Citrus College, 1975-1977

I mean if I had to find a photo of one of the spots of my old stomping grounds it would be this one. Citrus College parking lot. I loved my time here right out of the gate from Duarte High School. I showed up here and the first class that I really enjoyed was Business Law. I loved the textbook. I loved how it was written and how it read.  It was, in fact, one of the first things that I had read that I loved.  I mean I loved Jerry West's biography Zeek From Cabin Creek.  I loved the Hardy Boys series.  And though I didn't love The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe read in Mr. Carr's class, it did get me to think, and I liked that.  Next, it was John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.  And though I thought that his writing was beautiful, which it was, the story didn't really blow my hair back if you know what I mean.  But this shot of Citrus warms me to no end.  First, I will never forget the guys I met at Citrus.  There was a guy by the name of Dennis.  No, not Dennis the Menace.  This guy was a decent guy, a professional guy who helped me make my way through the scheduling and application process.  With a little help from my friends is such a great line and a true line.  This is how life works.  And in this sense, life can and does take care of itself.  Sort of . . . .  Sadly, I don't recall my teachers' names.  My Business Law professor, I liked a lot.  My American History class and teacher I liked a lot.  About that class, I will never forget an older couple, meaning older than 18, maybe in their early 30s, who came to class unshowered and smelly.  Their clothes were tattered.  But they showed up to history quite regularly.  And held meaningful classroom discussion with other students and the professor.  Looking back on it, those days were really interesting.  I'd had at least two English classes that I'd remember. 

In one, we were assigned Truman Capote's In Cold Blood.  No book ever or since has gripped me.  It scared me, to say the least. 

And when I saw the movie, In Cold Blood, with Robert Blake, the truth of the story only made me sick.  Perhaps the worst of it was due to the fact that I liked his character in Baretta.  Wikipedia remembers the details: 

Detective Anthony Vincenzo "Tony" Baretta is an unorthodox plainclothes cop (badge #609) with the 53rd precinct, who lives with Fred, his Triton sulphur-crested cockatoo, in apartment 2C at the run-down King Edward Hotel in an unnamed, fictional city. A master of disguise, Baretta wore many while performing his duties. When not working he usually wore a short-sleeve sweatshirt, casual slacks, a brown suede jacket, and a newsboy cap.

1960 Citrus College parking lot.

In one English class, the professor called the class illiterates.  Yeah, probably.  I remember telling Ann Douzadjian, co-owner with her husband Jack of Steamboat Fried Chicken in Duarte, that and she was appalled that a teacher would say such a thing.  Strange the details that we recall, eh?  There was a classmate who was complaining to me about his mother-in-law.  He was complaining because he was struggling with the decision to put her in a home, a convalescent home, an old-folks' home.  It shocked me.  I could never imagine anyone doing any such things to one's mother or mother-in-law.  

But just as interesting, if not more so, was the Citrus College cafeteria.  It was the first and only place I'd ever witness a young man have an epileptic seizure.  Not his most dignified moment, that's for sure.  But as school grew to become aimless, like every other school program, I began to spend more time in the Cafeteria in the morning hours where many of us would play pinball.  Yep, pinball.  Pinball and cards.  Hearts.  I'll never forget that it was the first time that I'd heard Neil Young's Heart of Gold play on the jukebox there.  

Paul Parker was there.  He was a fixture in my life since the 10th grade, since meeting him in the handball courts behind the boys' gym at Duarte High School.  

Though this is not by far the best picture of Paul, it is the only one I have.  Paul was and is one of the more talented men I knew.  In my mind, his dad was a sportsman's fisherman, who knew the spots, knew the bait, the set-up, simply knew the territory of any fishing spot on the planet.  That was one of my great pleasures fishing with Paul was to hear the stories he'd tell of him fishing with his dad as the two of us would be tunneling our way through thick brush then down the cliff of a mountain just to secure a lone spot on the shore of the San Gabriel Dam.  Paul was a dashing young man who won the eyes and the hearts of the ladies, but he was also a talented businessman, artist, and friend.  Will never forget his love for John Denver and how he used to play Mountain High in Colorado.  I'd listen to this with him in his room growing up as I'd eye his famous hat rack with headgear for every sport from red and black hunting caps to camouflage military styled hunting hats.  He was a man's man.  Was a privilege to have had those hours with him.  We went on a few great fishing trips as well--to the Sierras once with just me and him.  We went to Pleasant Valley Reservoir and fished the Owens feeding the reservoir from Bishop Power Plant in Birchim Canyon where Lower Rock Creek and the Owens River from the west side of the reservoir.  I took this shot while he and I were fishing on the San Gabriel River right where Highway 39 bends in the road there to head up into the canyon.  

So Paul wasn't just any friend.  He was a great friend.  I got to know his family.  Went on my very first double date with Paul with a couple of sisters, whom I thought were from Colombia but maybe from Brazil.  The gal I went out with was Rosemary.  Her perfume sent me.  Wow!  There was no other guy in Duarte whom I trusted more.  I do remember how he admired Gary Fenimore or Feniman, who lived down on Fish Canyon and had a pointing English Springer Spaniel.  Loved those days of Duarte, the days when you'd see two friends walking down toward the San Gabriel Valley Gun Club, where my two brothers Joe and Chuck worked for a spell.  Those were the days when kids would walk down the street with shotguns draped on their shoulders and no one hardly noticed other than to declare their intention for going shooting at the gun club.  Beautiful days those.  There was a section out at the Riverbed called the Bowl.  It was a loop carved out in the bambooed section of the Riverbed just north of Fish Canyon Drive.  Will never forget Dana Butters who owned a falcon or a hawk and celebrated and represented falconry quite well.  This was interesting.  Go about a third of the way down and you'll find this entry:

Dana Butters of Duarte received the Monrovia Rock Hounds Geology Scholarship.  

Of course, he did.  Mr. Butters was a true outdoorsman.  Then there was this 

Area students receive awards Dana Butters of Duarte and Christopher G. Johnson.  Laurie Valadez and Theodore Takao Inouye of Monrovia have received scholarships while attending Citrus College.  Miss Butters [clearly, that writer does not know Mr. Butters] received the Monrovia Rock Hounds Geology scholarship; Johnsons earned a grant to USC; Miss Valadez was awarded a scholarship to Cal State Northride and Inouye received a grant to 

Another guy who hung out with us, playing cards, was a guy by the name of Martinez.  I remember him because he didn't like me too much; in fact, he punched me in the chest one time, not hard, more to get me out of his way, before he stormed off.  He was losing in pinball and he was a terrible loser.  Besides being angry all the time, I do not know what he was good at.  

There was a gal who visited occasionally that I liked.  Her name was Dana.  One of the guys asked me which of the girls in the cafeteria I liked, and I pointed to Dana.  So sure enough one of the guys called her over from her table and the guys proceeded to tell her that this guy, meaning me, has a crush on her.  And it is true I did.  So some idiot asks her which of the guys here did she like, and she announced that it was Martinez, the sore loser.  It crushed me.  But only for a day.  There were other women who hung around us there.  

I didn't meet Scott Nelson from Ontario, Canada until much later.  But once I did, he and I used to hang around.  He with Jacques from The Netherlands.  Scott, in fact, played ping pong at our house in Duarte back in the late '70s.  There was an unforgettable moment when a bunch of us were out in my '70's, green VW Bug.  We had probably been drinking a few imported beer at Scott and Jacques' apartment in Azusa before we all piled into my Volkswagen and drove over to the bowling alley that used to be behind the Foothill Drive-In.  Will never forget that.  We may have been listening to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon 8-track, for I remember that Jacques loved that.  Here is the soundtrack list, tunes that today only bring me great regret.  The songs on the track that I liked were Time, Money,  

Pink Floyd tended to depress me.  But my Jethro Tull Aqualung 8-track was my one and true treasure for those days. 

These are the lyrics that served as an anthem to my youth. 

Sitting on a park bench
Eying little girls with bad intent
Snots running down his nose
Greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes, hey, Aqualung

Drying in the cold sun
Watching as the frilly panties run, hey, Aqualung
Feeling like a dead duck
Spitting out pieces of his broken luck, oh, Aqualung

Sun streaking cold, an old man wandering lonely
Taking time, the only way he knows
Leg hurting bad as he bends to pick a dog end
He goes down to a bog and warms his feet

Feeling alone, the army's up the road
Salvation a la mode and a cup of tea
Aqualung, my friend, don't you start away uneasy
You poor old sod, you see it's only me

Do you still remember
December's foggy freeze
When the ice that clings on to your beard
It was screaming agony

Hey and you snatch your rattling last breaths
With deep-sea diver sounds
And the flowers bloom like
Madness in the spring

Sun streaking cold, an old man wandering lonely
Taking time, the only way he knows
Leg hurting bad as he bends to pick a dog end
He goes down to a bog and warms his feet

Feeling alone, the army's up the road
Salvation a la mode and a cup of tea
Aqualung my friend don't you start away uneasy
You poor old sod, you see it's only me

Aqualung my friend don't you start away uneasy
You poor old sod, you see it's only me

Sitting on a park bench
Eying up little girls with bad intent
Snots running down his nose
Greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes, hey Aqualung

Drying in the cold sun
Watching as the frilly panties run, hey Aqualung
Feeling like a dead duck
Spitting out pieces of his broken luck, hey Aqualung

Oh Aqualung

I also liked Skating Away on the Thin Ice of the New Day.

And, of course, Fat Man was terrific.  Like I said, this 8-track greatly consoled me and my loneliness in those years wandering aimlessly from Citrus.     
And so it goes. 

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the sports that I played here.  Not for Citrus but with Duarte fellows.  We played Sunday football games in the stadium with Paul Parker.  

I used to run bleachers here with Al Madrigal.  We got in great shape for the local pick-up games in Irwindale, El Monte, and elsewhere.