Credit card technology

When I was a kid every store had a small metal machine that they would use to run credit cards. The cashier place the credit card on the metal surface, then overlay it with a piece of carbon paper. Then the cashier would slide the top metal piece across the paper to imprint the card number. Grandpa worked at Wells Fargo for as long as I could remember, and he gave me one of those credit card machines when I was younger. I wish I still had it.

Grandpa's hear attack

Grandma and Grandpa had a den with a TV and a half bathroom. This is where we spent a lot of time while the adults visited. It seems like I was 10-12 years old when Grandpa had his heart attack. Someone removed the sofa and put a bed in the den so he could recover since they lived in a two-story condo and the bedrooms were upstairs. It seems like he stayed there for quite a while until he was healthy enough to move around again.

Penny candy

My mother had a sweet tooth. Do you remember the days of penny candy? You could get all kinds, in all sizes, and shapes and flavors. My mother's favorite penny candy was black licorice. There was a variety store near our house in Gregory Gardens that sold penny candy. In the evening my mom, Bette, would talk my dad, Bal, into a quick trip to the variety store for some black licorice. I remember Dad coming home with licorice, and sometimes other goodies in a flat brown bag. Then it was time to turn on the television set and watch Perry Mason. My mother was a mystery buff and Perry Mason was the king of mystery. He never lost a case in the court room! Through those years I too developed a love of mysteries and black licorice. Evidently, I come by it genetically!

Carol Evans Smith

Onion sandwiches

My dad loved onion sandwiches. Big, thick slices of onion with some mayonnaise between two slices of bread, had to be his favorite snack. He loved any kind of onions in his sandwich. I don't remember him eating this at meals, but I do remember him snacking on an onion sandwich many times. He must have had little bit of a strange sense of taste, because he was always eating green apricots off his parent's apricot tree. The tree was right by the driveway of the house where my grandparents lived in Oakland, so when we came to visit, he headed strait for the tree to check them out. I can remember tasting the apricots when they were only a little orange, and they were really sour, but Dad loved to eat them off the tree just to see if they were ripe yet...they never were!

Carol Evans Smith

Engagement Picture

Mom & Dad's engagement picture at the Claremont Hotel, Berkeley, California, 1946.

Lunch with Grandma

When we were younger, Grandma used to take my mom (Carol Smith), my brothers and sisters and I out to lunch at Straw Hat pizza.  I don't remember how often we would go, but it was often enough that I still remember very clearly what it was like there and I remember Grandma sitting and eating with us.  I remember standing in line as we ordered the pizza, got our big red cups (which I always filled with Root Beer) and our plates for the salad bar. The salad bar had the red imitation bacon bits that were really crunchy.  Grandma would grab a salad with a lot of different things on it.  I would grab a little lettuce, a lot of croutons, a pile of those bacon bits and some ranch dressing.  Whenever I see those imitation bacon bits at the store, or a pizza place with a red metal roof I think of going out to eat with Grandma.

Craig Smith

My father's name

My father's name was not the usual, common, Bob, William or John. No, if you knew his mother, you would know that would never do. My father was given the name of Ballif as his first name. This happened to be his mother's maiden name. He was named Ballif Howard Evans, although I actually do not know where the Howard came from. I'm sure that he had to spell it for everyone, and he was actually known as "Bal" most of his life. I love the name and have given it to my second son, Craig Ballif Smith. Now, the flamboyant mother that gave him the name...Grammie, or Zelnora Ballif Evans, was the classiest person I have even known. From the mahogany dining table with glass straws to the pink satin Christmas balls with pearls and sequins on a pink flocked tree. She was a banker's daughter through and through. She loved to wear hats and people loved to see what great thing she would turn up in on Easter Sunday. That was my grandmother, and I am grateful that she gave her son a name that I could pass along to my son.

Carol Evans Smith