My dad always wanted a desk like this.  I think they're called secretarial, roll-top desks.

Dad's 1962 Volkswagen Beetle

My dad owned a 1962 VW Beetle.  He bought it from a guy in Monterey Park, who lived on or near Bradshawe.

I post these pictures because the previous owner of the car lived right around the block from this famous waterfall landmark in Monterey Park.  The city calls it the Monterey Park Cascades Waterfall, what the LA Times called "a waterfall-like terrace of pools."  Okay.  

Here is a black and white photo of the cascade dated 1945.  Note the conspicuous absence of homes around the cascades.

The following are found on Yelp, and a few of these photos are quite good, stunning, in fact.  

When he drove it home, he told his sons not to sit in the back portion or luggage section of the interior.  Fine.  We didn't.  Not for a while.  But we were small enough to fit and so ultimately one of them tested it to my dad's annoyance.  But he got over it.  He loved his Volkswagen bug.  He called it his paramour. 

In retrospect, he loved that car.  He drove it to work every morning from the 210 Freeway west to Orange Grove and then wind his way behind the hills in El Sereno on the Pasadena Freeway, getting off Hill Street and into Downtown.   Here is what his '62 Bug looked like.  The pictures come from here.

I loved the narrow running board.

But perhaps more distinctive were the turn signal lights above the door.  The Beetle also had the turn signal lights above the headlights as well.  It's just that the ones above the door made it distinctive.  

And initially at least I loved the simple design of the interior. My dad loved cars and had a good sense of their design.  Check out the door pockets below the handles.  Pretty cool.  He kept a map there. And note how the dashboard is flat, vertically flat.  On it he pinned a crucifix, a medallion of the Virgin Mary, and the Holy Family and turned the dashboard of his "salon," as Volkswagen calls it, into a private chapel.  perhaps more distinctive were the turn signal lights above the door.  The Beetle also had the turn signal lights above the headlights as well.  It's just that the ones above the door made it distinctive.  Dad's Beetle was a hard-top and not a convertible.  And the color?  A baby blue. 

This is about how my sisters and mother dreamed.  We had a Singer sewing machine in our house, used mostly to repair things and for the girls to design things.  It was not a tool for men, especially with all of the girls in the house. 


Then there's this



Love this nostalgia.

Mom's Paintings

It must have been about 2007 when I told my mom that I wanted to buy and then frame a Gustav Klimt print, Sonja Knips, 1898, (see below), that she could put up in one of her rooms.  

Several years earlier, I bought my mom a Van Gogh print and asked Catherine if she would frame it for me and she was happy to.  The Van Gogh was titled "Orchard with Blossoming Apricot Trees," 1888.  Catherine framed it at Chato's Gallery in Pasadena.  I loved most things by Van Gogh back then. 

Brief background on this painting:

Between late March and early May of 1888, Vincent van Gogh created some 15 paintings (with 8 in existence today) of apricot, peach, pear, plum, and other types of orchards just outside Arles in the South of France.  In letters to his brother Theo, sister Wilhelmina, and artist Emile Bernard, Vincent provides us with a record of his progress. 

I have just finished a group of apricot trees in bloom in a little orchard of fresh green.

To Theo, March 25

My mother also loved the painting and particularly the framing.  She loved Catherine's work.  She hung the print up in her dining room opposite the back sliding glass door.  See here.  The slight glare is from the light coming in from the sliding glass door.

So it was in 2006 that I got her to sit down with me and shop online for another painting Catherine would frame that my mom would put up in her home. The price of the print was nominal, less than $20.  The real costs were in the framing and the frame that Catherine chose appreciated the value of the print in my mom's eyes immeasurably.  Catherine, my dearest of friends, framed it for her at her gallery up in Santa Cruz.  And Catherine was kind and generous enough to meet me in San Luis Obispo to hand-deliver it to me.  So I drove up to San Luis Obispo, met Catherine, had lunch and coffee, then walked around the neighborhood a spell. We stopped at the local library, one of many libraries around the country funded by the Carnegie Foundation. Here is a list of all the Carnegie Libraries in California.

It was from my own early experience that I decided there was no use to which money could be applied so productive . . . as the founding of a public library.  --Andrew Carnegie

It was here at this library with Catherine that I first learned of Andrew Carnegie's library legacy.  And within the next two years, I found myself at the Azusa Library behind its City Hall, and sure enough there contained in a little cut-out of the marble wall was a bust of Carnegie behind glass, paying tribute to his efforts and civic contributions.  The Azusa Library was built in 1959, but the original Carnegie Library in Azusa looked like this:

What life was like about when I was born.

“Labor, capital, and ability are a three-legged stool... They are equal members of the great triple alliance which moves the industrial world.”  --Andrew Carnegie

The painting I got for my mom was Gustav Klimt's Sonja Knips.  It is beautiful.  I had a copy of it hanging from my apartment wall.  I loved it so much that I thought I would share it with the kids at school.  The look, the alerted posture, the dark and light contrasts scared a few of the kids but ultimately they liked it.  

But my mother absolutely loved this painting, especially the frame. Catherine has an extraordinary grasp of design, shades, contours, themes, and more.  The color of the frame was similar in color to Sonja's hands and the lighter browns in her dress.  The frame's pattern was subdued curved lines.  And my mother loved it.  She would offer unsolicited praise for it almost every time I stopped over.  

After securing the beautifully framed painting, wrapped in protective framer's paper, in the trunk of my car, I got southbound on the 101 just before night fell.  The remaining sunlight mixed with layers of fog turned the sky into an abstract painting itself, weaving inland and over the hills from out over the Pacific.  I was 5 miles north of Santa Barbara when the engine on my burgundy 1998 Ford Contour died.  I pulled over to the side of the road only to see the implacable "Check Engine" light beaming back at me.  I called AAA, the Automobile Club of Southern California.  I could not figure out what was wrong with the engine, nor could the AAA tow driver.  He wanted to pull me into Santa Barbara but it was late, coming up on 9pm when most, if not all, shops were closed.  A gas station would not have a mechanic on site at this hour, so I asked the driver how much he would charge me to tow me home to San Gabriel.  "$300" was his answer.  I agreed.  I needed to get home and get to work.  Two hours later and a few moments of dreamland, I arrived home.  I had him drop the vehicle across the street at Richard's.  I paid him, went up to my apartment, and went to bed, content to be in my own bed and that I had that painting framed and packaged for Mom.   

Dad's Memorial Card, 1988

Dad's memorial card from Zook Mortuary.  

It's hard for me to look at this and see Kansas City, Missouri.  I get that that is where Dad was born, but that certainly is not his resting place.  I am not even sure that Dad is resting anywhere for that matter. No, he's in LA somewhere, somewhere downtown or near there, probably dropping in for an early morning mass or a late afternoon confession before going across the street to Olvera Street to grab a cheese enchilada, rice, and beans and a Coors.  

I really don't like this famous image of Christ.  When we were kids we were taught to revere, even worship Christ in all of his man-made forms.  Whether it was the suffering Christ on the cross in St. Joseph's chapel at Santa Teresita in Monrovia or a more artistic rendition of the crucifix at St. Frances [one of the Franciscan orders] of Rome Parish in Azusa. But it was this particular memorial card that disturbed me as a kid because the image is one of the sacrificial Christ, a sacrifice called for by his father. Never commenting on the art or the story behind the image, my dad exalted in his own heart the holiness of Christ's suffering.  

Speaking of the Old Mission, called La Placita, I could not help but post a few pics of it.  For it was a great place of comfort for my dad.  He came here first after stepping off a train from San Diego while on leave from the war.  He'd walk over to La Placita, find a quiet pew, kneel, and pray for those he loved and the ones he missed.  The prospects of seeing his mom and dad, his wife and baby girl lifted him.  The church consoled him.  Refreshed, he stepped out of La Placita and into the sunlight.  His prospects carried him across the street to Olvera Street where he got some Mexican food.  The War was over.  He could now begin to rebuild.  

Twenty years and 7 kids later, he returned to San Diego for weekend excursions, staying in the Padre Trail Inn where he returned to his poetry of composing striking post-card greetings in his signature all capital letters and commit to hours of interest devouring the craft of local writers from the San Diego Tribune.  He settled in.  A ribbon of smoke from his Tareyton, perched at the edge of a motel dresser, rose to the ceiling and the room absorbed it.  To fuel his chariot further, Dad nursed a beverage for inspiration. 

The image of the Tareytons made me think of Dad's coconut ashtray he'd brought back from the war. It had some names and dates scrolled on it in  yellow paint, but I was too young to register the names to memory before Mom tossed it. I am sure it had Majuro Island written on it somewhere.  I liked the ashtray because the fibers or hairs of the coconut were still on it, making it look like a fresh extraction from an island in the Pacific from a war only 20 years since its close.  It was a brilliant trophy to survival and how men made useful things from bad situations.  All was not lost. Oblivion and death do not hold sway over men's lives.  

The pack of cigarettes there at the right are 100's. Before he quit cold turkey, Dad almost always smoked Tareyton regulars and only rarely did he buy 100's when a liquor store was out of regulars. But I like the image of the worked pack, and that's why I posted it. 

He'd explore Presidio Park with his children and schedule a stop to the San Diego Zoo.  

And as the day came to a close, he'd take us out to dinner in Old Town San Diego at La Pinata with its colorful wicker seats and pinatas hanging from the ceiling. 

To digress even further, my last visit to San Diego with my dad came in 1982.  It was me, my dad, and Sally.  I drove my green, 1980 VW bug.  We stayed at many hotels over the years.  This time we stayed at Mission Valley Inn.  

And as Dad settled in to read the local journalists and write his memorable postcards, Sally and I drove down to the Old Town State Park bypassing our old, childhood haunts, Presidio Park, where we found a weekend festival with booths lining the periphery of the park. The city-given name of the park is Plaza de Las Armas.

And why wouldn't there be a festival?  It was after all Cinco de Mayo weekend, 1982.  We were there actually on May 1, a Saturday, and Cinco de Mayo fell on the following Wednesday. So that weekend there were lots of vendors that occupied the park. Wandering through the park and observing things and people, sliding through the hordes we found a vendor selling dollar-sized corn tortillas for $.25.  They served them fresh from the grill on a sheet of baking paper.  The tortillas were topped with butter and salsa. Uncomplicated. They were warm, salty, and divine. So we ordered more.

Afterward, we drove downtown looking for a movie theater.  The Walgenbachs were always the ones for the movies.  It was a tradition.  It was love. It was history.  It was a way to share the times of our parents, who loved the movies and legends of Hollywood. We found a film.  Blade Runner, starring Harrison Ford, aka, Hans Solo.  We didn't plan to see this movie, so when we arrived the line was wrapped around the block.  We got in line anyway.  We stood.  We waited. We sat.  On the sidewalk.  The official release date for Blade Runner wasn't until June 25, 1982. But we were in San Diego on May 1st.  So how did we see a movie prior to its official release? San Diego happened to have an early, special preview.  

A San Diego Sneak Preview shown only once in May 1982.^[4] This version is nearly identical to the 1982 US theatrical version, except that it included three additional scenes not shown before or since, including the Final Cut version (2007).

Call it luck.  The movie was long for me.  The visuals were stunning but haunted by a predacious search for replicants, beauties that needed to be eliminated.  The movie seemed to be a hard-boiled, noirish commentary on post-deconstruction, whatever that means.  Where has the time gone? Where are the people and actors of the era that anchored my identity and mojo? Where is Sean Young, Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and character actor M. Emmet Walsh, Daryl Hannah, James Hong, Brion James, Edward James Olmos, aka, "Jaime Escalante," and others?  I don't like the detachment or dispossession from life of those days.  I was still working nights at UPS in Baldwin Park and trying to make a go at selling Amway.  Mom was a good soul and a good sport in those days to buy a large tub of Amway's soap at wholesale from me. She actually liked the soap and said so, which worked to silence the criticism and suspicions from my siblings.  It was Bill and Darlene Hardister who were my Amway mentors.  Bill said he had given up his lucrative $70,000/year trucking job to sell Amway.  I loved Darlene.  She had an older daughter, quite attractive, from a previous marriage.  Wish I could remember her name.  The picture of Darlene below is one that in my mind captures her funny laugh, her energy, and joy.  She may not like the picture, but for me, it captures how much she loved to laugh and thought how so many things that people did in life were funny.  Life and people absolutely delighted her.  

Darlene Hardister.  Not sure of the year.  2005 maybe.

But to return to La Placita Plaza in downtown Los Angeles.  It is a beautiful, old little Spanish chapel. I love it.  I loved it because he loved it.  

For some excellent older shots of this little chapel and perhaps a glimpse of the world my dad inhabited, see these pics.

Even in the mornings before he'd go into work, he'd stop here for a 5:30 or 6am mass. He'd get on the Pasadena Freeway from the 210 and wind his way toward downtown. But instead of going directly to the courthouse, he'd stop here and pray for his Pa, Ma, and sister, Josephine.  Before ballgames, he'd stop here and run across the street for a Mexican dinner for he and his three youngest sons, and a beer for himself and sodas for the boys.

The interior was tiny but beautiful.  It was all aged gold.  I do remember thinking where do I fix my devotion since there was no large crucifix on the wall behind the altar as they have at Immaculate Conception or St. Joseph's Chapel at Santa Teresita Hospital in Monrovia.  Instead, this tiny La Placita chapel had only gilded framed paintings. Okay.  The chapel evoked a storied worship. But knowing how much comfort this place gave my dad means that this place still occupies a very dear corner of my heart. 

Elk in Estes Park, October 13, 2016

Mom and Dad on a rock in a river at Estes Park, Colorado, probably 1939 or 1940.  Amazing to think how these 2 individuals made everybody in the family more lovable.

We also stopped at Camp St. Malo.

Old Church Shops, Estes Park, CO