Old memories of a train set after Christmas Hello, When we had moved from our trailer to our first real home in the Westside of Long Beach, our dad bought an old Craftsman styled home. Those 1948 to 1953 times were really something in that old house. Since we did not want to accidently shoot out our mom's windows, luckily we had access to a huge open grassy field behind our multiple car garage. The BB rifles could shoot a far distance, but were safe for us growing up in that field. That garage was large, but the openings and access limited our dad to park his big Buick Sedans in the street. The Terminal Island Freeway was at the other side of the huge grass field. So, we could shoot to our heart's delight at anything and no one or thing would get hurt or damaged. Today, the whole block is gone. All of the homes disappeared as the local school district leveled everything and now it is an elementary school/middle school complex next to a school district maintenance yard. The odd ball thing was they selected our address for the elementary school 2335 Webster Avenue... Ha! One thing is that the Terminal Island Freeway is still a stone’s throw away… “Can’t go home again…” But, memories last forever… Our dad grew up fishing almost every day when he was little. Living in Terminal Island, going to elementary school there, crossing the channel in the LA harbor, while living in San Pedro, graduating from San Pedro H.S. made him a solid So Cal local. So, anything “fish” was in our house, garage and front/center in the first real house he bought for our family. Jnaki Upon entering that door behind my porch photo was the living room. It was a small house and the ling room was what we adapted to for a “large” room. Coming from a 25 foot trailer that had been our home from 46-48 was a whole new ballgame. Although if one walked across the living room, not only could you cover it in a few steps, but it was a part of the dining room leading to a small kitchen. “Open floor plan” would be the modern term to describe the living/dining room/kitchen. As the front door opened, to the right was a shiny stainless steel frame supporting a nice fish tank with all of the bubbling goodies, a fish tank could have. A similar stainless steel frame and glass fish tank. So, my brother and I were given the assignment to clean and feed the fish in the tank. But, the area in front of the fish tank was our primary indoor play area on the wooden floor/with rugs scattered about next to the sofa. Note: All through out our lives, from that old Craftsman house to the present, we never had a fish tank in our living room. Our toddler son had a goldfish bowl and that was the extent of our “fish” involvement. It may have come from the incident the day after Christmas one year. I was happily playing with a newly given Lionel Train Set for Christmas and of course, the best place to put the track was the place near the front door opening area. Now, when folks came to visit, once inside the door, was a fish tank on the wall and right in front was my train set. It gives me shivers to think back to the moment I was playing and on the floor was my new train set/track. Crawling around barefooted playing with the moving train and set. I did not notice the sharped edge stainless steel frame so near to me. But, I backed up and as I was trying to give myself more room, my heel went under the leading edge of the frame and sliced open my heel. There was blood all over the wooden floor and part of the rug. The flow of blood was horrendous and the pain was also noted with a large yell. Luckily, our dad was still home for the holidays and immediately took me to the nearby family doctor’s office. I got several large stitches and medicine for the next week or so. The best thing was the chocolate covered soft ice cream cone from Foster’s Freeze down the street. Ha! But, the pain and memory has stayed with me all throughout our lives. So, perhaps that is why we never had a fish tank, later on, in our lives to this day. But, the Christmas holidays + memories continue happily to this day... YRMV
The Jalopy Journal
