House on orange ave

My family lived in a house in Colusa Ca,on orange Ave. There was 15 of us counting mom and pop, and sometimes we would have cousins or friends living with us. Yup all of us at one time or another. A typical school day would begin with mom telling us to get up, and of course she would have to tell us about five or six times. at about the fifth time she would be threatening us with some kind of mayhem, so we would figure it was time to get up. The house was always cold in the morning, come to think of it ,if it was cold outside it would be cold inside,if it was hot outside it would be hot inside. Yes we did have a heater, but now that i think of it i don't recall where it was at. Maybe we didn't have a heater. Mom always fixed us up this big ol burrito made with bean, egg, potato or made from all three, They were always delicious, she usually gave it to us as we were headed out the door.
When it rained mom would go around and set up the pots and pans to cover the leaks in the roof. The boys slept on the left side of the house ( the old side ) this is where most of the leaks were, Sometimes Jack would wake up in the middle of the night and say hey brother what happened and i would say "it wasn't me, the roofs leaking". The women slept on the right side of the house ( the new side,of course ) it was a big deal when the folks had the new additions added to the house. two bedrooms and one indoor bathroom. Before that the toilet was outdoors and you didn't want to have to go at night because sure as heck someone was bound to scare the .... out of you. there were always these ghost stories about the house, so even if someone didn't scare you. It didn't matter, because when it got dark, you were already half scared to death thinking about all the ghost stories. headless horses, house was built on a indian burial ground, people looking in windows late at night.spirits walking around the house.and many many more stories. It's a wonder nobody had a heart attack. Whenever someone came to spend the weekend with us, we would tell them all these ghost stories.and just scare the living .... out of them. Funny now but at the time i was just as scared as everyone else no matter how many times i heard the stories. My Grand ma had to be the best story teller and she didn't even speak english, it was just the way she told the stories and our imagination would just run wild. a lot of her stories were about the devil. YIKES!! On the boys side of the house, it was usually Mundo, Jr, Jack and myself. My brother Jack an i used to sleep on this big ol bed, that sagged way down in the middle, so no matter how big it was you always ended up in the middle. Sometimes we would have friends or family over and there would be 5 or 6 kids sleeping on one bed, all in the middle.
Fridays were always the days that the people came in from out of town and would party with my folks sometimes they would party at the house and sometimes they would go over to Grahms, Matts or Colleti's, and other times they would go to parties at my Tio's/ Tia's house What was so cool about it was that all us kids got to go to all the partys with our folks. I think we had more fun than they did. If we didn't go somewhere, we would stay home and play poker or some other game, usually grab the spoon. poker was the most fun. We would have brothers, sisters cousins, and sometimes Connie and Dave would come down from San Jose.Thats when it was the most fun, Man what a riot. Mundo was always cheating and Lolly was always catching him, Mundo and Roger were always on the defensive around Lolly. One step out of line and Lolly would beat them like an old dirty rug. That didn't deter Mundo though, he would try to pass two nines and a six as tree nines.and Lolly would be on him beating him and calling him a cheater. Mundo would be laughing the whole time. He just loved trying to get away with it and at the same time getting Lolly all riled up.
Saturday and sunday mornings were my favorites,You would wake up to mom cooking breakfast, the smell of coffee would hit you first and then the smell of bacon, my,my,my, I can almost smell it now. you walk over by the stove and moms rolling out these tortillas and she has one on the grill and she has one rolled out ready to go. She would take one and put some butter in it and give it to you and the butters melting so much that it's getting all over your hands so you have to fold the tortilla in the middle to keep the butter from running out, man there's nothing like one of moms fresh tortilla's with butter on it. que bueno. member you member. We would sit down to eat breakfast and mom would bring these big platters with eggs, scrambled or fried your choice. I usually ate both, potatoes,beans,bacon and a big stack of her tortillas and then some of her delicious home made pancakes with a lot of butter and all the syrup you wanted. This was when this kind of food was good for you. One time Mundo got up to get something and people started serving out of his plate ,thinking it was one of the platters mom had brought to the table.
Back in them days we had a milk man that would bring you milk or orange juice in these big glass jars ( ice cold )and eggs cheese, butter. whatever mom ordered. If you never drank this milk or the orange juice out of these containers when it's ice cold well sorry people because what they make today is just not as tasty, We were always drinking it from the container right out of the refrigerator there is nothing like it. not anymore oh so sorry.
My dad use to come home from work and he always left us something in his lunch box, usually something sweet that mom packed for him. so there was this mad dash for his lunch box when he came home, but not only was it us kids trying to get his attention, it was the dogs too, they would be jumping up and down and trying to get to him. He would even keep the scraps from his lunch for the dogs. He would walk in the door and stand there with his brim cocked to one side ( i call it wearing it with an attitude ) and see my mom and say " hello Mary" when he stood there like that he was bigger than John Wayne. My mom and dad were special you'll never meet another couple like them again.
We never used to watch t.v. alone,except for dad, he used to watch the gillette cavalcade of sports friday night fights. I used to see him there by himself throwing punches while he was watching the fight with this big smile on his face and i wondered what could be so much fun for him, so i watched a fight with him and before you knew it i was there throwing punches right along side my dad. nothing was more cool than hanging out with my dad throwing punches at the t.v. screen. no telling what the neighbors thought of us. The whole clan would get together and watch our favorite t.v. programs. The very first t.v. program i remember as being my favorite was adventure time, it was about a bunch of gorillas that lived in this mountain and this Indiana Jones type guy would always go save the girl in the movie. I know it sounds dumb but for us it was as big as Avatar, once a week we would also watch the bugs bunny show together ( daffy duck is still my favorite ) Mom, dad, Mundo,Jack, Michael, Cindy and whoever was at our house at the time would sit there and crack up at the cartoons. simple times, you bet. you would have to have been there to know why these times were so special to me/us.