The Great Nora Pfaffle

Here is Dad, shirtless, displaying a pair of pruning shears as Nora works to transfer leaves to a second container.  Often we went over to Nora's house in Burbank to help her clean up her yard.  Here, Dad stopped for a minute to take a picture with Nora.  Note Nora's Falcon parked in her one-car garage.  Her house was at 1342 Alameda Avenue in Burbank.  

Nora Pfaffle (November 24, 1904 to December 1, 1982) was a friend of my dad's from work in LA County.  I don't know what she did for work, but in her retirement years she was awfully generous to me, Tom, Joe, and my dad.  She would take us out to breakfast, first to Bob's Big Boy, then to Van De Kamp's, then to Vern's.  After breakfast, we'd often go back to her house at 1342 Alameda Avenue in Glendale, CA.  As Tom, Joe, and I became of high-school age, we'd often walk over to Joaquin Miller Elementary School, the local elementary school, to play basketball on the asphalt courts.  We were never bored for a minute.

Nora is pictured above at the right with one hand holding the other in a polka dot dress.  My dad is pictured in the dark suit in the back row, third from left.  Conroy is to the right of him in the light suit.  I wished I had the year of this photo.  I am guessing 1960.

I want to tell a funny story.  My dad used to take us over to Nora's place in Burbank when me, Tom and Joe were in high school.  My dad and Nora had a falling out, and we went over to her house less.  But Nora remained in contact with me.  She would call and ask for me, inviting me over to go out and have breakfast with her.  Dad appreciated the fact that I kept in touch with her.  So did I for generosity toward the family grew more concentrated on me as I came closer to graduating high school.  In fact, Nora purchased for an aptitude test for me from the Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation in Los Angeles.  She spent $260 back in 1977--that is still a lot of money today--to help me figure out what to do with my life instead of withering away for years at manufacturing jobs.  I enjoyed those jobs--Colamco in San Dimas, UPS in Baldwin Park and on Olympic in Los Angeles, Steamboat Fried Chicken in Duarte; okay, the last one is not so much a manufacturing job.

 

The aptitude test concluded that I would be a good nurse.  Talk about disappointment!  I wanted to be a writer and expected the test to reveal and declare that.  It didn't.  The report said that my vocabulary wasn't up to par.  The news put me in an extended funk.  I accepted my fate of being a nurse sulkily.  It was 1977, a double-digit year filled with ominous wanderings, according to my dad who viewed double-digit years only as trouble.  His father died in 1966.  He went into the service in 1944.  But I digress.  Now for that funny story.  Nora took me out to breakfast at a place in Burbank called Vern's.  I liked that place.  The scrambled eggs were good.  We were eating our breakfast, and I don't remember what she said beforehand or why there was a protracted lull in our conversation, but several seconds passed before Nora erupted, "Why don't you go to school!"  I stopped mid-bite.  Food on a fork was suspended in front of my mouth as my eyes went around the restaurant, looking for spectators.  I am sure there were plenty, but I was in such shock that I could not see anything.  I sat there stunned, absorbing her love.  I will never forget that.  I will never forget you, Nora, a name I have adored since.  She was the one person in my life who took an interest in me and in my future.  No other person did or could.  I owe you a debt of eternal gratitude, Nora.  I never did thank you in a way that you would have liked.  I don't even know what you would have liked, except to see me go to and graduate from college.  Nora was great and generous in other ways.  She used to take me, Tom, and Joe, and on occasion Sally and Mary to the Pickwick Bowl, Pool, and Drive-In near the Pickwick Gardens in Burbank.  The place had a pool, an ice rink, a bowling alley, and video arcade.  After a heavy afternoon of physical entertainment, Nora would take us all out to eat at Genio's, where I would feel guilty ordering their delicious shrimp dinner and a Roy Rogers.  Want to re-live your memories of Burbank?  Here are the landmarks.  Nora used to take us to Marv's Toys and to the Talleyrand Restaurant, where I used to admire the murals of fox-hunting scenes on the walls.  It's sad that there are no online photos of Tallyrand's interior art. 

 

Nora had a couple of cats.  We always had dogs at home, so Nora taught me how to pet the cat and she would explain the meaning in the cat's movements.  She told me how to scratch the cat on its cheeks.  She had one cat whose cheeks were really fat from fighting with other cats.  Nora also had that terrific avocado grove in her backyard.  In front, Nora had a pomegranate tree, a bush really; the thing sprawled out instead of up.

Nora owned an old FordFalcon, metallic blue, with the transmission on the drive-shaft of the steering wheel. 

Nora's Falcon was blue, not white.  I didn't ride in it with her much, but when she drove she was focused.  No one was to get in her way.  Nora was incredibly thoughtful.  She had a comptometer machine in her dining room that she let me play with.  I think she loved Dole's pineapple juice, for she always had it on-hand when we came over.  And she'd ask me what I wanted--orange or pineapple juice. Pineapple!!  She liked me.  Nora viewed me as her son on some level, I am sure.  She had 2 bedrooms in her house, a living room, a dining room, kitchen, a pantry where she kept brown-paper bags stacked to the ceiling; where she also kept stacks of newspaper tied together with string.  I wish we had more pictures of Nora.  When I think of her I think of how she made me feel safe.  There was one incident at her house.  It was a Saturday afternoon.  A young couple next door was outside shouting at each other, cursing each other using profanity.  Safe inside her house, Nora explained to me that people use profanity because they don't have an extensive vocabulary and no other words to use.  That settled me.  It made me less afraid of profanity; it took the teeth right out of it.  Nora settled it for me, while affirming to me that you--as an educated boy--are better than that.  Few people could use an incident like that, shed some light on human behavior all the while elevating mine.  I love you, Nora.  No wonder when I'd meet women with your name I would feel love for them.  I told Nora that I was studying Spanish in high school.  She wanted to show me off to her neighbor so she took me over to her Spanish-speaking neighbor in whose kitchen we sat with coffee, and the woman asked me basic questions about where I lived, what my name was, and so forth.  It felt uncomfortable like I was performing.  Nora wanted to show me off.  She loved me as a son.  What a sweetheart.  Nora had old furniture in her house.  She had Fabrege Eggs on the mantle above her fireplace.  She also had a couple of dancing figurines atop the mantle.  She had a furnace, too. She had Audobon and Sunset magazines for us to read.

Audobon magazine made us put front and center all issues concerning animals and wildlife.  In fact, the great outdoors was the real landscape to be in.  Metropolitan centers?  Big cities?  Civilization?  Are you kidding?  These were precisely the places that were destroying life as we understood it.

Nora had a couple of cats.  We always had dogs at home, so Nora taught me how to pet the cat and she would explain the meaning in the cat's movements.  She told me how to scratch the cat on its cheeks.  She had one cat whose cheeks were really fat from fighting with other cats.  Nora also had that terrific avocado grove in her backyard.  In front, Nora had a pomegranate tree, a bush really; the thing sprawled out instead of up.

And then there was Sunset Magazine.  I loved that magazine.  What's not to love?  You always got the best pictures anywhere.  And you got to view terrific lands around the US, Canada, and Australia.