Chapter Thirty Family on Kenmore

Chapter Thirty
Family on Kenmore

We fixed up an alcove between the bedroom and the front room in our apartment on Kenmore in Hollywood for our soon to arrive son, Brad. We put planet and star decals that glowed in the dark on the ceiling of the alcove. At the time when Brad was born they allowed husband/fathers to be in the preparation room but not in the delivery room. So, I spent the traditional time in the waiting room. As I remember, Sue’s time in labor was of average length and delivery during the daytime on November 14th, 1967. He was born in Cedars Hospital in Hollywood. I don’t know if Brad’s birth had anything to do with it, but it wasn’t too long after that they closed the hospital. It’s now the Scientology headquarters in Hollywood. The Alenco Cranes & Windows film liaison who had become a friend sent us a Texas A&M t-shirt for Brad. We had some pictures of him proudly wearing his t-shirt.

Not too long after Brad was born my brother Gary came for a visit. By then his marriage with Pat had ended and Gary was looking to start a new path. We invited Karen, Sue’s neighbor friend to join us on some of activities. We hadn’t intended to be matchmakers, but they really hit it off. Gary decided to make the move to California and stayed with us for a while before he got his own place about four or five blocks away. While he was staying with us we played a lot of cards and Gary had a lot of little sayings he’d use while playing cards. One of them was “Up jumped Jonah!” whenever he’d play what he felt was a great card. So, Sue and I put together a little booklet with his different sayings.

The time line of some events becomes a little hazy in my memory, but I believe after Gary moved to California Dad made a trip to California for a visit. As I recall, Ginger and Gary’s five kids (Gary Lee, Brad, Becky, Mike and Cindy) came with Dad. Later Gary Lee (he just goes by Gary but he’s always been Gary Lee to me) moved to California. He met Nilda and they got married. I don’t remember how old my Brad was at the time of the wedding but he was their ring bearer. I think at the time Brad thought he was the “ring barrel”. Gary has stayed in the Southern California area. He has two sons and now has grand kids. Gary and Nilda live in Orange County near the beach I believe in the Mission Viejo area.

Gary and Karen got married and lived in the Palos Verde area for a couple of years and then they went their separate ways. Gary met Lynn in the apartment complex that he and Karen were living in and later after the divorce Gary and Lynn got married. They moved to a mobile home park in Camarillo. Jumping ahead a little back in Topeka Dad met Mary and they got married. They decided to move to California. Gary and Lynn helped them to get a place in the same mobile home park that they were in. They were only four or five homes apart.

Now jumping back a little; before Dad and Mary got married Ginger and Joe got married. I don’t remember if Joe was in the army when they got married or he joined after their marriage. He served as a medic in Viet Nam. After he got out of the army they moved to the Los Angeles area and so, after Dad and Mary moved here all my immediate family lived in Southern California. Ginger and Joe lived in the Santa Monica area I believe. Joe had a job at a hospital in that area and Ginger got on at CBS Television City in the Fairfax area. At one time Ginger had a tough job of monitoring the line feed of CBS shows originating in New York and being fed to LA for broadcast. She had to watch the shows. Sounds hard, right? Of course if something went wrong she had to alert the technicians. So, it was a pretty responsible job and she couldn’t go to sleep on the job.

I remember they had a pachinko machine which we had a lot of fun with. A pachinko machine is kind of an upright pinball machine. Small metal balls are shot up to the top to fall down through a series of pegs to end up in slots at the bottom with different score values. It’s a simple game but very additive. Also, we used to play “Simon” which was an early electronic game where you try to repeat a series of flashing colored lights. It would start with a simple pattern and progressively get harder. Again, it was very addictive.

Getting back to Sue, Brad and I, we lived on Kenmore for a year or two and then moved to Pasadena. We found a nice little duplex in back a house just East of Hill and South of Villa. I remember Brad had a tricycle which he was able to ride outside in the driveway, but I don’t know if he was old enough to remember that place or not. We really like the place and tried to fix it up a little. We had a painting party where we invited Gary, Karen and I think there was another couple but I don’t remember who to join us in painting a couple of rooms. We had a pretty good time and did a pretty good job on the rooms. Unfortunately we didn’t live there very long when the property was take by the government as public domain. They ended up building an access road which ran along the 210 freeway that they built. So we moved up to a nice two bedroom apartment on N. Allen above New York Dr. in Altadena. We lived next door to the landlord. They were a nice couple. We had some good memories there. Next chapter I cover more of our time on N. Allen.