TAR BALLS & POTATO BUGS

Over a glass of wine the other night my sister and I began to reminisce about the area in So. California we grew up in. As we talked we mentally toured a huge stretch of Pacific Coast Highway familiar to both of us.

Starting in Malibu, we traveled south down PCH testing our memories as we recited the names of each city along the coastline. Down through Santa Monica, Venice, Marina Del Ray, Playa Del Ray, El Segundo, and then our neighborhoods of Hermosa-Manhattan & Redondo Beach, and beyond as far as Orange County.

We talked about houses we lived in and streets we lived on as children, apartments we rented as adults, restaurants frequented, schools attended and what ever came to mind along the way.

It's funny, neither of us can remember what we had for breakfast on any given day, but we both seem to have total recall for that coastline as if it were yesterday.

These photos were taken at Hermosa Beach in July of 1955. I was 3 years old, there with my beautiful Mother and two sisters. We lived nearby on 8th Street, just a few blocks from that very spot which we walked to frequently for leisurely play in the sun.

I have vivid memories of coming home from the beach with a bathing suit full of sand and globs of black tar stuck to the bottoms of my feet. A common occurrence caused by deposits in the sand from an oil refinery in near by El Segundo. I wonder if that still happens today.

A few years later my parents built the house in this photo. Coincidentally on 8th Street too, but in Redondo Beach, not Hermosa. For our little family these were the best of times and the worst of times. I can remember when the back yard was being excavated to accommodate a swimming pool. For some reason my Mother let me play in that gigantic dirt hole where horny toads and potato bugs roamed free, to me they were fascinating.

Many years later, around 1992 I found myself near 8th Street in Redondo, so drove by to see if the house was still there. It certainly was, and with plenty of upgrades, but not so many that I didn't recognize the neighborhood. I stopped and took the next photo for comparison. Wow, someone has done a masterful job with the aesthetics. It's such a shame that during those years my Father became a philandering flake, bringing our family nucleus to it's knees and changing our lives forever. To try and imagine how differently life may have turned out for us boggles the mind, but of course, it is what it is.

My Sister and I have decided to plan a real trip to the area some time in the near future. Maybe make some new memories to associate with our long but not forgotten stomping grounds.

Our first stop will be a little further inland, near the race track at Hollywood Park where there is a resturaunt called the Cockatoo Inn. I'm not sure if it's still there, but for decades they had a famous recipe for marinated cracked crab on the menu. That recipe has eluded us for as long as we can remember. If anyone knows it, and is willing to share, we would do almost anything to find it again. Anyone?