Contents of a Dusty Box, Part 5

My old friend Marc, AKA NovaShip, said in the comments of the last post:

"It is funny how happy we could be as kids even in difficult times. The South Bay was a great place to grow back then. The picture of the MB pier makes me home sick."

True dat! The South Bay was da bomb!!! I'm sorry for all of you who didn't grow up there with us :(

So sad...

A few weeks back I joined a group on facebook called 'I Grew Up in the South Bay Which Means I'm Kind of a Big Deal.' The name alone makes it worth joining, because let's face - I am kind of a big deal ;-) Finally a little recognition. And oh the memories that are packed in the group's description:

If you grew up in the original 310/213 (Carson, El Porto, El Segundo, Gardena, Harbor City, Hawthorne, Hermosa Beach, Inglewood, Lawndale, Lomita, Manhattan Beach, Palos Verdes (RPV & PVE), Redondo Beach, Rolling Hills Estates, San Pedro & Torrance) join now and invite all of your fellow South Bay-bred friends.

The beaches (Redondo, Manhattan, Hermosa, Torrance, RAT, Imperial), Malaga Cove, PCH, Del Amo Mall, Daily Breeze, Marineland (R.I.P.), Sand Dune Park, Hawthorne Blvd, Farrells, King Harbor, Chillers, The Red Onion, The Castle Miniature Golf (R.I.P.), Fashions, Tequila Willies, Ports of Call, Seaside Lagoon, The Plunge, Old Towne Mall, Shamrock, Madrona Marsh, Oktoberfest, ECC, Home Depot Center, CSUDH, Goodyear Blimp, 110 & 405, the Strand, surfing, beach volleyball, South Bay Galleria, AVP, Riviera Village, El Porto, and home of the Beach Boys.

Oh South Bay of my youth, how I loved you!

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Now back to my autobiography...continued from Part 4...

Maybe I've romanticized my memories of the Children's Center - I tend to do that, which is a gift I believe. Who wants to look back at life and focus on the sucky parts? I'm sure there were boring days, but in my mind it was non-stop fun.

To begin with, being so close to the beach meant we could walk there. During the summer months we went twice a week (this is when my love for swimming in the ocean was born). Three teachers, including my mom, would take about 50 of us (the other half of the school would go on different alternating days). It seems like we stayed for hours and hours - the entire day really. This was back before sunscreen was widely used, and or available, so after lunch, we'd all don over-sized t-shirts and zinc-oxide on our noses to protect from the sun. Aaaah, those were the days! Playing in the shade of the lifeguard station with friends, digging for sand crabs, being poked on the bottoms of our feet by sand crabs, trying, but not succeeding, to get the sand out of our bathing suits, being washed up in the waves with a mouth full of saltwater, tar stuck on the bottoms of our feet that we had to get off with lighter fluid (there has to be something better now), standing in the sand in one place at waters edge to see whose feet would be buried the deepest as the waves came and went, seeing how close we could get to a receding wave before another came and chased us back, etc., etc., etc..

*sigh*

We also went on LOTS of field trips. We went to some places many times over the years (we helped our mom sometimes when were were older - she worked there until I was 12). Some of the places I remember going include: Marineland (RIP - and RIP Bubbles the whale too), Seaside Lagoon, The Japanese Gardens, Knott's Berry Farm, Disneyland, Los Angeles Zoo, Santa's Village (RIP), Busch Gardens in Van Nuys (RIP)(we always toured the brewery while there, so age appropriate :D), Cabrillo Beach Museum, The La Brea Tar Pits, Barnum & Bailey Circus, Lion Country Safari (RIP Frasier the lion), and many many other miscellaneous theater productions and puppet shows.

We also watched a lot of memorable short films with the classic movie projectors and pull down screens. Whether it was in school or at the Children's Center, turning off the lights for a movie was always exciting (I was very expert at tying peoples shoe laces to their desks)! The sound of the projector running is still so fresh in my mind. We watched some films many many times, including these:

The Red Balloon - click here to watch (it still has the power to mesmerize). Who did/does not love this film? I want to know.

Winter of the Witch - click here to watch a scene. This show was almost as freaky as HR Puff N Stuff, but not quite.

Skaterdater - click here to watch - so classy and classic!

When we weren't doing any of those things, we were having fun out on the playground or doing crafts. One of the days I remember best, was when someone discovered that using wax paper on the slide could make you go about half the speed of sound. We spent all afternoon, with what seemed like the entire school, standing in line to go down that giant old school metal slide. It was huge!!! The teachers were at the bottom as we came shooting off end. We also had those stainless steel industrial tricycles and two wheelers. We had BBQs regularly, and holiday programs. We did Easter egg hunts and had relay races. We took swimming lessons at a public pool (when the school was at its second location), and spent hours looking for polliwogs at Polliwog Park. I never fail to think of the MBCC when I hear 'Up Up and Away' by The 5th Dimension (I have it proudly on my i-pod). I think it was played alot when I was very young, when it was popular. The teachers always played with us, and cared about us. I can't think of how such a school/day care center could possibly ever be better!

I've never been able to part with my grandmother's MBCC windbreaker

RIP Manhattan Beach Children's Center. You were so good to me - good to us. You will never be forgotten.

So please, let us observe a moment of silence...

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...

Contents of a Dusty Box, Part 3

My fourth grade autobiography continues...

Awwwe...my poor dad. He wasn't in my life for very long. They divorced when I was only a year old. Mental illness (schizophrenia) robbed us of him. And even more sad - him of us, through no fault of his own. My mother always told us about him, and about his illness, but even so, he remained a mystery - a giant question mark in my mind, until I was fourteen when he showed up unexpectedly on our doorstep one day. But that story is deserving of its own post sometime. Here he is at seventeen, before his troubles began, full of life and potential - and so handsome!

My dad, 17 years old

A visit we made in 2007

Tom (a very proud grandpa), Sophie, Eva & Ella

To be continued...

...in customary fashion...I'm dragging this out way too long...

Contents of a Dusty Box, Part 2

Before I get to some more dusty box items, I want to inspire all of you who may be living with an addiction to Diet Coke, by declaring victory over said delicious, highly desirable, wonderfully bubbly, and insidiously addictive beverage. I've been in recovery now for 11 days and counting!!!!!! I've never been more proud of myself *sniff sniff*

Today I bring you other various items from my dusty box, and take a slight detour from my autobiography. I could do several posts on page six alone. So many of my most cherished and lovely childhood memories are contained in the three sentences of that page. I want to do it justice, which unfortunately means it might start feeling like homework. But in the meantime, here are some other items from my past.

This adorable crocheted beret looks to be straight from some hipster's ETSY shop - but it was indeed plucked from my dusty box. There has to be a granny afghan somewhere in the world that matches this vintage hat (anything more than five years old qualifies as 'vintage', right?). I know for sure that if I ever wore it, it was only to please my grandmother - I'm pretty sure her neighbor Auggie made it. I would have most certainly been horrified to ever have anything like this on my head. But my forty year old eyes see it differently now. If I were still some young cute thang, I'd have it on right now! But alas, those days are sadly long gone, and I'm pretty sure I would look rather silly.

But Eva, on the other hand, is chillin' like villain in this totally bomb granny afghan beret (Ella's been rubbing off on me lately). She ROCKS it!

This is me in the fabulous Bicentennial dress my grandmother made me in.......1976. Much much much much muey to my chagrin, I no longer have the dress. I think my sister still has hers though, and I still have my hat :) We wore these in a big Bicentennial pageant at El Camino College, and I was the state of Vermont, if I remember correctly.

Very impressive stitching around the elastic on the inside - to me anyway. I haven't gotten past sewing aprons yet.

The Spirit of '76 was a huge deal that year!!! Holly Hobbie was popular at just the right time, with her bonnet all pulled around her face like that - kind of Besty Ross-ish. What kind of little girl did not have a Holly Hobbie rag doll in 1976? Or a Holly Hobbie birthday cake for that matter? A very sad one, that's who!

to be continued...

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Last week Sophie surprised us with an interesting leprechaun trap.

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Kylie the wonder pony with her good for nothing mother, looking healthy only five days after her near death experience.

Contents of a Dusty Box, Part 1

I've been extremely nostalgic lately and lost in thought about my youth after being in touch with so many childhood friends on Facebook, which lead me recently to fetch a dusty old box out of the garage to look for some pictures. The items in the box were random, from my 1984 Los Angeles Olympic velcro wallet full of high school pictures, to my fourth grade autobiography written for Mother's Day. This 17 page autobiography is surprisingly revealing, occasionally misleading, and sometimes eerily prophetic. I'll begin with just the first few pages to start.

Pretty good cover I think - I made myself look very pleasant

But EEEK GADS!!!!! WTH! Something went horribly wrong with the page 1 illustration! It's true I was kind of a tomboy, but I made myself look like hairband rocker minus the hair product. Yikes!

I was trying to draw something like this, my fourth grade school picture. I remember those two -toned brown suede Vans though. My mom finally broke down and let us get some after spending our entire lives in orthopedic shoes (more salt for my mama). I loved them so much!

A hot day in January - hahaha!

My poor mother :(

I was born more than a week late and in need of some serious exfoliating.

Oh wow! I still make the same writing errors I did back in the fourth grade - including words that don't belong, or leaving words out completely. Sometimes several at a time.

Here I am in front of my playpen. Who wouldn't want to climb that thing and dive out?

Ella learning to walk in front of her playpen. I really love trapping her in that thing :)

To be continued...

Happy Hair Ending

Wow...who knew we were all still harboring such harrowing bad perm memories? The pain in my comment box was palpable. I think some group therapy, at say...North Beach Pizza in San Francisco, is in order! Let me know when you're all available and I'll bring a comfy portable couch along.

Well, my junior high bad perm saga had a happy ending. My hair wasn't permanently (pun intended) damaged after all. But then there was my 8th grade graduation dress...

Here I am taking modesty a little too much to heart - or was this my mother's fault again? I have my suspicions. Possibly more salt her way cometh...

Hmmm, looks like all my BFFs went shopping together without me. Check out the way my friend Amy is checking me out. She's all like, "giiiiiirl, we're in the twentieth century now."

Here I am, gracefully gliding back to my seat like a delicate and proper Victorian lady-in-waiting. I was only 100 years late and one parasol removed from being Monet's muse.

An Abridged Conclusion

Okay, this IS IT!!! I'm not getting up from this computer until I have finished this freaking heartwarming story of deflating my mother's bum foot!!! And it will be an abridged version, which will no doubt cause great joy for all my lovely readers :) The details are simply too boring blog.

So...I grocery shopped and read lots and lots of labels, blah blah blah. I discovered most everything frozen, processed, convenient or tasty was off limits and that I am awash in sodium, blah blah blah. I purchased all fresh and natural foods, blah blah blah. I cooked, and or prepared, three square low sodium meals a day - plus nutritious snacks, which were very delicious, blah blah blah. I became the sodium Nazi, blah blah blah. After a couple days, wrinkles appeared on the bottom of my mother's bum foot, blah blah blah. And in a few more days, her toes also began to wrinkle, blah blah blah. By the end of my stay, her ankles nearly matched one another, blah blah blah.

And now for the heartwarming part - when I returned the following week to stay the night (after I'd come home the first time), she was talking to a friend on the phone and told her friend that for the first time in fourteen years, her ankles matched each other, and that it was all because of my cooking and good care :) Isn't that so neat?! It really made me smile :)

PHEW!!! I am sooo glad I finally got that out! Wow, what torture that was for some reason. I feel like a weight has been lifted - aaaahhh...

But you know what happened this week? I kind of wanted to invite my mom over for dinner in order to slip a large quantity of salt into her dinner after I went on a Facebook frenzy and took a trip down memory lane. All kinds of childhood friends were suddenly in my life again, posting pictures and reminiscing. I decided to go look for some of my old photos, and came across some pretty frightening stuff. Here's the deal, I had amazing hair my very first season of playing soccer in 1979, as seen below.

Ummm, I was a babe in 1979!

The next season I had a perm, which wasn't bad. It's kind of cute actually because it was pretty loose, but my mom really really really wanted me to keep getting perms because my hair is rather thin and tends to be stringy.

So then, by 1981-1982 I had this hair!!!!! What the what???? How did I go from the first picture, to this poodle-ish monstrosity, in only two or three short years, and why did my mother condone it? And not only did she condone it, she LOVED my hair like this :0

And to make it all worse, look. No one else had a perm! It was NOT in style!!! Everyone else wasn't doing it!!!

Oh, be certain of it - something salty her way cometh, believeth you me!!!

Hwy 395 - The Shoe Tree And A Tribute Of Sorts

Carlen posted about a shoe tree her family visited a few weeks back, that reminded me of our nearest shoe tree not far past Hallelujah Junction on HWY 395, which is the way we drive to visit my mother in Susanville (where I'm not from). Here is our shoe tree Carlen.

We've driven the 90 mile stretch from our house to my mother's - oh, I don't know how many times, dozens and dozens, and the shoe tree is always a welcome sight on this not very exciting drive.

The shoe tree used to be filled out with branches, but was struck by lightning a few years ago (kind of like in Jane Eyre, when the chestnut tree is split in two by lightning after Mr. Rochester kisses Jane beneath in the rain), leaving it a bit scrawny looking. And then the shoes are periodically removed by the Health Department. But nothing can stop shoe tree lovers from reclaiming what is theirs, so the shoe tree lives on, despite government time wasting and the laws of nature.

First prize goes to the hot pink fiberglass cast with cast boot!

Ella sizes up a pair of faded blue Converse All-Stars

Stopping at the shoe tree prompted this question from Sophie (who is ever the deep thinker), "do they have a shoe tree in Berkeley?" Why would she ask such a question you say? Because she was witness to other strange tree happenings in Berkeley not too long ago. She's clever like that! And now, this leads us to a newsflash - the epic tree-sit in Berkeley came to an end not too long ago. There were lots of tears and kumbayahs. But I digress - a lot!

Our family has a lot of history on Hwy 395 between Reno and Susanville. Matt and I did a lot of dating on it. For real. We spent many many hours in the car (I lived in Susanville and he lived in Reno) talking, getting to know each other better, listening to music, gazing at each other, wondering what our future together would be like, etc.. Matt literally drove through a blizzard white out to get to me, only five days after we'd met at a dance (such were the powers I once possessed). I've gotten speeding tickets, and I've pulled over on the shoulder to nurse screaming babies on it. I've been stuck for ages in road work traffic, and I've passed hundreds of freakin' slowpokes slowing me down. I've been mesmerized (many times) by a rising full yellow moon. And I've been spooked on pitch black moonless nights, while driving pregnant without a cell phone, in a junker early 80's model 280Z with Ella in the back, and wondered where I would hide us if we broke down, and a serial killer stopped to help. Would there be sagebrush large enough to hide us both? Would Ella be able to keep quiet? Should I stay there until morning, or try to walk for help? Would I ever make it home alive?

We've hit every bathroom, and almost not made it in time, many times. We were nearly blown into a ditch in high winds on Thanksgiving Day, in our high wind profile 1984 Volkswagen Vanagon. I've almost fallen asleep on it many times, and I've drunk eldless amounts of diet coke on it as well. I've sung some of my best karaoke ever on 395 driving to and from my mother's, and my family has rejoiced and given thanks with each perfectly sung note ;-) Why am I going on and on about Hwy 395 anyway? I don't know. Maybe because it goes on and on, and it's part of our history, and it has a really cool shoe tree with a hot pink fiberglass cast with boot hanging on it.

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Dancing With The Stars Recap

My Maksim! The only male dancer worth looking at is gone. I think I said it before, he's just H-O-T hot! And his accent - gone.

Oh, and poor Misty. She's gone too, which I'm not all that broken up about - but did you hear her Achilles tendon snap? WOW! Hope it won't be a chronic career ending injury, just for DWTS. Too bad!

What else happened tonight anyway? There were some really good dances, and it's amazing what Cloris can do, even though she can't really dance, but I was kind of bored. It's all about who had the best song for me at this point. So, tonight's winner is Warren Sapp, who danced to 'Lovin U' by Alicia Keys

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

The worst choice - Toni Braxton dancing the Vietnamese Waltz (that's not a typo, it's what she called it) to that horrid 80's-ish stadium rocker version of 'Für Elise'.

Friend

Now that my friend Trisha has her own blog, I feel like blogging about her. Although, I just remembered I'm still mad at her for moving away. This happens all the time when I think of her. I remember I'm still mad. They moved to FREAKIN' Utah over a year ago, but I'm still not over it. She used to constantly borrow things from me. It would go something like this:

Trisha on the phone "I can't believe I forgot to get a packet of au jus sauce mix at the store last night."

Me "I think I have one, let me go look. Yeah, I have a couple."

Trisha "Oh my gosh, you're so awesome! Who else would have extra packets of au jus sauce lying around? I'll send one of the kids right over."

See, I miss that. No one has borrowed anything from me in ages now, not even Karen W (I wish Karen would though, because she always sends over some of the cookies she made using our ingredient). Who is here to make me feel like I'm a totally with it person for having much needed au jus sauce on a Sunday afternoon? Or flour, sugar, butter, eggs, milk, onions, bread, tomatoes, etc.? No one.

The park is finally finished, and when we walk ten feet down the street on our way there, and pass their culdesac, there is no one out in the street to wave to. No one to shout out to "hey, come to the park with us." When I drive home past their street, sometimes I still glance over at their house out of habit, to see if anyone is out front to say hi to. But no, the house sits empty and lifeless.

Friday evening, I went to her cousin Jenny's baby shower and her mother and sisters were there, looking and sounding just like her. That really ticked me off ;-)

When I do my grocery shopping late every Saturday night, she's not here to come along, so we can't call each other on our cell phones while we're shopping to see if we're going to finish at the same time.

She's not here to go out on a spur of the moment dessert run to Mimi's Cafe.

She wasn't here to go to the lake with us - not even once! Why am I even writing about her? Clearly she's undeserving!!!! I'll have to rethink dedicating an entire blog post to her...

...alright, I'll go ahead with it on condition that she she only tag ME every time she does a tag, even though I probably won't actually do the tag. And that she make me the only person on her blog roll, and that she agree with everything I ever say on this blog :)

Come back Trisha! I know of just the perfect house for you to move in to.

The End of an Era - 80 Nightowl Drive, Part 3, The Kitchen Island

We'll miss all the action in the kitchen, especially the birthday cake scenes around the center island. The singing was always out of tune, out of time, and with lots of cha cha chas. Then there was a mad rush by the kids to lick as many candles as possible.

2001

2001

2005

Lighting

Singing/making a wish

Blowing

Grabbing

Licking

2008

2008

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