Family Stories
Places I've Lived, Part 2
As I ended last week, when I was 8 years old, we moved from the house on Montecito Drive to a 2 bedroom apartment on San Marcos Dr. Both were in the same town. The new place was actually just within walking distance for me from my parents business.
The apartment complex we moved into consisted of 3 buildings. It was a big lot. The larger building (about 12 apartments) faced out on another street. Right behind that was a large carport with 2 apartments on top (and a laundry room and a work area for the owner). Our building included the property swimming pool. There were 7 apartments (2 of which were 1 bedroom), and a carport. I lived in that complex for about 10 years, in two different apartments. Mom stayed there after the divorce and ended up in 3 of the apartments. Over the years I got to see the insides of all the apartments in our building, and some of the others in the complex.
The complex was a good one. It was owned by the builder, a local contractor who had a good reputation.While Elmer New might not have been the fastest landlord at fixing things, he was a good guy and he fixed them right.
I was excited by the change. For the first time, I had a real bedroom, with a real bed. My parents promised that they would get me my own furniture the next weekend, and they did. I used that chest of drawers and nightstand well into my adulthood. We lived in Apartment A, downstairs in the corner. When the building was new, he lived there with his smaller family. He combined Apartments A and (one bedroom) B. When the light was right, I could see the outline in my bedroom wall where the door between the two apartments used to be. We also had the only fenced in backyard area. It was mostly concrete with a clothesline, bu there was a small area that we could grow flowers and vegetables in. Mr. New used to come over and check out our vegetables. It amazed him that my mom could grow such a variety in such a small area. He didn't understand her green thumb. Mom was also able to grow carnations, which was a joy to her. At the old place she had never been able to successfully. Either the neighbor dogs would pee on her plants, or the high school boys haired to mow the lawns would also mow the plants, or something. It had been a source of frustration for mom.
Also exciting to me was the fact the the complex had quite a few kids in it at the time. Strangely enough, almost all of them were boys. At first I wasn't welcome, but they grudgingly let me join them. I always was a bit of a tomboy, so after I had shown my merit in football (tacking, grabbing on and not letting go, etc.), I was allowed to play. The leader of our gang of kids at the time was an older kid who was also somewhat lame. He wasn't a nice person. Things were better once his family moved.
Mostly I played with the boys in our building. Mike's family were nudists, which I didn't understand until much later. My parents were wise enough to not teach me to be judgmental about all that. Instead they just taught me that I always, always had to knock and have them let me in their place. Gave them time to put clothes on. I liked Mike and his family and was sad when the moved to a house about 2 years later. Steve lived next door to Mike (both were upstairs units). I found out later that Steve's parents were "swingers." My parents weren't interested, but Mike's parents sometimes "swung" as well. I didn't care. We were just kids having fun.
Because of the swimming pool in our building, we did get to know most everyone. In the front building was a woman and her 18 year old son. The son was great with us kids and helped us learn to swim better. This guys older brother was a Hollywood actor who was in a popular tv show of the time. I met the actor one time and he gave me an autographed photo. I liked his brother better.
Mostly the kids in the area were good. There was one exception. There was a small street that ran down a small hill from our place. There was a family that lived at the bottom of the hill that my father was very clear about. They were bad news! And it was true. The boy that was my age tried to get the other kids in our complex to do stuff with him and was always mean to any girls. If that kid showed up, I left. It was a big family. It seemed as if the boys eventually went to prison and the girls either become welfare mothers or worse. I am glad to report that there was a happy ending for that family. One of the middle boys became a Christian while in prison and once out became a pastor. All that family changed for the better.
During warmer weather a lot of the complex tenants hung out by the pool. The landlord had put in a barbeque and a lot of impromptu parties sprang up. Most of the time we lived there there seemed to be compatible people living in the complex. The parents were careful to make sure we kids didn't see anything we weren't supposed to, but we all seemed to have fun. My parents original group of friends had mostly fallen apart, so they were glad to make new friends to have fun with. Especially since it didn't mean driving long distances, which was mostly what had happened with Dad's old service buddies.
One of the things I learned about apartment living was that the people are always changing. Mike and his family moved to a house. Steve's parents got a divorce and he ended up elsewhere with his mom. Another kid (living with just his mom) was spending too much time with the kids down the hill, so his mom shipped him off to a military academy. And so it went.
I think it was just before I hit my teens my dad's mother died. Cancer. Grandma's 3rd husband was an alcoholic and he vanished just after the funeral. The property was in Grandma's name, so it went to my dad. So suddenly we became the owners of the two houses I had first lived in - on Prospect Avenue. That area, like our own, was in process of changing from single residences to apartments. Grandma's property was too narrow to sell for apartments, so we had to wait for one of the neighbors to sell with us. That took a few years.
In many ways it was odd to own those houses. I had memories of living in both places. Luckily we were able to rent the back, little house somewhat quickly. That lovely single, older woman stayed there until we finally sold the place. The front house was much more problematic. We would do our best to get good tenants, but somehow, every time stuff would happen. I think my dad was a sucker for single women needing a place. We'd rent the place to her and her kids, then either her ex would move back in, or she'd have some new guy move in. Sometimes my dad had to deal with abusive and violent men. Luckily he had friends on the local police force. But the result was always the same. After only a few years (or even months some times) the family would move out, leaving horrible, horrible messes behind. My parents wouldn't even let me come over to help, sometimes, until the worst of it was dealt with. I don't know how many times I painted (the areas I could reach) the bedrooms, the kitchen, etc. Or I'd have to weed outside. Bleh! Finally we'd get it cleaned up enough to rent and we wouldn't have to do it again. For a while. Cured me of ever wanting to be a landlord!
It was at some point during this period that we moved. I was older and no longer needed the back yard to play in. Plus I think the other Apartment was cheaper. So we moved to the apartment in our building that was over the garage, Apartment E. I'd never lived upstairs before. And having an apartment over the garage meant we didn't have the noises of others above or below us. I think that may have been the deciding factor in the move. My parents put in a window air conditioner (originally from my Grandmother's place) in their room, and we were set. I spent all my high school years in that place. My rooms walls were full of posters and pictures.
By the time we moved upstairs there weren't as many kids my age in the complex. I did have a friend and her family move in downstairs, which was cool. That is, until her mom decided to move all them back to her native Australia. We were pen pals for a number of years, but her life took some odd turns and we didn't really reconnect until she moved back to the U.S. years later.
There was one memorable event that happened when I was living in Apt. E. February of my senior year of high school there was a major earthquake that happened around 6 a.m. It was around 7.0 on the Richter scale. It hit about the time I was supposed to be getting up. I remember hanging onto my bed wondering if I was going to end up on top of someone's radiator? I didn't, but there were some pretty good new cracks in the wall. Going to high school that day was a very eerie sensation. We had a minor after shock and people started screaming. I'm so a Californian. I thought the people were foolish for screaming. One thing I didn't know until later was that when my dad left us to go check on our business he also drove over to check on his girlfriend. I wondered at the time what took him so long. He had a very lame excuse.
My parents marriage ended while we were living in Apartment E. I'll write about that later and about my first living experiences away from home.
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