Family history living in South Pasadena
Spoiler Alert: photo is 5 years old; now I look like George Clooney (not).
I was the first and last in the family to be born while we lived on Arroyo Drive in South Pas (Queen of Angels) but my brother, sister and I loved our town and assumed we and our parents would live there forever but had to move to Monrovia/Bradbury in '54.
None of us moved back but I go often to Buster's for coffee or the public library our mother used to go to every week, or to visit friends or the Arroyo Seco where we played a lot, including watching a Post Office helicopter deliver mail down where the Pitch-and-Putt golf course is today. But the memories are still sharp--Dolly's Records, Unruh's Shoes, Fosselman's (sp?) soda fountain, the Mission Food Mart, the Popsicle plant on El Centro, Les Balk Hardware where I went often with my father and so on.
After the war (WWII, of course) my parents invited a Japanese-American family to live with us since no one would rent to them--even though the father Charlie was a decorated veteran of the Allied 442nd Regimental Combat Team while his wife and baby daughter had to live in a Internment Camp in Arizona. I've never been prouder of my parents, facing down outrage and threats to do the right thing.
Been in Sherman Oaks and Studio City 23 years, both my daughter and boys out in the world. Mixed feelings there, and strange to be living alone these days. Suggestions welcome--most of you are long past this juncture.
Missing the picnics at the park that we used to play in so long ago; I'm so glad it has survived and thrived along with so much of the South Pas I knew from day one--including many of you.
