-MH
Wednesday, November 09, 2022
I Had a Fortress Once In Paradise
When my brother was five and I was seven my parents moved us to Paradise. We’d been living in the Los Angeles section known as Glendale. We lived at 521B Allen Avenue. (You never forget your address when you go off to school for the first time, do you?). It was a two-bedroom bungalow apartment. There was a driveway between the two parallel strips of postwar apartment units that opened in the back to a wide asphalt courtyard with a cement block fence at the rear and an incinerator up against that wall.
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Shoulda kept it. Worth a mil2 right now. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/521-Allen-Ave-Glendale-CA-91201/20824893_zpid/
ReplyDeleteI worked with a guy that was stationed in San Diego in the 80s. While there he bought 10 smallish properties for $30-40k each, and the renters covered the mortgage payments. He’d look at comps where each one is worth over $1M, and he was pulling in $25k in annual rent. I wish I was that smart when I was stationed in California.
DeleteCool story.
ReplyDeleteI liked the line " Not only that but it was before the time when children were trained to be fearful before they were toilet trained".
That was a great read.
ReplyDeleteMy kinda story! Thanks.
ReplyDeleteChutes Magoo
great story Thanks
ReplyDeleteA pleasure.
ReplyDeleteI always liked reading Van Der Leun. His mother was still in Paradise when it burned down. She escaped, house was destroyed
ReplyDeleteDaryl
His house burnt, lost everything. He moved in with his mother for a time afterwards.
DeleteActually HE was living in Paradise and got burnt out. His mother lived in Chico and he hung out with her a few weeks until he got an apartment.
DeleteLook her up - Lois Van der Leun. A great lady who lived to 104.
Everyone got burned out in the Paradise fire. Prior to that it really lived up to its name. I had friends there who got burned out. Fucking power company didn't maintain their lines.
DeleteOk, that's on me. I got some shit backwards.
DeleteDaryl
That was my California, also, in the '50s and '60s. Graduated, went in the Air Force in '69. It had already started changing when I got back in '73. After Reagan as Gov. it started going down fast.
ReplyDeleteTree Mike
I've read this before, but a great story.
ReplyDeleteSounds a lot like my childhood in Paradise, without the dynamite. The trails and the old mines were always fun. We became more weary though when we were about 300'back in an old mine and found a dead deer. Neck broken but not yet stiffened up. Told my friend that it didn't go in there and break its own neck. We got out of there before the Mountain Lion came back.
ReplyDelete