The Beginning - Moving to Valley Blvd.

The City of Fontana back in the 1972 was a small Steel town with a tight knit community of people who all seemed to know each other in one way or another. My mom (Phyllis), my grandmother (Daisy), my sister Sue and I had moved to Fontana to get away from the hustle and bustle of the Los Angeles area just as I was turning 5 years old. We lived in a modest home on a tree filled street with lots of families. It seemed the ideal local for a family looking to get away from the rising crime and unsafe conditions of the big bad city.

Within the years that we lived in that very first Fontana house on Palmetto Ave., many things happened that would have a great effect on the rest of my life. In the telling of the story of Ed and I, I will revisit the Palmetto home many times no doubt, but for now I will focus on a few things that moved me to my first encounter with Eddie Tiedgen.

Mom’s brother Jack had moved out to Fontana first and told my mom what a nice area it was and how it would be a great place to raise us girls. We were all very happy that mom had bought the house in Fontana. We, however, only lived there for 4-5 years when two things happened that scared my mom immensely.

My sister and I were attending North Tamarind Elementary. Prior to this school we had attended a private school where Sue (who is four years older than me) had excelled so much she was allowed to move ahead two grades. This adolescent wunderkind would be the bar that I had to try to strive for for many years to come. I was an average student, in the age appropriate grade who had begun to have a healthy self consciousness about her inability to excel in academics.

The first incident happened when we invited Sue’s teacher home for dinner one evening. He had been instrumental in helping Sue translate what she had learned at the private school into what she needed to know in the now advanced grade that she found herself in. After dinner they went for a walk and this guider of the young tried to kiss my sister. She rebuffed his advances, ran home and told mom who was like a mother bear protecting her cubs. This alone could have just been a very bad isolated incident but combined with the next two created a very big problem.

The second incident happened while I was walking home one day around the age of 7. A van began to follow me home very slowly. The driver, a man who looked to me to be in his 20s, kept calling out to me to come over to him. Unfortunately by this time I had already had a great deal of innocence stolen from me so I could feel that something wasn’t right. However, my mom had drilled into our heads the importance of not being rude under any circumstances so my childish brain was torn. I stopped briefly and politely told him that I couldn’t because I had to get home very quickly. He pulled to my side of the street and tried to lure me in with the promise that he had something cool to show me. I was afraid and started to walk faster and ignore him. He got more and more and insistent so I walked up to one of our neighbors homes and acted like I was opening the door. He drove off very quickly and I was saved. Thank goodness my neighbors weren’t home, so I didn’t have to explain why I was trying to walk into their home without knocking.

I went home and told my mom what had happened and I remember her being very concerned. It was the first crack in the picture she had of the safe area that she had moved the things that were most precious to her in this world, her little girls.

The third and final thing happened not long after. The four of us had been out shopping we pulled the faux wood paneled station wagon into the driveway and it was clear something wasn’t right. The front door was ajar and inside our belongings had been tossed about in the unknown robbers search for our things of value. My mom’s picture of serenity and safety was smashed to bits. Jack owned a property on Valley Blvd., with several acres that included a front house, storage areas, a good size orange grove, a two story back house and various other buildings on the other end of the orange grove. He suggested that it would be safer for all of us if we moved on to his property.

Sue was making the move to Junior High and I was sent to enter the third grade. Sue went to school near our old neighborhood but I moved schools to the elementary closest to the Valley property, Cypress Elementary.

Meeting Eddie Tiedgen

There is much of my childhood that I don’t remember for one reason or another, however I remember very clearly meeting Eddie for the first time. I was in Mrs. Flower’s class and so was he. I remember sizing him up as a husky kid with big tuft of curly hair perched on his forehead and two overly large front teeth that seemed to get my attention every time he opened his mouth. I can’t tell you why he stuck out to me, but I do remember watching him interact with the other kids on the playground. It seemed like he was always in charge. The first few days I didn’t say anything to him and he didn’t say anything to me either. But then I made the mistake of following behind him one day. I remember he stopped, abruptly turned around and said, “why are you following me?” I was flustered because I certainly did not want him to know that I was and I said, in my best ‘what is it to you anyway’ voice, “I’m not!” He looked me up and down and said, “yes you were and you better stop it.” I was so angry. After all, who did he think he was anyway?

After school that day my mom picked me up and as we got home and got out of the car to slide the gate open so my mom could drive through I saw him across the street. Sauntering into the gate directly across the street from our property! I remember feeling angry and huffing and my mom said, “what’s wrong?” I rolled the gate back in place behind the car, got in and said, “that fat little Tiedgen kid lives across the street! He is a big bully!” That was the beginning.

Day after day as I would play outside I would see him and we started yelling at each other across the four lanes of busy traffic that was Valley Blvd. What were we yelling about? Various things really. Either his dog or my dog was barking too loudly. “Shut your dog up!” he would yell with as much authority as he could muster. “You shut your dog up!” I would screech back in as much defiance as I could muster.

At school I tried to keep clear of him but managed to be witness to some playground bullying at the hand of that fat little Tiedgen kid. What made it worse is that inside of class he was always one of the teacher’s pets. Good grades and good manners covered up a multitude of sins for Eddie and it burned me up!

In fourth grade we again had the same class. This time it was Mr. Grinich. Eddie was again one of the favored students and I was just another of pack. One particular day as we were standing in line at the desk, waiting for the teacher to check our work, I was bored and touching things. I began playing with the stapler and Eddie saw a golden opportunity. He waited until my finger slipped in just the right position and he slammed the hammer down and put a staple right through my finger! I began shaking my hand wildly and was admonished curtly by the teacher to “stop bleeding all over my papers!” I was sent to the nurse and Eddie sauntered back to his desk without one word said to him. I wanted to punch him in the nose!!

If someone had walked up to me and said that boy is the man you are going to marry some day I would have spit right in their eye!