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Our family broke up in 1936, when Dad moved out of the Carmel house to live in his lab across the hill, on Cannery Row in Monterey. Later, Mother and my sisters went to Washington State and I moved to the Row—an abrupt change for me. What were once leisurely times in a sleepy town with frequent morning hikes up Carmel Valley to hunt cottontails suddenly turned into near chaos. Our little building, “the Lab,” was crammed between noisy, smelly sardine canneries. Across the street were two whorehouses and a Chinese general store. During the day, when fish were being put into cans, trucks jammed the narrow street and whistles blew and cannery workers changed shifts, often into the evening if the sardine catch was large enough. Eventually all the sardines were canned, and then a curiously peaceful lull fell over the Row. Soon, taxicabs began to appear across the street to deliver customers to Flora Woods and her Lone Star Restaurant. I was fourteen years old and had been given a trumpet. It was during these early-evening interludes that, if Dad was away, I could blow my horn. If I didn’t keep track of the time, I ran the risk of attracting Flora’s customers—I didn’t need to have a drunk come stumbling across the street. A trumpet can be pretty loud, and I often found myself forced to play while perched on the rocks above the surf down behind the Lab, with Living at the Lab with My Father 333 only the sea lions as my audience. And there was a large storm drain. Several yards up into this conduit, the acoustics were good and I liked the sound. Someone said that a drunk way up on Lighthouse Avenue swore off liquor forever when he heard weird noises coming out of a manhole. There was a lot of good-natured kidding going on those days, and I often took the brunt of it. Dad’s friends dropped by in the evenings to eat and drink, hear music , or talk. Mostly talk. I squatted on the floor in a corner of the living room, listening to the conversations and watching. Sometimes my music was requested, and then I jumped up and ran to my bedroom to bring back records, but mostly I just watched and listened, fascinated by the conversations. Bedtime was a nuisance, but I needed the sleep and this was a major problem, since the partying usually went on well into the night. A hand-operated coffee bean grinder mounted on the kitchen wall invariably jarred me awake, and the phonograph music persisted. We had a very big loudspeaker. Not all was negative though— I developed a lifelong love for Mozart’s Piano Concerto no. 20—what a beautiful way to be awakened! Sometimes I was awakened at odd hours of the night by the typewriter . Dad used a peculiar four-fingered style of typing. I was taking a typing course in high school and was amused (and amazed) at how fast he worked while using this awkward method. It wasn’t until many years later that I realized he typed as though he was speaking. And that typing was his unique way of working out his thoughts. A way to mull over a question, a way to consider all approaches to a problem. Complete with backspacing and X’ing (crossing) out mistakes. Other evenings we were alone, and for me, these were among the best of times with my father. There was always work downstairs. Specimens had to be packed for shipment to schools. Turtles and frogs and sharks and starfish were to be preserved. And cats. I liked helping as much as I could, and I helped a lot. Except for the cats! Cats were gathered from time to time to be sold to schools for dissection. Local kids were paid twenty-five cents apiece. Dad put the cats into a garbage can and added a few drops of sweet-smelling chloroform. After a few seconds , perhaps thirty seconds at most, the thrashing ceased. When I felt bad about the cats’ panic, Dad explained that cats and humans don’t have similar nervous systems. These downstairs work sessions were important to me because they offered a perfect setting for conversation. I was usually bursting with questions, questions about my classes, for instance. I had become bored 334 Living at the Lab with My Father [18.191.239.123] Project MUSE...

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