2008 Day Seventy One

Another Monday under my belt. M is off on Mondays so it was nice to spend the afternoon together.

To continue the story:

I remember the weather when I was young. It seemed to be always nice. It was almost always in the 70's with soft bay breezes. Sometimes it would smell of the ocean and my Dad would always say, "The bay is in". At that time the San Francisco Bay came all the way up to Alviso and you could really smell it when the tide was in. Then we had the cannery smells. We had 3 canneries that ran most of the year. You always knew what season it was by what they were cooking. First it would be peaches and pears. The Libby plant made fruit cocktail and had a water tower that looked just like a can of cocktail. Then would come the smell of cooked tomatoes.

My Dad was a true lawn junkie. We had a big corner lot and he always kept our grass green and lush. I remember on summer days we would spend hours laying in the grass looking up at the clouds and making out the shapes of animals and mythical creatures. My Dad's garage was his special place. He had a big workbench and pegboard wall full of tools and "man" stuff. He also collected train signs which looked liked license plates for the different train lines. My Dad was always working on home improvement projects.

As a new family on a street of new houses we knew all our neighbors. Across the street were the Camachos who were from Guam. Mr Camacho worked as a chef at the Officer's Club at the Moffett Field naval base. They had lots of kids and were always having parties and BBQ's to celebrate birthdays, baptisims and first holy communions. At their parties we would dance to Chubby Checkers and Fats Domino doing the Twist and the Mashed Potatoes and all the crazy dances that were popular on American Bandstand. The kids my age were Kathy and Joey.

Two houses over were the Walkers. They were Mormon, married in the temple as their kids would always say. I had no clue what that mean't as a child. Mr. Walker worked for IBM. They kept building on to their home because they had 11 children. I was always amazed at their stockpile of canned foods in their garage. Their boy Nyman was my age. They could never play outside on some nights and never on Sunday because of their religion. But I do remember on each Halloween Mrs. Walker would make the best caramel popcorn balls.

I will have to continue more tomorrow, as I have run out of time tonight.