Raising Robbie

Raising Robbie is a collection of stories about how I acquired my self-esteem in the fifties and early sixties. It shows my parents' role and the Sisters of Saint Joseph, assigned to teach at Santa Clara Elementary and High School. These stories about fostering self-esteem in the classroom were also in my master’s thesis. Self-esteem is the critical criterion for being successful. It may start with life in the womb, but parents are most important. What they say and do to their children will increase or decrease their self-esteem. I talk about having a mom who was a jazz singer at nineteen and a very entertaining woman. I illustrate how my father used empathy he learned from studying Carl Rogers. When the Sisters believed I had a calling from God, they gave me love and guidance. When I changed my mind, they shattered my self-esteem.

Much of the story is about sports and how that affected my self-esteem. It was up and down in elementary school, but when I got to high school, the most important person changed my life when he said, “Bobby, I heard you’re a good player.” He coached all the major sports. He was the legendary Coach Lou Cjianovich. I tried hard, he saw it, and my high school sports career was fabulous. Love interests also came into my life, and I was, for a while, the Dance King of Oxnard. I was also a surfer and loved that sport. It all changed when I had a run-in with the Hell’s Angels. It chronicles my senior year in high school when we were the first school in Oxnard to win the CIF Football championship season. Raising Robbie is the back story to my two books: my Vietnam War Experience - Boomer War: Losing Faith in God and Country and Angst.