In reading yesterday's post, I realized that I gave the impression my dad left his family behind when he went to California during WWII. Actually, my mom and I also went. During the four+ years we lived there, my three siblings were born.
Even though I was five when we moved back to Minnesota, I have a lot of memories of California. Especially Walter Harrison Moore. Walter's dad was in the Navy and while his dad was away, he and his mom lived with his grandparents next door to us. Walter and I were the same age and great friends. We were going to get married when we grew up. I haven't heard from him since 1948 when he lived in Santa Barbara, so I think it's probably over between us.
My memories of the house in Van Nuys include the lemon tree in Walter's front yard and the fig tree across the street. I once picked a fig and bit into its gritty center--now that's a memory that lingers!
I also remember the dead horned toad in the gutter by the curb in front of the house. And I remember well how sternly my mother would correct me when I called them horny toads. It was many years later that I figured out why she was so adamant about it.
There was a big playhouse in Walter's backyard and my dad built a slide, swings and sandbox in our backyard. We had sturdy steel tricycles and concrete sidewalks to ride them on. That was a great time to be a kid. (So what if there are hundreds of glitzier toys on the market today? We had it good.
Recently I was going through some old documents and found a letter sent to my parents in Van Nuys with the street address. Out of curiosity, I went online and was able to get street level pictures of the neighborhood. What was once a quiet, tree-lined residential street is now blocks of adobe style condos and apartments, broad busy streets and no trees. It's certainly not a place where you'd want to raise your kids.
1 comment:
A lot of people don't realize that horny toads (sorry, just a hick here) eat harvester ants exclusively. We have 2 big harvester ant holes in our yard, and we don't kill them, because then what would the horny toads eat? The down side to allowing the ants to stay is that they gather ALL the seeds in my yard. They get all the cilantro, the sunflowers, and the the Mexican Feather Grass seeds. They also raid the bird feed I put on the ground for the doves. And they do BITE HARD if you get in their path.
So many places change -- sometimes it feels like a knife in my heart to see the changes. I bet it was a shock to see your old neighborhood so changed!
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