell it for a dime and that was like big money back then. Yeah, I loved doing that. And the fashion shows we'd have in the garage. We'd put the big blanket up and we'd get behind and we'd wear our parents’ clothes and do fashion shows. I remember it was it, Cindy? We made her take her clothes off (laughing) in the garage. Our backyards being adjoining I just remember it like one big happy family. So fun being with you guys next door. I loved it. We used to play kick the can. We would hide and one person had to go find us and I remember climbing up into the tree and hanging up the tree I got stung by a bunch of bees one time. Lots of fun games out there. Hide and go seek. We built so many camps out in the woods, Johnson's woods. Oh, I loved doing that. Building our forts out there. Forts in the backyard. I actually found pictures of us in a fort in our backyard. I just showed them to Kelly. 

William
I love that we'd call them forts (laughs). 

Julie
Yeah, we'd peek our head out. “We're in here,” and our sleep overs in the backyard. 

William
Yeah. 

Julie
Those were fun. My mom make the all the…put the sleeping bags all on the lounge chairs.  

William
Yeah.
 
Julie  16:24 
And I think when we moved over to North Hill, didn't you come sleep out on the balcony with us? 

William
I'm Sure. Yeah. 

Julie
I remember you coming over and we had that vodka hidden in my bedroom that we stole at Aunty Bea's birthday party or something in Lynden. We stole a bottle of vodka and we brought it back to my house (laughing). We’d go in the closet and drink some of it when you came over (both laughing). We were little hellions. We were all asked because there was a bottle missing. We all deny deny deny (laughs). I think I cut your hair. I remember telling you I could cut it hair and I did a horrible job (laughing). 

Julie 20:11
When I spent the night and got a crayon and you told me, “Let's draw our houses on the wall.” I was on the top bunk and you were on the bottom bunk and you said, “Oh, what are you drawing?” I go, “My house, you said---.” You go, “Yep, I'm drawing our house.” Your house was about this big and my house was all over the wall and I got in so much trouble (laughs) Scrub it off. And I was like, “You told me to draw the house,” and you were like, “Not that big!!” Your mom screaming at me (laughs). That’s bad.  

SOUND OF SIREN

And then Kelly ransacking our house because my mom wouldn’t let her spend the night (both laughing). I just remember coming home with our family and we were just like, “Oh my god, what's the matter?!” Our front window, the main window was smashed open and Kelly had gone into the garage and gotten two cans of paint and threw them through the front window and then they’d opened up when they hit the ground and there was paint all over the carpet. You know, that was the first break in I'd ever seen. The police were there and all of this, but yeah, we found out it was Kelly and she fessed up and it was because my mom wouldn't let her spend the night with me (both laugh). 

William
Wow! 

Julie
I know. Isn't that crazy? It all shows who we are from a little age kinda... 

William
Yeah totally 

Julie
You know? 

William
And that that also like, like that would might make you think, oh, maybe future serial killer or something. But…(laughs). 

Julie
Yeah!

 William
You know what I mean?

Julie
I know. Well, no, cuz she wasn't hurting animals. She wasn't hurting people. It was just property damage. 

William
Yeah

Julie
She became my first friend (laughs).

William
Yeah.

William
We had lots of friends in our neighborhood and in our church community but one of the families we were closer to were the Holmes. Jerry and Erma were the parents, and Marin, David and Lisa were the children. David is the one who named his younger sister Weekon, a name I also adopted for my sister Lisa, apparently among other heinous acts of torture which unfortunately you’ll hear about also. Anyway, Marin is the oldest of the three and we’ve remained friends on and off over the years. Marin and I crossed paths again in our twenties due to a mutual group of friends, including Debbie who we’ll hear from in a future episode. They lived at a house they had named, Aunt Rudith’s. I think Aunt Rudith was a mannequin.   

Marin
Of course, I remember the barbecues and the burnt chicken (laughs). 

William
Do you remember that as a story or do you actually remember it happening because…?  

Marin
No, I remember it. I remember it. 

William
(Laughs) Marin is referring to my father’s lack of skill at the barbeque. He was a baker though – sourdough his specialty. I can remember helping him one time and while mixing the very wet dough, deciding that my fingers would be better, well, really I thought they would be easier. In no time I had wet bread dough up to my wrists and more on my hands than in the bowl. My father, so frustrated, used a wooden spatula to scrape it back into the bowl. It was clear that he loved that dough and he loved baking and my little messing it up was just not okay for him. Anyway, the rolls and pancakes he produced often were always golden brown, but chicken on a barbecue, black, black, black. “It’s fine,” he’d say, “It’s just fine. Eat it!” 

Marin
We spent a lot of time, I think, us and you guys and sometimes the Shields. I think my mom and Kay…  My mom was probably jealous of Kay. The new house and she was cute and fashionable and these two fabulous girls and one of them had a Mustang and… (laughs). 

William
I talked to her about how much I appreciated her sense of style when I was a kid. You know, like, my mom was really casual and when I'd go to Kay's house everything was perfect, you know, and she’d cut my sandwiches in triangles and put a bunch of green grapes on the side of the plate where my mom was, like, “Make yourself a sandwich,” you know? And so I was talking to Kay about that, and she went into how she felt inadequate. Lefty's mom was really together and so she was trying to emulate Lefty’s mom but she felt like she didn’t meet the standards and so, it’s so fascinating you know, like to hear these stories. 

Marin
They just always seemed like the perfect family. Now I know that really wasn't true. But there are no perfect families. We are all just fucked up. 

William
I know (laughing)! But we're alive. Woo hoo!  

Marin
I really liked hanging out with your family. I liked when we went to your house or you guys came to our house after church. That was always fun. You had had sisters, a couple older ones. I didn't have any older siblings. I mean you were older. It seemed like we always did cool stuff and you guys got I remember you getting Ebony Magazine. Why do they get this magazine?  And you had a cool princess phone with a really long cord.  

William
(Laughs) Okay, come on, man. Your house was like Architectural Digest. I mean, you know, that orange fireplace and I think you had like floor to ceiling windows, didn't you? 

Marin
Yeah. I remember tying up Lisa in the closet and leaving her there. 

William
Your sister? Or my sister? 

Marin
No your sister. (William laughs) Terrible! I do know you stole gum when I was with you at Safeway one time. We went in there and you said, you guys stand here and I’m gonna take some and then we got out there and you said I just couldn't do it and I was kind of relieved.  

William
(Laughing) Thank God. 

Marin
But then you showed us the gum!

William 
Oh. (Both laughing) You mean I told you I just couldn't do it but then I did it? 

Marin
Yeah, yeah. 

William
Oh my god.  

Marin
So… 

William
That's not, that's not good. (Marin laughs)

 Marin
One time... 

William
I mean, I'm sorry, but none of that is good. Like, first of all that I said I'm gonna steal some gum and then I lied to you about whether I did it or not. And like none of that is good.

Marin
We were your shills (both laugh).

William
Although basically ignorant and uneducated regarding racism and oppression, the group of people my family associated with, for the most part, were liberal in their leanings and also believed in social justice. Again, they weren’t trained or educated, but their hearts and often their actions were in the right place. The world was different, although it is still so shocking to look around today and see just how much hasn’t changed.

Marin 25:25 
There was there was a Black family that my parents met and I kind of thought it was at church somewhere. We didn't ever become very close with them, but I remember them. I think they came over on Sunday. We were outside playing and I don't remember how many boys they had but they it was I believe all boys. Anyway, we were playing and then Monday I got to school and my neighbor and a couple other people made comments about me having the Jackson Five at my house. 

William
Oh my God. So typical of the time. 

William
Marin’s parents were, as I said, Jerry and Erma and they were fantastic. They were both creative and artistic and Erma, Marin’s mom taught me how to play the piano and the guitar. She was kind of hippie-ish at that point and I loved that. 

Marin 27:50
They were both pretty artsy. My mom had that business where she did all the batik clothing and lampshades and stuff and my dad did a little of that too. And of course, he's always done his woodworking. Clay pendants on rawhide and stuff like that (laughs). 

William
Clay pendants on raw hide. (Marin laughs) That's like, that’s like a theme unto itself, man. 

CHURCH MUSIC

Marin
I remember going to Sunday school. I remember learning more like history than faith. I haven't gone to church in you know, 40 years so it whatever faith that came out of it if there was any disappeared. 

MUSIC

William
Finally, we hear from my dear sister. She’s also my birthday mate born just 364 days after me, and as youngest of the clan I’m certain was subjected to a lot of horrible things. I remember some of them. I think back on some of my fiendish behavior including putting paper into her tuna fish sandwich or pouring a half a cup of salt into a glass of root beer, which caused this incredible foamy head on the glass which looked so attractive but when she took a sip, well, you can guess. I still feel guilty. Lisa would show us all though when as a teenager she was the only one of us who steadily had a savings account, who read regularly and was incredibly smart.  I often borrowed money for weed from Lisa (laughs). She was also the first to go to college. 

Lisa
I remember playing with all those many children, you know, the Dunscombs and the Museos, and Doells, the Keezers, they were right across the street from us so it was a fun block to live on and you know just playing out on the street all the time. I was there through the 4th grade. So. Yeah, I remember all my teachers. I loved school you know, that was me. I just loved school so…

William
Were you like nervous in school or anything or? 

Lisa
I was really happy at school. I mean I was a shy kid but I feel like it was…even though I was shy I was more comfortable in a big school setting than I am now in like a big group of adults. I mean I definitely had my friends and you were there the year I was in 4th grade so yeah, I liked it. I remember the school yard was only three blocks from our house. I remember we used to go there on weekends and stuff.  Like one distinct memory I have is someone brought their horse into the school yard and I rode on it and I fell off onto the grass or the blacktop. I tell that to the kids.  They can’t believe it, like that you could just go ride a horse in the schoolyard like, they think that’s hilarious. I remember hunting around for beads, I don’t know why that was a thing and maybe only girls did it? But we used to search for beads everywhere. Those belts with the intricate bead work pattern. It was beads like that, the tiny little ones and I don’t know why we hunted for them on the ground. But we did it all the time and I don't know if these were beads of people’s jewelry that had just broken or we thought they were ancient artifacts or what. I have no idea.

William
Did you find them? 

Lisa 31:00
Yeah, we would find them all over the place. You know, they’re pretty hard to see, they’re tiny. And the other thing we always hunted for was well sometimes bottles and cans to make money but, ‘cause you could return them for the deposit. I remember doing it a few times and then also gum wrappers to make gum wrapper chains. Like it’s basically like going through the dirt. You know people would throw trash on the ground back then so there were a lot of them and you know I would look for them. I think we were bored during the summer or whatever that's the kind of thing we would do, so. And then the other thing I remember is how free we we're. You know, like Halloween. I remember it was probably the last Halloween we were there to be honest so I wasn't tiny but I was 10 I mean I wasn't big, I was ten and I remember we went out trick-or-treating together in some group I don't know who it was me and friends or me and you but then at some point I was just on my own and I just kept going cuz I wanted more candy. You know and it was dark right, it’s October in Seattle, it’s dark and probably raining. Kids who are ten now around here, their parents would never let them do that. Then taking us on those toboggan rides, tying a toboggan to the back of the station wagon and driving around the block. You know taking a load of kids to the Shamrock Dairy to get ice cream. 

A couple school friends. One, you know that I remember, from North Hill, her name was Joanne Klimczewski and she was my best friend I think in fourth grade and then after we moved, I never saw her or spoke to her again. I used to go to her house and you know I guess they were similar to us except they were Polish. That was like kind of exotic to me. They had a Polish name.

William
For reasons that will be unknown to anyone except Ken and David, I’m dedicating this section to Kendra. There’s a lot of Disneylady in that man. 

Lisa
I know we went to Disneyland. I know we drove to California that one time. I don't personally remember that all that well except for It's a Small World. That’s the thing I probably remember the most because I remember the weird conveyor belt of little people and stuff like that. 

William
Do you remember the Pirates of the Caribbean ride?

 Lisa
I do. Back then I think I thought it was very cool.  

William
I remember Pirates of the Caribbean and It's a Small World and I don't remember anything else about that trip (laughs).

Lisa
I think the reason we went was that Dad had made a lot of money that year. He was a Salesman and so his salary kind of fluctuated depending on how much he sold and I think he had just had a good year and that's why we could go and it was like a big deal. Actually, one thing I really remember is the hotel Like I think we took the trailer on that trip and stayed in the trailer most of the time but when we got to Disneyland we got to stay in a hotel and it was like a big deal. 

William
Meanwhile, back on 5th Avenue South in SeaTac.

Lisa
I remember Kay just being kind of uptight about dirt and stuff so I was always a little worried about doing the wrong thing in their house. Lefty, I remember he was one of those men that I was kind of afraid of when I was really little but I think I got over that by the time I was older and then I remember when dad died, he really was great. He like came to my softball games. You know that summer, like it was the middle of the softball season, one of the few times I ever played sports and so I think he just stepped in. Like I went back to the games after a certain amount of time and he came and like cheered me on which I thought was really nice 

William
Kelly also told me that she was playing softball at the time and I was like, “Oh was that, was your team the BTB’s, the Better Than Boys?” The team was called the BTB’s and it stood for Better than Boys. 

Lisa
(Laughing) I was a pitcher, which was crazy because I was afraid of the ball and when you`re the pitcher sometimes the ball comes right back to you when they hit it and it used to scare the crap out of me and I wasn't really very good at catching the ball. I was pretty good at pitching it actually, but if they hit it back to me, I usually just would drop it or let It go or whatever you know so. 

William
I have a really strong memory of playing fucking baseball and I hated it (Lisa laughs) and I can remember like you know the ball coming toward me and just like, I just knew it was going fucking hit me right in the face. 

Lisa
Yeah. 

MUSIC

William
Our childhood in SeaTac was calm, relaxed, fun, filled with love. And then, we turned a corner that we would forever be changed by. 

Julie
I loved our childhood in SeaTac except for when your dad died and that’s when things really changed.

MUSIC

Credits

William:
Thank you so much for listening. Crack Tales is written and produced by me, William Borden, but could not have been done without the incredible gift of my interviewees the people who sat and talked with me and shared their story. 

Additionally, I want to give a huge shout out and a huge thank you to a team of people who volunteered to transcribe the audio interviews. I want to thank Beth, my cousin Celese and my cousin Laura, Sabrina, Kate, Elizabeth, Katie, Tsetse and my two friends here in Spain, Sergio and Ioana. This group did amazing work and gave tirelessly transcribing these interviews. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Music for Crack Tales has been generously provided by my dear friend Cornell White. We’ve been friends since the seventh grade when the proprietor of Carolyn’s Cakes on Capitol Hill skipped over us in line and when we complained, she called us, “Green!” I never really knew why. Cornell’s music can be found on Soundcloud, CornellWhiteMusic, all one word.

“Eye of the Needle” is a Brandi Carlile song. Brandi Carlile I met in Seattle while I was working with a youth program and she generously donated her time to entertain the kids in the program. Thank you Brandi.

Also, be sure to check out Macaluso’s Italian Restaurant in Tacoma, Washington. Laura will see you there. You can find them at www.macalusositalianrestaurant.com, that’s m-a-c-a-l-u-s-o-s.