Norma Socorro Parker

Autumn, 2010.

This is the back door to the Parker home at 3234 Conata Street in Duarte.

Though the intention of this site was to capture exclusively Walgenbach moments, I could not help but include a few important friends of mine who were friendly with my family.  Norma Parker had become an endearing neighborhood friend to my mom and dad.  She would often stop over with food or gifts while my parents were alive.  She enjoyed my dad's wit and verbal intelligence.  She would pull her blue Chevy van up into our white concrete driveway, and my dad, during his retirement years, would come out to greet her wearing a white cowboy hat.  She was a friend to so many people in and around Duarte.  She became a great and adventurous friend to me.  I'd gone to Las Vegas with her at least twice.  Once with Norma, Antoinette and Chris, and one other time with Eric Bergquist, who won $1500 before breakfast, in a caravan with Norma, Antoinette, and Chris.  She loved claiming to younger kids in the neighborhood, "I am your second mother," and indeed through her cooking, through her visiting with you, buying you gifts, and inviting you to meet her family, she did love you, could love you like a second mother.  What a force for good in the world.  

April, 2012

My dad died on April 12, 1988.  Our family held a wake at Douglas & Zook in Monrovia.  The reception afterward was held at our home on Elda Street.  People showed up, a lot of people.  Food was purchased in advance for the reception, but it hadn't been plated and put out on the table for everyone to serve themselves and enjoy.  Food holds people over as they reminisced about our great dad.  Norma was there, she showed up.  As I mention below, she loved calling my dad "Cowboy." But what I will never forget about her is that she saw what was wrong, that the family was in a deep state of grief and and she went right to making things right for our guests on behalf of the Walgenbachs.  She saw all of the food packaged on the kitchen countertop and stepped right in and began plating the meats, cheeses, cutting up tomatoes, onions, and lettuce, setting out salads, chips, dip, pizza, and beverages.  Her energies were nothing short of heroic.  She performed on behalf of the family.  Her influence was nothing short of a legend and I will never forget the energy and good graces of this woman.  

Summer, 1997.

 

A personal hero.  Here is Norma at her home in Duarte, preparing a meal for her guest(s), me.

Norma gave me this coffee mug in the days when my dad was alive.  I at first thought that it was a cute novelty that would not last very long in our house.  This was back in the mid '80s.  Here we are on the last day of August 2013 and I still have it.  I took this picture because I want the memory of it, the record of it to show how much fun Mrs. Parker was and is.  The cup is pure Mrs. Parker, classy, festive stars, and the appreciation for the colorful life she had and how the time with her is like spending in vivid technicolor.  I miss you, Norma.  I should clear a few things up.  One, the Cowboy on the cup refers to my dad.  People will give cups that read "Greatest Teacher" or "Greatest Dad" that sort of thing.  Well, this cup reads "Cowboy."  When Norma would stop by our home in Duarte, my dad would often stride shirtless out to the driveway donning a white cowboy hat to greet Norma and Norma would laugh.  And there the two would tease each others.  So she started calling him Cowboy.  She loved dropping off gifts to friends. So she came over one day with this cup for me which was a reference to my dad.  When we were kids, my dad called us cowboys. Norma heard him use it a few times, so she called me "Cowboy" on a few occasions.  Hence, the cup.  

Norma was a great cook.  And she cooked for everyone.  Her enchiladas were terrific and praised by most who ate at her home, but I will never forget her amazing nacatamales.  I'd never heard of them before.  They were massive.  I thought that she was giving away the store given all of the ingredients in them.  Mexican tamales are quite small by comparison.  Nacatamales were a meal wrapped in banana leaves.  Norma is the only person who ever showed me what they were or even that they existed.  

Nacatamale.  One alone is a meal.

All the ingredients inside the tamale were so moist.  I couldn't believe it.  I have eaten dry tamales before.  Not fun.  All of that dry massa is not fun.  To this day, I don't know what made her nacatamales so moist.  Was it the oils or the combination of ingredients?  I don't know.  

Those tamales were a cornucopia of goodness.  Their contents were abundant, nothing like the Mexican tamales you get with a sliver of cheese and maybe a half jalapeno.  These tamales were made with love as she would love to say.  

One of Norma's favorite places to ear was the East Green Street Cafe when it was located on East Green Street.  For a few bucks, you got an enormous salad with almond slivers and Sesame seed dressing.  It was so good snd refreshing and came with zucchini bread that we both loved.  They called it the Diane Salad. Antoinette loved it too.  So did Roy.  So did my family.  

Another place she loved for celebrations was Shogun in Pasadena.  She loved the place.  She loved their steak and shrimp.  She loved their green tea iced cream.  I can't recall what she ordered to drink.  

She went to Hometown Buffet because it was cheap and an opportunity to be out with a friend.