Tag: memories

Earthquake Memories

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

As we all do what we can to aid the Haitians in recovery from their earthquake*, the Los Angeles Times reminds us that the 1994 Northridge Earthquake was 16 years ago today. Those of us in California (or who have lived in California) are familiar with earthquakes, as they are far too frequent out here. In my almost 50 years, I’ve been through three major Southern California earthquakes. Here are my memories:

  • 1971. In 1971, I was still living in the house on 80th Street in Playa Del Rey (of the folks reading this, probably only uisna remembers that house). My only memory of that quake, which occurred early in the morning on February 9, was that of my cat (probably Nelson) falling from my top bunk onto the window sill, and then onto my lap, and both of us looking quizically at each other.
  • 1987. When the Whittier Narrows quake hit, Mark Biggar, Larry Wall, and I were commuting to work at SDC, taking a route up the hills in Sherman Oaks because the 405 was bad. Suddenly, we noticed the cars around us bouncing, and realized there was an earthquake going on. When we got to work (by this time we were in the old 2400 building at 2400 Colorado in Santa Monica), we all had to wait outside while they inspected the building to make sure it was safe for us to go in.
  • 1994. When the Northridge Quake of 1994 hit, we were living in North Hills (nee Sepulveda). The quake woke us up, and shook loads of stuff out of closets and broke a bunch of stuff in the kitchen. I remember hunting around for shoes and flashlights to go inspect damage. We were lucky that day: our block walls remained standing (but you could shake them with your hands), and our only real damage was the water heater bouncing into the wall and returning to position. I remember our neighbor Charles going around the neighborhood turning off the gas… only to learn that the Gas Company didn’t want people doing that for then it meant loads of service calls to restore service. I remember my uncle Ron and cousin Jerry coming around the house (they lived in Northridge) to make sure we were safe. I also remember after a day or two coming into work in El Segundo, and having to fight to use the disaster time card code, because they had no damage in El Segundo (never mind that the mayor was telling us to be off the road — if it didn’t happen in the South Bay, it wasn’t important to the corporation). But our little 1957 wood-frame-on-foundation house held up pretty well.

    I remember other scenes of damage: the CSUN parking lot that collapse and turned into a perfect arch. The former CSUN dormatories, which remained vacant and empty and rotting for at least 8 years. The collapsed freeways: the portions of Route 118 near Woodley; I-10 near Fairfax; and the I-5/Route 14 transition, which always seems to fall down in earthquakes. The fires along Balboa Blvd. The numerous red-tagged office buildings (especially along Van Nuys Blvd and at the I-405/US 101 transition), which remained standing and rotting for years.

    I now live in a 1962 wood-frame-on-slab much much closer to the epicenter (I’m walking distance from the former Northridge Meadows Apts.), and I don’t think this house would weather a future earthquake better (although it’s been a few valley quakes). I’m still dealing with earthquake damage here: we have slabs of pool decking that are still settling, which I attribute to the earthquake, and we constantly get cracks in the plaster drywall.

People ask me how I can live through an earthquake. My usual flip response is that at least with an earthquake, you know where your stuff is. Perhaps because I am a Southern California native, they don’t phase me as much. Fires, especially house fires, bother me much more.

So what are your earthquake memories?

(*: This morning I’m writing my check to Doctors Without Borders, but there are many great aid organizations out there.)

Share

Remains of My Youth

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

As I sit here eating lunch, I’m thinking about a birthday party I went to last night. This party was for a friend who is simultaneously a new and an old friend. She’s an old friend in the sense that we were good friends when I was really young, until I was 11 or so. She’s a new friend in the sense that I moved away when we were 12 or so, we lost touch, and only reconnected in the last month or so. The reconnection got me thinking about what aspects of the younger me are still present in the current me. This isn’t as easy as it sounds, as I don’t have many memories of those years, and I think my current personality was much more formed during my high-school years.

So what is still present from my boyhood days?

Well, I was interested in highways even then, although it manifested itself in collecting maps from the local gas stations. I loved maps, and still do.

I was connected in a sense to Judaism and the Wilshire Blvd Temple Camps, having attended in 1969, 1970, and 1971. For me, that gave me more of a sense of my Jewish self than did attendance at religious school.

I remember an interest in science, although we didn’t have computers as we do today. I do remember a fascination with space. Related to that, I enjoyed reading, but wasn’t hooked on science fiction yet. That came later, thanks to Bill Layton at Pali Hi.

I didn’t have a large friends set. There was the girl whose party I attended, and about 3-4 other kids. Perhaps that is the normal friend set size, but I remember it being small. Of this group, the only one I had a desire to reconnect with was the one I reconnected with.

I recall enjoying swimming, although I swim a lot less today. I suspect that’s because of our pool, which is shedding fiberglass. Other than that, no real interest in sports, which remains true to this day.

I remember a burgeoning interest in folk music, mostly acquired from my brother. I still have some of my folk records (mostly PP&M) from that era.

Hmmm, I guess quite a bit of my personality was there. More than I thought. So what about you? How much of your personality from when you were 10ish remains part of you today?

Share

Musings on a Celebrity Death

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

As I reported yesterday, Mary Travers has died. Now, normally celebrity deaths don’t phase me. Michael Jackson. Puhleeze. But Mary Travers. That has, and she wasn’t even my favorite of the trio (I’m a Peter Yarrow fan).

My parents weren’t PP&M folks. In fact, I don’t recall them playing much music at home (it wasn’t until I was older that my dad got into Jolson, although he always had cast albums and Sinatra… he just didn’t play them). My brother, however, was into playing guitar (this was the 1960s), and he was into PP&M. As for me, I don’t have much memory of what music I was into during my elementary years. Personal music wasn’t as vital to elementary school kids in the early 1960s: full-on stereos were expensive, teen things, and your parents had the expensive hi-fis. Kids? We had AM radios, so I guess I was just listening to 93KHJ.

After my brother died in 1970, I inherited his records and stereo. It was then I discovered his PP&M collection, and they rapidly grew to be my favorites. All through Jr. High and High School, if you asked who my favorite band was, it was Peter, Paul, and Mary. While others got into disco, I was into folk music. Perhaps this is why I was never a dancer in high school. You can’t really dance to Peter, Paul and Mary. After their breakup, I focused on Peter Yarrow and collected his solo albums.

In college, I was still a PP&M fan, although gravitating to more original cast albums and other folk music. After PP&M got back together, I remember getting their new albums. I went to PP&M concerts whenever I could. I remember going with my girlfriend of the time to a PP&M concert at the Hollywood Bowl. I remember seeing PP&M with my wife at the Universal Amphitheatre and the Greek Theatre. I remember Noel Paul singing “Don’t Do ‘Da Dope”. I remember Mary talking about her Republican Son-In-Law, and how she would just agitate him. I remember Peter singing “Puff the Magic Dragon”, and Mary emphasizing “Blowin in the Wind”.

As Mary got sick, their concerts got less and less. I think they were last out in Los Angeles in 2006, but as the concert was in Orange County, we couldn’t make it. They were last in LA proper in 2003 or 2004. We saw folks like Tom Paxton more frequently, and learned about different avenues in folks (as well as getting into Swing via BBVD). But PP&M were always special.

So Mary’s death has taken away one piece of my childhood. Peter and Noel Paul will likely resume touring, probably with some guest artists (as they did with Tom Paxton). The songs will be familiar, but one voice will be missing. I hope Mary’s spirit lives on, and that we will always remember that insatiable urging for justice and doing the right thing for all people that PP&M sang about, even for the people that don’t have the voice to always be heard. In Mary’s memory, I listened to all PP&M and Mary’s Solo albums (I have 3 of 5) all day.

Share

Photo Album Update

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Work on the photo albums continues. I’m just about done with 1989, which brings me closer to the end of this phase of the project. My dad remarried in late 1991 after my mother died (she died in August 1990), and so I’m not going to do condensing for albums with my dad and Rae (as Rae is still alive). Instead, I’ll see about getting the later albums to Rae. Still, there are a few good things coming up in the albums to do, including my 30th birthday party. In terms of compression ratio, I’m on album 98 or 99, and I’ve completed 18 condensed albums (plus there will be one for undated portraits and stuff).

All in all, it has been an interesting process: In doing this, I’ve seen my parents marriage through the eyes of an adult, not the child I was at the time. I’ve seen it from its starting days through to its end. I know the remaining albums have the hard part: my mother’s cancer, and her descent and spiral as a result. But its a life — it can’t be changed, it can only be observed and remembered.

After I finish this phase comes the next one: going through all the pictures I took out of my photo albums for Erin’s Bat Mitzvah photo-DVD back in 2007… and filing them back into the right albums. That will be a different type of chore.

There is one side benefit to this: the guest room is starting to look inhabitable again.

Share

Fathers and Photographs

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

My father died in 2004 (story at grandpa_a). One of the various collections I inherited* was his collection of photo albums… at least 200 of them. Although my dad had lots of cameras, he wasn’t the best of photographers. There were a fair amount of blurry pictures, which he would dutifully put in albums. He would also go on lots of accounting seminar trips with my mom, and take loads of pictures of scenery and random people (I have a picture from 1977 in front of me labeled “George. George’s Wife” — I have no idea who George is). There are also a fair number of pictures of clients and people who may have been dear to my parents, but whom have no meaning to me. So I’ve been going through these pictures and condensing the albums. I’ve been tossing pictures that have faded beyond visibility (old color film does this when stored in a garage). I’ve been tossing scenery without meaning. I’ve been tossing pictures of people I don’t know. So far, I’ve condensed 48 albums into 7½ albums, and I’m up to the beginning of 1978. I’m sure things will go even faster after I move out of the house in 1979.

In doing this process, I’ve learned quite a bit about photos and building photo albums. I’ve realized that the albums I’ve assessmbled of my family probably suffer the same problem as my dad’s did. Here’s what I’ve learned; perhaps you will find this advice useful:

  • Photo albums serve two audiences: those who were present at the event, and those far in the future. These are distinctly different. My father used the albums to remind him of where he had been and the good times. After he died, those memories went with him. The albums now serve to remind me of the people, and less the places. So I’m focusing on keeping the pictures with people I know. This leads to Lesson #1: Put people in your pictures. Pictures of just scenery age fast, and are meaningful only to those who were there with you. Having people in your pictures, especially family or extended family, make the pictures meaningful and root them.
  • Memories fade. There are loads of pictures in people I don’t recognize, and good number that I do. It really helps me when the pictures are labeled with date and time. Lesson #2: Label the people in your pictures. Now, these are old film prints, so we can label with a pen. For digital pictures, use the metadata.
  • I’m dealing with physical albums. There are loads of blurry pictures, pictures of random strangers, bad angles, bad composition. My dad just put them in the album. I’m sure it would have been even worse if he had gotten into the digital era. Lesson #3: Weed Before, and Weed Again. When you assemble your album, weed the pictures down to the meaningful. Yes, there will be more weeding to do as the years go on, but why keep the drek now?

After my dad died in 2004, I just stopped taking pictures. I don’t know whether it was my film camera dying. I don’t know if it was my workplace getting rid of the convenient developing service. I don’t know if it was never having a decent digital camera, or a printer for what few photos I took (or finding it much harder to keep digital photos organized than my printed film images). Just recently I’ve begun to think about taking pictures again, but I want to go out and get a decent digital camera setup. I’m sure the 15 or so film cameras I inherited from my dad** are less than useful these days, and my old Canon is dying.

A side note: This process of going through the pictures, especially the pictures of my youth and Jr. and Sr. high school days, has really been bringing back memories. I’ve been exploiting Facebook to reconnect with folks I haven’t spoken to in years (welcome to those reading this), and it is wonderful to reestablish long-lost friendships from that part of my life. I’ve gone to the paid level at Classmates for a year, and I’ll see if that permits me to find more folks to reconnect with. Finding old friends: That’s been an unanticipated side benefit of this process, and perhaps the real gift of this inheritance.

* I also have collections of First Day Covers and Autographs. I’d welcome help on figuring out what to do with those.
** Yes, I need help figuring out what to do with these as well.

Share

What’s Goin’ On

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Not much in the way of news chum today, so I guess I’ll have to report on life…

I’ve begun the process of condensing my father’s photo albums. This means going through the 200-so albums he had, and only keeping the pictures with people that I know in them and that are in focus. So far, I’ve condensed about 38 albums into 6, covering the period from around 1944 through 1975. While doing so, I’ve uncovered a bunch of pictures that are reminding me of my Jr. and Sr. High School days, and of people I’ve lost touch with. I’ve looked a few of them up on the interwebs and found them. For some reason, a lot of folks my age aren’t on Facebook :-). I plan to look up a few more. I’m always amazed where people end up. Still others, however, I can’t find easily. Perhaps that’s a message from nature :-). It is reminding me, though, of how badly I dressed in the early 1970s, and how I wasn’t the party (or even the heavily social) animal.

My daughter is now in high school. She’s a hostess type (meaning she likes being the party host: bringing fudge, food, etc.). We have a pool. Combine these facts, stir, and what conclusion do you get. That’s right. Monday: out to dinner with tech crew. Tuesday, tech crew over to our house to swim. Tonight, they are coming over after the mall. Now, these are good teenagers, and it does mean I know where she is…. but I think this is going take some getting used to.

On tap for tonight: more photo albums (I’ve only got 3 binders before I have to order more). Next up: 1975 moving into 1976, and coming up on my high school graduation. I’m sure once I move out of the house the albums will condense even faster. I feel like a backup compression program: some go fast, some go slow….

Share

Remembering the Technology

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Seen via Slashdot: The BBC asked a 13 year old to give up his iPod for a week and use a Walkman instead. Here are some of his reactions:

“So it’s not exactly the most aesthetically pleasing choice of music player. If I was browsing in a shop maybe I would have chosen something else.”

“It comes with a handy belt clip screwed on to the back, yet the weight of the unit is enough to haul down a low-slung pair of combats.”

“It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser…”

“But I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down “rewind” and releasing it randomly – effective, if a little laboured.”

“To make the music play, you push the large play button. It engages with a satisfying clunk, unlike the finger tip tap for the iPod.”

“The tapes which I had could only hold around 12 tracks each, a fraction of the capacity of the smallest iPod.”

“The Walkman actually has two headphone sockets, labelled A and B, meaning the little music that I have, I can share with friends. To plug two pairs of headphones in to an iPod, you have to buy a special adapter.”

Ah, the memories. I remember my first car sound system: a portable cassette player (a Zenith or a Craig) that I sat on the seat, and connected via an audio in to something that bypassed the radio speakers. My ham radio friend build me the car power adapter, which attached with a heat sink and magnet under the dash.

Share

Fast-Food Joints of Your Youth

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

The LA Times Daily Dish blog has just reported the closing of the original Pioneer Chicken in Echo Park. I remember Pioneer Chicken: there used to be one on Western that I would pass every time I drove to Wilshire Blvd Temple. Thinking about that made me think of other possibly-defunct fast-food joints of my youth: the All-American Burgers in Westwood and West Los Angeles (at Barrington and San Vicente); the Pup N’ Taco on Western and Sixth (and the Piece O’ Pizza across the street).

Ah, the memories.

Ah, the indigestion.

Share