I Do Love These

Dad reflexes 😮#HappyFathersDay pic.twitter.com/rwsqH5ZifG

— Steve Stewart-Williams (@SteveStuWill) June 20, 2021

Dad's Marine Days: 735th Marine Platoon, Marshall Islands, 1943

On November 11, 2020, Veteran's Day, or the preferred, Armistice Day, Joe posted some great pictures of Dad from his tour in the Marshall Islands during WWII.  Dad was drafted in 1943, shortly after his baby daughter, Charlen, was born.  I am sure that mixed feeling consumed him a bit, going off to a foreign land with a bunch of other young men from around the country.  As a headline to these photos, Joe wrote, 

Happy Veteran's Day . . . . WW2 Marshall Islands 735th Platoon. My dad's Marine service pics.

https://walgenbachpics.blogspot.com/search?q=marshall+islands

July 4th, 1985

For the 4th of July weekend, 1985, I drove with Carmela, her boyfriend, Kathy Braidhill, and a couple of other folks from Arcadia down Interstate 5 through San Diego, across the border, past Rosarito Beach, and into Ensenada where our hotel was.  We parked, unloaded our bags, got refreshed, and went out for dinner.  We ate shrimp and lobster, Carmela's anticipated meal along a coastal dining hall.  After dinner, we walked out onto the beach.  Remember, the 4th of July is no Mexican holiday.  So it was only us a few other Americans southside lighting off fireworks on the beach.  A Mexican soldier was patrolling the beach, checking on just such incidents to keep the celebrations of Americans down to a minimum.  But the 

Papa's and Beer was famous back in the 1980s for a wild place to drink.  They have restaurants all over, but one in Rosarito Beach and one in Ensenada.  I visited the one in Ensenada.  I finally made it down there, not to drink per se, but to just see the place and wonder what all the buzz was about.  It was mainly about and for drinkers.  It didn't interest me, but I was glad that I made it there.  

Thirty years later, it still looks the same.  

That certainly was not the main attraction of that vacation, not by a damn sight.  For me, it was the return trip north out of party-central Ensenada to a gorgeous cliffside restaurant and bar.  It may have been in Azul Punto or Blue Point.  What was beautiful about that place was that we had dinner on a cliffside deck built out of the rock, about three tiers of cliffs below the main floor and banquet room above.  The six of us sat at a redwood bench overlooking the Pacific Ocean.  It was late afternoon, and we had a 180° view of the ocean from 4pm to 7pm.  Upstairs indoors they had a DJ and a dance floor.  It was the ideal hangout for 20-something Americans.  The dance hall had French doors wide open and a few sheer white curtains on the doors that caught the breeze and made the setting enchanting. For a young man, it was luxurious.  First, we had a pitcher of margaritas between the 6 of us.  Then tacos and nachos flowed.  Then we saw a pod of whales with many blowing a water spout.  The view of the ocean seemed magazine-like as the sun began to drop over the horizon with the margaritas taking effect and casting tranquility over the scene as the whales headed north up the coast.  It was too good.  And one song Kathy and I danced to upstairs was Julian Lennon's, "Too Late to Say Goodbye," (1985).  I didn't think much of the song when I heard it on the radio while driving to work or on the way home, but in that restaurant, in her presence, the song ignited a violent war between the promise of pleasure and desertion.  The wind, my movement on the dance floor, my movement to the song, and my basking in the airy elevated room helped me to forget momentarily the desertion that seemed inescapable.

Go West, Young Man, Go West. So He Did--From Missouri to Denver to Los Angeles

POP'S ADDRESSES

The following is a list of cities and towns where my dad lived growing up.  All of the indented sentences and paragraphs are his words.

MT. WASHINGTON, MISSOURI 

Mt. Washington, Missouri is a few miles east of Kansas City, Missouri.  Here is what their Union Station looked like in 1914, the year my dad was born.

 Union Station, Kansas City, Missouri, 1914

Birth:  County of Jackson, the township of Blue, Village of Mt. Washington, Missouri on October 7, 1914. with the name of William J. Walgenbach.  We lived on C Street, three blocks from this depot.  

Well, I couldn't find any C Street in the village of Mt. Washington.  The only prominent structure in Mt. Washington seems to be the Mt. Washington Cemetery, and that was built in 1900, a full 14 years before my dad was born.  So he lived somewhere near there; just that I can't find a C Street in Mt. Washington.   

PUEBLO & DENVER, COLORADO 

1915, we moved to Pueblo, Colorado.  

1919, we ventured to Denver.  Our first home in Denver was somewhere in North Denver on Alcott Street, near Elitch Gardens.  The site is now the home of the Denver Broncos, a football team.

Okay, so Elitch Gardens is down at the intersection of Speer Blvd. and I25.  Speer and Alcott is only a mile or so from Elitch Gardens, so Dad is correct that his home was "near Elitch Gardens."  When he states that "the site is now the home of the Denver Broncos," he's right again.  Alcott Street, if it were to continue, would head directly through the center of Mile High Stadium, where the Denver Broncos play each fall and winter.  

Then we lived on 12th and Curtis in an apartment for a while. 

Okay, first, these coordinates are not specific.  He doesn't specify whether 12th is 12th Avenue or 12th Street.  But since Curtis Street does not continue south of Colfax, we can assume that the coordinates are 12th Street and Curtis Street, but that doesn't work either since Curtis Street basically ends a couple of blocks north of 12th Avenue at Cherry Creek that runs through Denver.  Curtis literally ends just north of Denver's Performing Arts Complex.  

From Curtis Street's cramped quarters, we went three blocks to 1315 W. 14th Avenue.  

That would be 3 blocks south.  

We moved to 2707 Arapahoe Street.  We had an old 1919 Overland and drove it to Orchard, about 20 miles from Denver to visit my Aunt May and Uncle Charlie.  

That's interesting.  Looks like Dad lived in the Five Points neighborhood, about 8 blocks northeast of Mile High Stadium where the Colorado Rockies play baseball.  

Here's what a 1919 Overland looks like

Regarding Orchard being 20 miles from Denver, I cannot find that.  Orchard is a town near Ft. Morgan, which is 69.1 miles northeast of Denver.  

 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

We arrived in Los Angeles, CA on March 18, 1925.  My dad slept all night at the Lark Theater on Main Street near 7th Street to save the rent money.  He took us to the Bear Cafe where we had breakfast then to 555 S. Crocker, where we lived in a one-bedroom apartment.  

Grand Central Market at 3rd and Broadway

Good Fellows Grotto on Main near 3rd Street, located at 341 S. Main Street.

A brief note on the Good Fellows Grotto

Until it closed on New Year's Eve in 1953, Goodfellows Grotto, 341 S. Main St., was the oldest continuously operating restaurant in the city. Founded in 1905 by Matteo Dujmovich, Lucky Baldwin's cook, Goodfellows was in the heart of what was once the theater district, near the Orpheum, Belasco and Adolphus and two blocks from the opera house.

Sarah Bernhardt was a patron, as were Clark Gable, Adolphe Menjou and Edward G. Robinson. Over the years, Goodfellows served every mayor and police chief of Los Angeles, every governor of California and countless attorneys and executives. 

I liked this: 

Peterman's Restaurant on the corner of 3rd and Main.  

Lyceum Theatre on 2nd and Spring Street for movies. 

House where I lived on 601 E. 22nd Street, Los Angeles.

440 Annandale Blvd. (now Figueroa) new bungalow with one bedroom--loved it--there was Hill on Roy Street off of Annandale--was perfect for rollerskating.  

1440 1/2 Toberman Flat Apartment, neat and clean.  

around the corner on Pico Blvd. was movie [theater]--saw many silent pix there.  

859 S. Wall Street--a 3rd-floor tenement community bath and toilet--one bedroom--however, this abode held much joy and happiness--had a newspaper corner on 8th and Maple Street.   

to be continued . . . 

 

Barbara Ann Day-Old Bakery

 It is not easy finding remnants of old buildings, buildings, structures of Los Angeles that I used to visit as a kid.  A case in point is the old Barbara Ann day-old bakery located just off the Pasadena Freeway.  I kept thinking that the bakery was located just off of Figueroa, but it was actually located on Pasadena Avenue at 3545 Pasadena Avenue.  It was such a familiar site for us since we passed the bakery any time we'd go into Downtown Los Angeles on our way to a Dodger game or to my dad's courthouse or the Police Academy.  

 

This site, AngelFire, lists businesses, restaurants, places that used to exist in Southern California, titled "Things Which Aren't Here Anymore."  Sad but great title.  

Hopscotch, 1980

The other night I watched this movie, Hopscotch, 1980, starring Walter Matthau, Glenda Jackson, Ned Beatty, and Sam Waterston, but there are other recognizable characters in the film, like Herbert Lom, .  I loved it.  It opens in Munich in the heart of Oktoberfest.  The plot  

I initially linked to Wikipedia's summary of the plot, but after a brief search, I found Roger Ebert's review (of Gene Siskel & Roger Ebert's fame, "At the Movies"), which I think is much better.  

They, on the other hand, want to kill him. They are the CIA. Matthau plays a veteran field operative who breaks up a Soviet operation in Munich but fails to arrest the head of the KGB when he has him in the palm of his hand. Matthau's called back to Washington, where a new man (Ned Beatty) has taken over control of the department. Beatty is a veteran of the CIA's clandestine "dirty tricks" operation, and the movie hints that he was the guy behind sending the poisoned cigars to Castro, among other dumb stunts.

Anyway, Beatty yanks Matthau out of the field and assigns him to the filing department. Matthau doesn't like that. He destroys his own files, walks out of the agency, flies to Austria, and deliberately leads the CIA to believe that he has decided to cooperate with the Soviets. Then he has a rendezvous with an old love (Glenda Jackson), holes up in her chateau, and starts writing his memoirs. They include detailed revelations about CIA activities, and he mails each chapter to the world's leading spy agencies.

Gary Arnold of the Washington Post doesn't do a terrible job either.  

But what I loved about the movie was the luxurious pacing, colors, music, and settings for all the different scenes, starting with the Oktoberfest scene in Munich.  It was absolutely luxurious by today's standards.  I mean it would be a great film for anyone who has never been to Munich's Oktoberfest to actually see what one looks like and the kinds of activities done there besides consuming beer.  I loved it.   

 

From Mirage (1965) to Nanny and the Professor (1970)

Following the movie, Father Was A Fullback, 1949, starring Fred McMurray and Maureen O’Hara, the 1965 movie, Mirage, came on.  I’d never seen it before.  And what struck me were the number of stars from that era, starting with Gregory Peck, Diane Baker, with music by Qunicy Jones, Michael Jackson’s old producer.  I was delighted to see Walter Matthau.  God, I loved watching him on the screen growing up co-starring with Jack Lemon.  And there was George Kennedy, playing a hitman, maybe the best role I’d ever seen him in.  He’s a big boy.  

The editing of the film was interesting, the flashbacks that made up Peck's fragmented memory collecting in an effort to piece together a whole picture.  It was quite good.  Scenes from 1960s New York was also interesting for it still showed much of the midcentury architecture that made so many of the large cities of the U.S. interesting.   

At the 59:45 mark, Peck and Baker, running from a murder scene, find a child home alone waving the two of them into her apartment to abscond from the police.  That child actress is Eileen Baral, who co-starred in the 1970s sitcom, The Nanny and the Professor, which I watched and liked quite well as a kid and a show that I have completely forgotten about since until tonight after seeing her in Mirage with Gregory Peck. 

Wikipedia explains that 

The series starred Juliet Mills as Nanny Phoebe Figalilly, Richard Long as Professor Harold Everett, and in season 3 Elsa Lanchester in the recurring role of Aunt Henrietta. Figalilly was housekeeper for Professor Everett and nanny to his three children: Hal, the intellectual tinkerer, played by David Doremus; Butch, the middle child, played by Trent Lehman; and Prudence, the youngest, played by Kim Richards.^[2]

What I remember the most from that series was the little girl's name, Prudence.  But it looks like Eileen Baral played only a minor recurring role and not as a regular on the show.  Her character's name was Francine Fowler.