The Beat of My Own Drum Read Free

family was like nothing he’d ever known. He’d never encountered such an open, friendly, and noisy group.
    Hailing from New Orleans, the Garderes were also compellingly exotic to him, with their beautiful brown (sometimes light) skin, blond or brown hair, and pale eyes. Being Creole, they acted differently and spoke with gentle southern accents with a touch of French. They said things like, “Y’all come back, bay” (which was short for babe). “What kinda people are these?” the shy teenager thought. Intrigued to learn more, he began walking Juanita home from school every day, even though they lived almost an hour apart.
    Moms thought Pops was cute too. She especially loved the way he dressed, even though she noticed that he always wore the same suit and tie. His family may have been poor, but a musician from New York had hipped him to the importance of looking the part.
    “If you want to be a musician, you better dress like one,” he was told. Heeding this advice, Pops spent all the money he had on a suit, shirt, and tie that he bought from a gentlemen’s outfitters on Telegraph in downtown Oakland. There was no money left over for an alternative outfit.
    Pops kept that suit of his as clean as a board of health. On a hot day, the jacket would be neatly folded over his left arm, which he’d keep lifted away from his body at a perfect 90-degree angle so as not to create a wrinkle. His fastidiousness about clothes and shoes still makes Moms laugh.
    The more time they spent together, the more Pete and Juanita grew to love each other. He affectionately called her Nina or Nit—and still does. On those long walks home they discovered that they had much more in common than they realized. My father had Latin music in his blood, while Moms had acquired her love ofmusic from watching variety shows and vaudeville. She’d studied piano, tap dancing, and singing. She could read sheet music and went for a professional singing audition in San Francisco once but didn’t get the part because she tapped her foot too much.
    It’s always been hard to keep Moms still.
    A born ham, she’ll tap-dance and sing all day long, or serenade someone at the drop of a hat. She has a beautiful a cappella voice, is a fantastic salsa dancer, and can play a guiro like a pro. She’s talented at virtually everything she does, but—much to her chagrin—whenever she gets up on a stage to perform, she freezes.
    When my father first sang to her, he melted her heart. From that day on, she knew she wasn’t going to let that “cute young boy” out of her sight. Despite my grandparents’ fears that the music business wasn’t the best profession for a son-in-law, they gave their permission for Moms to marry him, and they did so on October 21, 1956. She was eighteen and he was twenty. She wore a big white dress with a fifteen-foot train, and he rented a tux. Their reception was at a union hall in Piedmont. Their after-party was at the California Hotel in San Francisco, where they danced to mambo music. They couldn’t afford a honeymoon.
    Sometime after I was born the following year, we moved into a small in-law unit in the back of the Gardere family home, where Moms (who was pregnant again) could rely on her mother for babysitting.
    My grandfather, Papa, had a big heart, but he didn’t mess around and could silence you with one look. He was a hardworking man who was a janitor for some rental properties. He’d suffered burns and lost the sight in one eye in an accident in his previous job. He smoked cigarettes, and his right thumbnail was stained yellow. His beige coveralls smelled of paint and his breath of sardines from the sandwiches he loved to make, which included the whole fish—bones, tiny faces, and all.
    Mama, my grandmother, always seemed to be in the kitchen cooking for her family and any friends who happened to call. The smells I associate with her are all mouthwatering, and I think of her hands as permanently busy—baking, rolling,