(Childhood years)
I was born in Los Angeles, California on April 30th, 1946. Named after a race horse (Patrick Lee) that helped pay for my hospital bill, I entered the world doomed to be a gambler. We moved around southern California until my parents purchases their first home on 8334 Wilbur Ave., Northridge, Ca. This was before they had zip codes. My father was going to school on the G.I. Bill to become a math teacher. My mom worked at Lockheed. From 1952 to 1958 we lived in this home. This was the longest tenure at any one home in my youth. My first girlfriend, who I asked to marry me at the age of 8, was named Mona Brown. My deaf brother, Mickey (1-1/2 years my elder) and I played eveyday with our friends Mikey & Terry. My father finished his math degree and began teaching at Notre Dame High School in Sepulveda. One of the fondest memories of Northridge is the Bob's Big Boy story. Bob's Big Boy restaurants were the first to offer a double deck hamburger. They were so popular in Southern California that my dad's job was just to control traffic in the parking lot on the weekend nights. People would wait for hours to hear they name called and get one of these burgers. My mom would wake me and my brother up late at night. My brother and me would take our blankets and lay down in the back of the Ford station wagon with the back seat folded down. This created a huge sliding area, where my brother and me would slide and laugh on ever turn my mom would make on her way to picking my dad up from work. (In those days most families only had one car) When we arrived my dad would come out a kiss my mom and stick his head in the window and say wait a second, the cooks have something for you. I can still smell the aroma of the fries and burgers that my day brought us. My brother and me would gobble down the grub and wash it down with a strawberry milk shake. It was absolutly the best of times. In 1958 we sold the house and moved to Santa Ana, Ca., where my father began teaching at Mater Dei High School. I'd like to think it was a promotion, but my Dad (God love him) had a little bit of a drinking problem. He was a highly decorated World War II Hero, but this status came with a price to pay. Nightmares and flashbacks took their toll on my father. Both my parents were loving and caring parents. What we lacked in money and possessions, they made up in love and devotion. They were the best and I owe a great deal to them for instilling in me some sound principles to live by. We only lasted six months in Santa Ana before my father got into trouble again and lost his job. He always had a dream of living on a farm, so we upped and moved to Eugene, Oregon. Those two friends of our (Mickey & Terry) moved there with their family and raved about it. They didn't mention anything about rain. When we arrived just before Christmas we put a down payment on an eighty acre farm with cows, timber, and lots of mud. Within a week my Dad left on a drinking beign and after a week of milking cows and walking in mud my mom and brother abdicated the country life and got a small two bedroom house in town. I remember that Christmas more than any other in my life. All my family today knows it as the "Orange Christmas". The only thing my brother and I received as a present that year was an orange in our stocking. We did get a 22 rifle and a box of ammo, but after we used up the ammo we had to return the rifle to our friend Terry. It was explained to us that when we had enough money my parents would purchase a rifle like this one for us. We never did get enough money. I did learn one thing from that Christmas which has stayed with me all these years. It's not presents that count. It's love of family and the "spirit of being together" that counts. I remember my mom lecturing us about these qualities as she was heating up milk for our hot chocolate on our wood burning stove. We had a tree with lights, hot chocolate and toast, a warm house, and my mother and father singing (and signing) songs into the night. When I think back on that year, I believe it to be the best and most memorable Christmas of all. I had some pretty good ones as a father later on, but thats for another era of Pat's History. Oregon only lasted six months also. Five of the months we never saw the sun. I did get my first experience in after school sports. I wrestled for two weeks and went out for track. I ran the 660 and placed 5th in the city championships. I don't remember doing it because I must have passed out during the last sprint to the finish line. I realised right then that I lacked natual athletic talent, but made up for it with hustle, desire, and never giving up. Values my father preached to me all the time. I can still remember my first 660 race. I went out to fast and stopped. My father was there and yelled over to me to finish. Never quit he said. Even if you just walk the rest of the way. And I did. Those wet conditons in Oregon encouraged us to move on to the city of Nevada, Misouri. This is where my father's side of the family hail from. The whole town is made from "Pohl" bricks. All the schools, the libraries and government buildings. Our ancestors were brick makers and all of the bricks had "POHL" stamped on them. They stopped making POHL bricks in 1932. On the way to Missouri my father wanted to see Lake Tahoe. So we made a right turn in Carson City, Nevada instead of a left turn. We got a campsite since we couldn't afford a hotel. The campground was on the southeast end of the lake and we ended up spending the entire summer there. Every two weeks we had to sleep on the overflow site, which was on the beach and then get another campsite for the next two weeks. I think the rangers felt sorry for us living out of our 1952 Ford stagion wagon and they always secured us a new campsite. When I tell people about this story, I am usually met with pity and comments of how aweful it must have been being almost homelss and poor. Completely the opposite. It was the best summer of my youth. Lake Tahoe was my bath and one of the most beautiful vacations spots in the world was my playground. The highlights of living in Tahoe for a year was I learned to ski. I learned to work. We delivered papers, collected bottles to get the deposit money, and the best job of all: babysitting. We were paid a dollar an hour which was more than minimal wage. Many of my schoolmates were daughters and sons of the local motel owners. I would go to work about eight oclock, the parents already had the kids in bed. I'd watch TV, fall asleep and be woken up in the early morning with a five dollar bill put in my hand. That was a lot of money in those days. For the skiing adventure it was a two week session where they took the eigth graders up to Heavenly Valley Ski resort after school and gave us a one our lesson each afternoon. We just did rope tows which was a challenge since I didnt own a pair of gloves. You learn to grab real fast to avoid rope burn. Skiing became a passion that would bring me back to Tahoe in my older years as a kid again. I also had an experience that I will never foget. I call this the Kit Carson Experience. I attended South Lake Tahoe Middle School where I played basketball and was the starting center. I never could understand this since I was the shortest player on the team. Perhaps our coaches didn't know much about the game. I don't remember winning any games. We played alot of indian reservation school teams and I always remember the bleachers were always up on the second floor. The opposing students cheering for their team would always spit on us as we would go up for a layup. But this is not the experience I mentioned earlier. The Kit Carson episode in my life left quite an impression. In the autumn, when the bell for recess would ring (my favorite subject in school was recess-hence why I became a PE teacher) we played touch football. There were two 8th grade classes and enough boys to field two seperate games. One sunny day in late September, I remember stopping our game to witness a fight in the next game over. I saw this really huge boy arguing with this little tiny boy (about my size). When they raised their fists to begin their boxing match, I mentioned to student next to me, "The little guy going to get killed". He quickly replied that the little guy was the famous pioneer explorer Kit Carson great great great grandson, Kit Mathews and his father was a professional boxer. As I turned back to watch the fight, I saw a quick and skilled little opponent totally kick the crap out of the big guy. The face of the larger boy was so blooded at the end of the battle, I promised myself to never cross Kit's path. The next spring the choice game of recess was softball. We played a version called work up. There were four batters and everyone else played outfield. When there was an out the batter put out then went out to right field. Right field move to center and so on until the players rotated leaving the catcher to be the new batter of the batting foursome. To start the game whoever got to home plate first from the classroom yelled out "first up", the second would yell out "second up" on so on. As usual, I was watching the clock and had a jump on the rest of the class in getting out to the playing fields. I was down hall and 50 yards ahead of the next student. I tagged the base and yelled out, "first ups". The second follower was Kit Mathews who also called first up. As the other students continued to call out their positions I turned to Kit and said I was "first up". He looked at me with a very scary stare and said, " No I was first up" and then asdked if I wanted to do something about it. Meaning a fight for the honor of who would be first up. I saw him put up his fist and a bolt of fear shot through my body. I remember saying I don't want to fight you Kit. His reply was, "too bad, your going to have to". I then realized the both eight grade classes must have know about this pre-planned duel, because the circle of spectators that engulfed us eliminated the chance of any teacher coming to my rescue. I again repeated myself saying, "I won't fight you but I'll wrestle you". His surprised look delayed him just a little. He looked puzzled and then he took his first punch at me. I ducked to the left and then recoiled to tackle him under his right armpit. I pulled him down to the ground and did the only thing I learned in my wrestling career in Oregon. I "rode" him as the ligo goes in wrestling. Everytime he tried to get up, I'd push my knee in behind his knee and would pull him down to the ground with my death grip around his torso. (Death grip means fear of my death), which I was holding on for dear life. He never could get a good punch at me because of my position behind and above him. I prayed that the screaming crowd whould draw salvation, but no one came. One thing that riding time does in wrestling is fatigue your opponent. Finally Kit was able to escape by twisting and turning under me. As we disengaged and struggling to our feet, his nose slammed into my knee as we both stood up. All I did was put up my fists and dance around in circling motion to him. I was preteding to be a boxer. I was still scared out of my wits and had no idea how long I could keep up this mascarade. I looked into his face and to my surpise I saw blood gushing from his nose. I'm not implying a normal blooded nose here, but a gushing geyser of huge amounts. With each beat of his heart his was sprouting out biles of blood. I remember the fields were covered with hard packed snow that spring. I can still vividly see the contrast of the white snow and the huge red blood stains upon it. Finally his best friend Mark said, "Hey Kit, you're bleeding pretty bad. Maybe you should go to the nurse's office". For the first time I notice fear in Kit's eyes. He may have been a little dazed from the collison with my knee, but he dropped his fist and went off with his friend in search of medical help. I think he thought I actually hit him or something. Soon after his departure I could hear the comments: "Pat Pohl kick Kit's ass" or "You should of seen it. Pat was so quick, we didn't even see the hit". A couple of my friends came up and congratulated me on my victory. Victory! What Victory? I was just a scared 13 year old who had gotten lucky with a freakest collision of body parts. I did want to thank my 7th. grade PE teacher in Oregon though. Yet another sign that led me on my way of going into the PE profession. I also learned that life has a lot of chance invovled in situations. You got to just hang in there sometimes and see what happens. In the summer we resumed our trip to Missouri. My rich Uncle Joe owned a large construction company and was going to give my father a job. I remember flying in his private plane to observe ongoing jobs his company was doing. Unfortunately Californians who can't handle Oregon rain have no chance in handling midwest summer heat. We lived with an aunt who feed us everyday with unbelieveable amounts of food at every meal. I gained over 10 pounds that summer. We moved back to Orange County, California (Newport Beach) and I began attending Mater Dei high school. At 5'2" and weighing 97 pounds I went out for football. But that begins my "high school years saga". I would have to say that my childhood years were awesome. It was a time you could walk or ride you bike to school and not be afraid. There were Saturday double feature movies for 25 cents, playing cowboys & indians, red rover, hide and seek, and football. My cousins all lived within a half a hour. We were together a lot and we always just loved to play outdoors. Again that sign that led me to grow up and become a "play" teacher.
My brother and me visiting the elephant, my dad with his beers, my brother and me, a trip to Catalina Island, The 52 Ford in front of the Northridge home w/ Mickey and Buddy
Earlier Days before Northridge
top: Empi, Mickey, Mom, Grand dad bottom: Uncle Don, Larry, Dad, and me / Pat, David, Michelle, Jim (son of Aunt Rita's partner
Mickey and Me / Pat, Mom, and Mickey