Chapter 7

The Middle Agers

One of my most important previous employees is our son, Michael. Mikey, as he likes to be called, decided in 1959 at age 11, that he would become a Civil Engineer, thus paying me the ultimate compliment. At age 13 I introduced him to the engineering office and within months accompanied my survey crew and often me into the field. This increased his and his sisters’ vocabularies and their proficiency at vulgarity. He liked surveying to the extent that one hot day in San Bernardino County he stated that he would not even bother to go to college. I said little but gave him an 8-pound hammer, a long two-inch diameter steel pipe and showed him the rock hard place where the pipe was to be placed. Mikey went back to Plan A that night when we got home. Michael and I did many surveys together. One day he and I were chaining in front of a client’s lot when I asked him to switch ends with me. He immediately protested having divined that there was a problem but I persisted. Neither he nor I had made an error. Our client’s property had someone else’s house on it. The occupant, Mr. Flores, came out and protested. When I contacted the client, Mr. Simmons, he drove out from L.A. with his son, an attorney. I felt apprehension for Mr. Lopez and further, recalled that when I had been City Engineer this situation had been discussed. Mr. Simmons at age 83 was merely trying to put his affairs in order. His lot had a valuation at $1,100. Mr. Lopez had paid $ 300 for his lot. Mr. Lopez ended up owning the Simmons lot for $300. Mr. Lopez lucked out, because Mr. Simmons technically owned the house on which he lived but Simmons and his son were decent folks. Not so in another case where my crew surveyed a lot where the property line had been encroached on by another old Californio. Six inches of his living room sat on her property. My client, a Mrs. Gonzales, when she hired me stated she was just curious@ about her property line. After we set stakes on the job City Attorney Kenny Husby called me and asked me if I would authenticate the work in court, if necessary.

I sent my crew out again and starting from the other end they redid the job starting at the other end of the traverse. My men made no error. I responded positively to Kenny. Two weeks later when I happened to drive down that street, a new chain link fence sat on the property line and the Mrs. Gonzales’ neighbor’s house was gone. One survey I did for an FHA pre-loan certification found Mr. Irv Gow’s 2-foot high wall on the client’s property. When Mr. Gow was notified that he had to move the wall, he became angry, had a heart attack and died.

Michael performed well as office engineer and in 1963 I paid him $ 3.50 per hour. He said thought he could earn more and sought employment elsewhere. After an offer to work at a local grocery store as a box boy, he abandoned that negotiation and came back to work.

One day I gave him an assignment to calculate lot boundaries on a mountain subdivision. Jimmy Higbee, my friend owned the property and surveyed it. My fee amounted to my choice of one of the lots. Michael informed me that he could not close the boundary on the last lot; in other words the tract did not fit inside the property, mathematically. After some struggle with it I found that he had adjusted the boundary closure and committed the sin of not saving the other data. That was the only lump in the peanut butter that we ironed out at home for lunch that day.

The lot we earned was off the Idyllwild Mountain Road near Poppet Flats. We used it as a shooting place and Betty and the girls picked wild herbs, such as rosemary there. I later traded it for an acre in Banning, split the acre into two lots and sold them When I met the owner of the acre in Banning, Tom Vise, he remembered that my Dad had boxed in the Navy .Tom had been in the same outfit.

Mikey behaved a little like me as he grew up. He once knocked over a tripod on which my only transit sat (and misaligned the transit), drove my Jeep into a mailbox, backed my new Chevrolet into our station wagon, drove the Chevvie to Palm Springs and sandblasted a window, and drove the car off while Susan’s glasses were on it. In 1963, before his 16th birthday, he had a chance to go to the University of Southern California but opted out saying he was not mature enough. Probably after looking at the co-eds. He stayed in Banning for his senior year in high school, graduated co-valedictorian and in 1964 went off to U.S.C. Engineering College on scholarships. His mentor there was Dean Ingersoll. Doctor Ingersoll and I belonged to the same honorary engineering fraternity, Chi Epsilon and hosted a group the night the night that Michael met him. When that event occurred, I introduced Mikey to him. I could see the Dean assessing him as a wonderful new raw material with which to work his prexy like wonders. Ingersoll became totally oblivious to my presence. I took no offense; he was a good judge of raw material.

After a few months Michael advised me not to send any more expense money. Mikey surveyed with an instructor on weekends, engaged in poker games at school and at a Gardena casino, and shot pool. (He did not play poker. He worked it for profit.) He graduated in 1968 and went to work at the City of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power ( LADWOP).
With a gifted sense of humor he wrote some of the LADWOP annual shows. He has written numerous newspaper columns, published in the Los Angeles Time, Orange County Register and Christian Science Monitor.

Michael reads music and plays musical instruments. Once he copied dozens of sheets of music and gave them to me. I played a ukulele at the time and took four string banjo lessons. He played the piano and with Betty or me singing we jammed. He is conversant in Spanish. Michael has had 2 wives, or vice versa, is currently divorced and is a successful engineer, writer and entrepreneur. His first wife, Carole Miller, was a blonde bombshell. They divorced after 5 years. He sought another mate and soon found, Anne Heyman. He became her second husband. They married and shared certain common interests. Then she unilaterally decided that she would produce an offspring. She did and Jeffrey Paul Nosanov issued.

Mikey, a tender caring father felt betrayed and later found other issues including previously undisclosed personality traits, including persistent and growing aggressiveness. Mikey waited until Jeff was old enough to understand divorce and then did that deed. Jeff and his Dad are very close. They visited Betty and I several times a year as Jeff grew in the 1990's. We 3 boys went shooting, fishing and played golf. With Betty we played Scrabble, Monopoly, poker, and hung out. We went to museums and had memorable times.

Michael is a fierce competitor who plays the stock market as well as games including poker, bridge and chess. He plays in Las Vegas Casinos when convenient. He buys and sells unimproved real estate properties. In 2000 he began to teach this art to Jeff. This picture was taken in 1986. He currently has a lady friend, Darlene Wong and is happy. He domiciles in a lovely house in Glendale, California. He furnishes it his way. There is a Jacuzzi in the patio, a pool table in the dining room, plus a fireplace and large screen TV in the den. He likes to watch ice hockey and is an active member of Mensa. At the time of this writing he is Power Manager for the City of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

Susan, a well-known equestrian, has a penchant for horses, dogs, and other animals. At the age of 3 she sat on a Morgan mare owned by my cousin Bruce. She had a problem with that because she had to sit behind Mikey and hold on to him. She still carps about him being a tyrant when he baby-sat his sisters for us. At age 14 she wanted a horse. Betty said correctly, of course, that we could not afford one. I got her a 17-year-old one, named Buck. It cost me nothing because it had a hoof disease; thrush. Susan cured it and we became partners. I got the end that ate and she got the other end. We rode horses together often but one day after we raced through a residential neighborhood, I eschewed that source of thrill for the foreseeable future.

At the tender age of 16 Susan came to me one day and told me I was stupid. Ten years later she retracted that statement. Susan eschewed motherhood. While married to her 1st hubby, Bill Hestla she opted for 2 abortions and then had an operation to prevent pregnancy. Bill Hestla became abusive and they divorced. Her second husband, a contractor (and horseshoer) met me while I was managing 2 departments of a design-and-construct environmental engineering company. Bruce Gaffney is his name and he worked for me on several projects; this could be the subject of a different book. Susie and Bruce divorced after he manifested a personality typical of an amphetamine user. She then had a long bout with the I. R. S. about non-payment of taxes but finally got that cleared up. Her 3rd and current husband’s name is Bill Figley. Her husbands all, at one time or another, were farriers; as is Figley who is a full time hard working man. Susan trained at Cal Poly and Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, and then worked for 20 years as a licensed x-ray technician Susan has represented her equestrian organization at conferences in the United States and Canada. She has won ribbons for her half Arab horses and Western riding. She seems to be fearless and is one tough little lady. . She boards and trains horses, trains riders and until 2000 was only peripherally interested in the technological revolution. She likes to acquire, refurbish and ride sulkies and horse drawn buggies. She went on line (World Wide Web) in December 2000. Since then she manifests a remarkable grasp of using computer technology and has begun to trade in horses, services and tack. Bill and Susie, at this writing, live on a 2 1/2 acre rancho in Llano, in the high desert. They have numerous horses and dogs. Betty and I enjoyed a close and endearing relationship with Susan.

Vicki Ellen seems to have been caught in the cultural as well as the social revolution. She graduated from Royal Oak High School and attended and graduated from University of California, Riverside. When I took her there we were advised during orientation that she no longer belonged to her parents. She seems to have taken that seriously. When I installed her there in a dormitory she chose to move to an apartment and work her way through college. Her degree is in Political Science. Her first job was repossessing cars for a credit company. She worked herself up to a manager’s job in two major loan companies. She lived with a computer expert, Julio, for 5 years. She found her Jewish prince, Louis Goldman in the 1980s. Prior to their marriage they lived together for a year, with his parents’ blessings, not mine or Betty’s. When they married they had an extravagant reception, completely on her terms, for which they paid. They have two children, Mason and Briana. Vicki and Louis were divorced in 1998.When she observed her marriage kick up storm clouds she acquired a teaching certificate. She blamed her in-laws. She is a schoolteacher in San Jose, California, currently divorced. Vicki loves to party, travel and fish. Vicki learns languages and musical instruments readily and has traveled to Europe several times. In 2000 she went to New Zealand. She manifests an aggressive personality and maintains a hectic active social life. Vicki seems to periodically isolate herself from the family.

Nancy, born in 1957, is a native of Banning, California. She was a quiet child what with 3 older siblings and at the bottom of their pecking order. She did not get into trouble as a child except for being accused of painting the lawn sprinklers at the Banning Public Library in 1963. I had to go to the library and discuss this reputed and dastardly deed. My heart was not in it because I thought it was a clean and attractive improvement and she denied it. Many years later she admitted her “crime”. Nancy attended Cal Poly Pomona and later got her Associate of Arts Degree at Anza College in Cupertino California. She worked for Aaron Brothers and other art shop and became a manager. Later she managed production at a frame manufacturing company. She also sold a represented a foreign frame line in Oregon, Washington, and California. Nancy had some ups and downs and bravely survived them. In the 1990's she survived at several major nervous breakdowns. After realizing that her medication is critical to her survival she rallied, recovered and is building her life again. As of 2001 she is employed by the Southern California Automobile Association and doing well at her job. Nancy visits us often and is close to our hearts.

Mike's son, Jeffrey is our oldest grandchild born in 1982. At the age of one, during a wait for a restaurant at a tourist spot, he pulled a practical joke on me. Jeff has all the talents needed to be a computer hacker and has had them for years. At the age of 8 he taught keyboard to other kids. He attended private schools and became an excellent piano player; much against his will. Jeff started taking college courses at age 15. Jeff has fished with the family and me. As he grew up Michael brought him for visits and we played golf and gone shooting together. Jeff also likes to play cards and other games. He is over 6 feet, 2 inches tall and weighs more than 200 pounds. When he was 16 he was given a car. Thus, he could commute between his Dad’s and Mom’s house and elsewhere. Now we see less of him but more so than our other 2 grandchildren. We stay in touch by E-mail. He enrolled in U.C. Irvine in the year 2000.

Vicki's son, Mason was born in 1983. He loves to fish and shoot, and play cards and other games. Mason went fishing with me for the first time at age 2, on my boat. We have fished together on party boats and on piers in Northern and Southern California. He, too, is over 6 feet, 2 inches tall and weighs more than 200 pounds.
He wrestled on his High School team. His father, Louis, promulgates our connections with each other. Mason knows his way around computer hardware and programs. He has a great imagination and sense of humor and aspires to be an actor. We stay in touch by E-mail. In the year 2000 he enrolled in a college program while finishing high school

Briana, our only granddaughter, is a gentle person, full of vim and personality, very curious and persistent in accomplishing her goals. She is bright and computer literate. She has always manifested a competitive nature when in the company of her older sibling. Otherwise, she is a sweet affectionate young lady. She is a good communicator who speaks up for her rights. Briana corresponds by mail and E-mail occasionally and effectively. She and her brother traveled extensively during their early years, before her mother Vicki and dad, Louie, divorced. They visited France, among other cities in Europe, to be with my cousin Billy and his family. She wants to be an actress.