Reviewing 1962...Pam is 3, Sandy is 10, Charlie is 8. Sandy is wearing the Arden Park swim team bathing suit, a navy blue speedo styled with a patch sewn on the front. I remember the silky feel of that suit. Unclear if Charlie is wearing an Arden Park swim suit. He's holding up the ribbon and shaking hands with me. I'm thinking that he has won the ribbon and I'm congratulating him. We were unlikely to have done it together and, no doubt, I would not have allowed him to hold the ribbon if I had won it. We are in the backyard of the Arden Park house. It was large with a patio with flower boxes at the top, then a swale with a flower garden in the swale, then a small fence and a wilder arid area in the very back with a swing set and a cotton willow tree that I loved to climb. Charlie did endless gold mining back there in the rocks. There was an 8 foot fence at the back then a wild area with a drainage ditch. You could go out the back gate and go the 'back way' to Arden Park which was actually very close that way. It was more exciting going the 'back way' with the weeds and the trash and that little creek.
Look at the brilliant flowers against the fence, there were many bushes, I remember them but the scale of the trees is still small, it's still quite a new development. I think that if you went by today, all of the trees would be so much bigger. Dennis and I did go by in 1995 but that was 12 years ago. Our impression that the Arden Park houses had aged very well, were very well cared for, had been expanded and were way out of our price range.
But back then, they were just the right level for young Aerojet engineers with wives that stayed home.
One of the strongest memories of California is the brilliant brilliant light. This slide is 45 years old but the light is very clear.
2 comments:
I remeber the yard being big but I have no memory of the wild place behind the fence or the short cut. Mom must have carried me because I think I would have remmbered a creek.
It was not a creek that you could play in. It was a drainage ditch of some sort. There was some kind of easement between the backyards of the house on the next street. We were never allowed to play back there. But it had a sense of wildness about it. Mostly trash and weeds. But interesting trash and weeds. Hard dirt and thistles and wheat-like dry plants. I thought it was rather magical because it was such a short cut, walk behind three houses and you were practically at the pool.
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