Sometimes I Miss California

My sisters are both in Texas now, but we all grew up in California.
This picture is in the late 50's in a house we rented. Our father was with us there, at least from time to time. The details are vague. He was a military man, so was off on detail here and there much of the time; but I believe he was taking the picture here. 

The "Stoop" we are all sitting on seemed like a mountain to us then. We would climb up on it and jump off thinking we were extremely brave and daring.

Last year, very close to this time, I went out to stay with my high school friend of over 40 years. We were hoping we had the where-with-all to start a business together.
I stayed in a little "shed" that her husband had built.

Little Red-Haired Girl and Stevie Weevie were there with me. Stevie was probably in the house on the bed in the room with the boy because she really liked him because he threw her ball for her, a lot. LRHG stayed close to me as usual. She doesn't care a thing about ball. Food, did you say FOOD!

At night, I would get on my computer and investigate things and watch Free Speech TV (dish 9415) or write on one of my blogs and send emails.

During the day, if my friend wasn't working, she and I would go out and look for buildings, talk to real estate agents and talk, talk, talk. Think, think, think. Figure, figure, figure. Her husband thought we were arguing. We knew better. After all, we have managed to survive forty something years as friends.

On the days that she worked, the Girls and I piled into the car and went all over together. They helped me look for buildings and kept my hopes and spirits up.

 

Saturdays, I went to the Farmer's Market with my friend. She set up her booth for Nouveau Wreath and I looked around to see what other vendors were up to; especially the sewing ladies.

We spent some time having fun too. We went to the beach and ate at the restaurant on the pier. We went to some of her favorite hot spots for businesses she like and thinks are good examples and models for our own ideas.

On the way home, the girls and I stopped at all my childhood haunts. 

I walked up and down the street up to my mother's old home and then up to the water station where neighborhood kids hung out and then came back again.
She rented the house on a big property that used to be a farm. The barns were rented by a local rancher and he housed some of his Mexican worker there in trailers here and there. They had farm animals too, way down on this end.

None of them spoke English, but we managed to communicate well enough.
Tony became a great friend, helping with this and that. He had a great garden of tomatoes and all kinds of things along this fence were once were also grape vines full of grapes.
Chickens ran the yard and they had a blue heeler, Bandit, who, very often wouldn't let me out of my car. I'd have to honk and get someone to help.

The horizontal window is above the kitchen sink. On days I went out because I was sad or there to help, I would go out and garden in the dirt under it. In those days, there were lots of plants there. The fence came all the way out to the road and there was a great deal of privacy. The new owners have taken everything out for convenience of maintenance, I suppose. But I would feel all better, digging in her dirt and knowing that she was up there in the kitchen cooking, probably a meatloaf, to make me happy.

On the days that my mother was sad, (she spent five years clinically depressed then miraculously popped out of it), I would often take her for a drive somewhere and we would stop and have a hamburger. She always wanted me to take her by "Comer Avenue", were she remembered as magical days; when my father was still around, and with all their little girls.
This is the same house as the beginning picture. I guess the stoops we jumped off of are now holding the roof of the patio up.
She would just want to drive by.
I guess I get that from her.
Sometimes I miss California.