Contents of a Dusty Box, Part 4

Julie said in the last comments: "I love how on your autobiography the background was painted after the crayon image & so there are the dried up spots of water color & it looks eerily like there are splatters of blood"

This is a tricky post. I want to do my memories of these three sentences justice, but is such a thing ever really possible? Methinks not, sadly. But maybe I can paint an impression of sorts - try to convey how much happiness and joy is contained on this, page 6, of my 4th grade autobiography.

And I think I might incite some envy and jealousy with this post, but I don't apologize ;-) I only feel sorry for all of you who didn't get to attend The Manhattan Beach Children's Center 'in between the ages of 2 and 5'.

When my mom became a single mother, she had several part time jobs that weren't working out well with two small children. A friend told her about a school for low income divorced parents that she should try to get us into. My sister and I loved it immediately, and then soon after we started there, our mom was hired as a teacher. What could be better 'in between that ages of 2 and 5' than to go to work with your mom and play all day?

(I feel myself being too long-winded all ready)

The Children's Center was about a 15 minute drive from our house, and only a half a mile form the beach. The original school of which I speak no longer exists (my mom was a teacher with this school until I was 12, and many of those years were at a different facility), but the location is marked in the foreground with the yellow marker.

The Manhattan Beach Pier can be seen in the distance *sigh*

(five fingered from google images)

Ha! I'm making myself jealous of me.

I have to back up from the beach for a moment though, I'm getting ahead of myself.

When I think about those early days at that first school on 14th Street, I'm amazed at how much I remember. I think the majority of my very early childhood memories relate the The Children's Center - even driving there. I remember so well standing up behind the front seat with my arms hooked over the front, driving down Aviation and under the train bridge. That was back before anybody cared about seat belts. We had a blue Dodge Dart, and we would hang on the the front seat from the back and sing to the radio - in particular I remember singing 'It Never Rains In Southern California' on the way to school. When we came to Marine Avenue driving down Sepulveda, we would turn right and go down an enormous hill (enormous in the mind of a child), and at the bottom we would turn left onto one of the streets to pick up Mrs. Scott...then on to the school.

To be continued...because I'm like that...