Dominic Drive is the coming-of-age story of Charlie Williams, a young man who has a difficult childhood but who remains optimistic and hopeful, told through the eyes of another young man who becomes as close as a brother to him. Set in the late 1950s and early 1960s, it captures life in a post-WWII community.
Excerpt
As a child growing up in the 1950s and ’60s, my family lived on Dominic Drive in a typical post-war Southern California housing tract a few miles east of downtown Los Angeles.
Lots of new housing was built for returning GIs from WWII. These homes were quite small by today’s standards―less than one-thousand square feet. They cost a little over ten-thousand dollars new. Most started out as two-bedroom one-bath plans. A few had three bedrooms. But they sat on large lots. As families grew, they could easily add onto their homes. Over the years, most did.
This was a great place in which to grow up. Most of the people who lived in our neighborhood were young families, just starting out. Almost every house on the street had kids within about a seven-or-eight-year age range. So, there was always someone to play with.
We could explore by ourselves with no sense of danger. I rode my latest rebuilt bike everywhere in town. Sometimes my friends rode with me. We could be gone all day, and our parents never worried about us.
On our street, our neighbors were more like extended family. If we needed help with something, we always knew we could count on them. We had no need for block parents. We could go to any house in the neighborhood.
This closeness also had a downside. If any of us did anything wrong, word reached our parents before we got home.
In the Southern California of my youth, somewhere near every housing tract was an area with a stream or creek running through it. It was where we could feel like we were out in the country. In our area, this place was at the end of our street. We called it “the Gully.”
A busy street ran along the south side with a large culvert under the road. When it rained hard, the culvert routed the excess water away into the sewer system. As it dried out, I remember seeing muddy footprints on the concrete floor. I assumed someone had gone there for shelter.
I later found out the Gully had been an old hobo camp before they started building our homes.
When it wasn’t raining, there always seemed to be standing water in the Gully, choked with tall weeds and inhabited by insects. I remember the unending sound of crickets and flies and mosquitoes. As a kid, I was fascinated by the dragonflies with their iridescent and nearly transparent wings. I tried to catch them, but they were always too fast.
We also caught polliwogs and took them home, where we watched them turn into frogs. We kept them until our parents made us take them back to the Gully because they made too much noise.
In the late summer, nasty green scum grew on top of the water. The breeze piled it up at one end. And the awful stench kept us away. Once the rain began, the green goo washed into the culvert, and the odor gradually diminished.
When I was little, my friends and I built forts and makeshift hideouts down there using whatever junk was abandoned. (It was often used as a dump.) People from outside the area discarded lots of old stuff. Once in a while, someone from the city arrived to clean it out.
Our parents didn’t want us to go there, but it held too much attraction for us to stay away. Of course, my older sister, Sharon, never went there. She didn’t like to get dirty.
Professional Reviews
A Life Well Lived
This is a coming of age story about a teenager who finds himself homeless and alone in a Southern California suburb in the late 1950s. Charlie’s story is told through the eyes of a younger boy who not only befriends him, but idolizes him as Charlie’s goodness propels him through major difficulties and he is given a home by the boy’s family.
While Charlie’s character dominates the story, the real treasure in this book is the descriptive detail the authors include which gives the reader a rare glimpse into the life of a California middle-class family in the late’50s and ‘60s, concentrating on what made families solid while still hinting at elements that sometimes became disruptive.
I loved the story because I came to care about Charlie and his “adopted” siblings and when the story came to its inevitable ending, I shed a few tears over many things, not the least being the lost innocence of a world that for most does not exist today and never will again.
Great memories
I grew up with the author. This book was a real trip down memory lane and I recognized many of the personal experiences. I'm so glad that Larry and Lorna made publication of this book possible. Anyone who grew up in the suburbs during the 50's and 60's will definitely enjoy this book.
Those were wonderful years.
I rated this book a 5 because it resonated with me. The simple things of life mentioned brought me back to that time in my life. I grew up on the other side of the park and went to High School with Ron. Thank you for completing & publishing this. It is a great tribute to Ron & a treasure for me.
This is the trade paperback edition of the mythopoeic paranormal novel recounting the attempts of one Danny Blue and his friends to come to terms with a series of unusual events in his life. A Kindle eBook edition is also available.
The bulk of the collection is eight short stories that are set in yesteryear. The compilation is filled out with four entertaining fantasy pieces and three poems.
