Learning to take things lightly

Luis Pena

Dick Matherly is a 75-year-old retired Navy sailor, a resident of El

Nido Mobile Home Park and president of chapter 1817 of the Golden State Manufactured Homeowners Assn.

Where did you grow up?

I was born in Detroit, Mich., in a basement, so they tell me. I

don’t remember that. I just remember when I was 3 years old, we lived

in a place nicknamed Kelly’s suburb. It was pretty well diverse, that

neighborhood. One whole block we had Scotch people across from us,

Hungarians next to them, Polish next to them. You name it, we had it

in there. Everybody got along fine. It was during the Depression. My

mom cut everybody’s hair in the neighborhood on Saturdays. She didn’t

charge nothing. Somebody got sick or somebody died, all the neighbors

were over with food helping out. My dad was a tile setter. He hung

wallpaper. Good painter. He’d hang wallpaper for people and paint for

them. When I was in the fifth grade, we kind of moved out in a rural

area, and we built our own house: my dad, my brother -- a little at a

time. We lived with tar paper up for partitions. We had kerosene

lanterns and the old outhouse. We grew up out there, which was great.

It was near rivers.

What kind of childhood did you have?

I was always a daredevil. I had a good childhood. a happy

childhood. I was one of these kids that was kind of rebellious. My

mom told me to stay out of the trees, and I climbed the highest trees

in the neighborhood. She told me to stay away from the river, and I

was always falling into the river. When I was about 14, I would work at the loading docks at Montgomery Ward. Then World War II came, and

I was patriotic like all the guys. All the kids around couldn’t wait

to get old enough to join the military and fight for our country.

They had a notice come out in the paper one day that said they would

take you into the Merchant Marines at the age of 16. Well, I was 15.

There were three of us, and we hitchhiked down to Detroit and tried

to sign up. We had to get our parents to sign, and my mom wouldn’t

sign it. She said if they wouldn’t ship me out to sea until age 18,

she’d sign it. So she signed it, and a couple of weeks later, I

called her and said that I was on a ship going out on convoy. The

druggist was a notary public. He was patriotic, and everybody was for

the war effort, so he just notarized it that we were 16. So they

thought we were 16. When I was 17, I was old enough to enlist in the

Navy. I was still patriotic, so I wanted to fight.

How did you end up in Newport-Mesa?

I retired from the Navy in 1965. I had met a girl over in

Scotland. She came over to America, and we got married. We were

married for 14 years. When I married her, I didn’t realize that I was

going to be marrying her whole family. So I brought her family over

from Scotland, and pretty soon, it got to where I was an alien

because everything was them, them, them. Then one day I got them all

working, got them all jobs, got them all a house. Then one day, she

told me we don’t really need you anymore. I was kind of passive in

those days too. I wasn’t going to go to court with two kids. So I

went down to an attorney and I signed the three-bedroom house over to

her, two station wagons, gave her the bank account, took $200 and

started hitchhiking. I got out here in 1977. I came here because my

sister lived out here in Eastbluff, and I stayed with her for a

couple of weeks until I could find a place. I found a place in this

mobile home park for $80 a month.

What are your greatest accomplishments in life?

That’s hard to figure. People say my greatest accomplishments are

my kids or something like that. I hear a lot of people say that. And

you wonder. My sister says that. My boys, my boys. Then you listen to

her boys, and they’ll say her and dad used to take us and drop us off

at Disneyland and forget about us. Your greatest accomplishments to

me are self-satisfaction. If you do things and you’re happy with it

and you’re proud of yourself. I’m not a millionaire, I’ll never be a

millionaire and I would never be a millionaire, but I am proud of

myself for where I’m at. I spent my life helping people. Ask any of

my neighbors. My mom always told me whatever you do, if you have a

cause, you fight for it and you fight hard. You help people. And if

you can go to bed and pull your covers up and say I’ve done my best

... you’re good.

If you could re-do one moment or incident in your life, what would

it be?

Well, I think if I had anything I wanted to do over again then I

wouldn’t be a very happy person. Because you’d want to change your

life. I’ve had a good life. I’ve had an adventurous life. I’ve helped

people all of my life. There’s only one thing that if I could ever

have, I would love to have my mother live longer and Lauri [the love

of his life] live longer.

What profession other than yours would you like to have tried?

I wanted to be a pilot when I was a kid, or sailor ... I got to be

a sailor. Really, I love music -- swing music. I do wish that I would

have taken some time to learn how to play an instrument -- you know,

a trumpet, saxophone or something that I never did do.

What are some differences between a typical day in your life now

versus a day in your life 20 years ago?

Well, 20 years ago I was doing a little bit more than now because

I was working every day. And after I got off work I would do artwork,

and I would make redwood clocks and do the same as I’m doing now --

making fudge and stuff like that. When I’m not doing anything else I

make videotapes for the kids. I’m busy all the time.

What is the greatest lesson you’ve learned in your life?

Any time you have problems and bad things, it’s up to you to make

yourself happy, and if we didn’t have problems it wouldn’t be much of

a life because everything would be so nice and smooth all the time.

You know, you’d get bored. I just don’t know what kind of lesson I

would get out of that, except that years ago whenever I had problems

and things, I took it very serious and it doesn’t do your health good

that way. And I’ve learned to take things more lightly.

What do you treasure most?

I guess life. The older you get, the more you treasure it. What

makes you really appreciate life is when you almost lose it.

* If you know someone with an interesting story to tell, contact

us by fax at (949) 646-4170; by e-mail at [email protected]; or

by mail at Daily Pilot, 330 W. Bay St., Costa Mesa, CA 92627.