Memoir of 'growing up Eichler' - Page 2

Of course, the Sveilich playlist back then was not just jazz—as Sveilich shares in Reflections from a Glass House plenty of memories about coming of age during the birth of the '60s 'San Francisco Sound' of psychedelic rock.

"At the time, Santa Clara [County] Fairgrounds had everybody! For $3 you could see the Moody Blues, Cat Stevens. It was just a great place to grow up because everything was happening music-wise," says Sveilich, author of two prior books, both on self-help, and a retired college counselor.

Not owning a car herself sometimes limited Sveilich's teenage opportunities, however—like the time her parents left her at home while they attended a Jefferson Airplane show at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium, "which really killed me."

"My dad just fell in love with Janis Joplin," she says of the other act on the bill that night.

The daughter had other issues with her parents' childrearing techniques, writing in her book how life back then was occasionally "very difficult."

"They had one foot in the '50s and one foot in the '60s," she explained about her parents. "We kind of raised ourselves."

Nonetheless, Sveilich came through the experience still close to her parents, who passed away a decade ago. Working through those issues by writing about them, she says, "It was very cathartic."

Sveilich lived in the family's Fairglen Eichler for 12 years, from 1960 to 1972, before moving out on her own. Several decades later she wrote a few humorous Facebook posts about her childhood that were very positively received.

"People were going kind of nuts for them," she said of the posts, adding, "Otherwise, I don't know that I would have written this book."

Although Sveilich had an independent publisher for her first two books, the personal nature of Reflections from a Glass House prompted her to use a self-publishing platform. This provided a necessary level of independence in editing the content because, she commented wryly, "When it comes to your life story, it's a little difficult to make changes."

Delving into her Eichler past has had one surprising result. Upon the publication of Reflections from a Glass House, Sveilich recently felt compelled to write a letter to her old Eichler address in Fairglen—just to see who was living there now.

"Greetings, Carol, this is Paulo," came the eventual reply by cell phone text. "We had purchased the home from the second owner, who lived here for 40 years, in 2015."

"I got the Kindle version of your book," continued the new acquaintance, "and I'm on the page with your cat by the atrium. We love your book!"

Sveilich has begun pitching Reflections from a Glass House through appearances and readings on assorted podcasts.

She also plans to contact Paulo again, despite admitting that finding him at all was an otherworldly throwback to the 1960s—"like a 'Twilight Zone' episode" from her Eichler childhood.