The Neighbors on the Block

I figure I'll be mentioning neighbors quite a bit so today I'll lay out 'the block'. Mind you, our house was on the corner of 7th and Page so working my way down Page: empty lot for the longest time until a house was moved in. The Schwartzkof's (and that's if I'm even spelling their name right, as I have no one to ask to verify that) moved into that house shortly after and lived there through the 'big snow storm' of 1961 or thereabouts. Big snow storm to a small kid, but in reality, in a part of California that gets no snow, it was one of those 'once every 20 years' sort of storms that dropped *maybe* 2 inches on the ground. After the Schwartzkof's moved, the Reeves family moved in but that wasn't until I was in the 6th grade or thereabouts. Moving on, next to that house was the Lewis family, with Pammy and Maureen, two of the 'big kids' on the block. Then at the next corner were the Berta's, an older couple who had adult children. They were very nice people and I remember Ruth Berta was the school nurse back in the day. On Murietta Street, the Adrian's, Cindy and Debi, and next to them on the next corner was the Mastroangelo's house, Paula, one of the little kids. (We would torture these little ones by saying things like 'meet you at the ____ ' and then never show up.) Now we're heading back towards 7th on Monroe Ave. and there are two houses with elderly folks in them that I never knew who they were, no kids=no interest in my book. At the corner was another Lewis family. I just can't remember the names of the older boys, I just remember Paul as he was closet in age to me and my gang. Heading back towards our house next to them were the Rooney's. They had two boys, Tommy and I believe Mike was the oldest one. Again, these older kids were off my radar. At some point in time when I was around seven or eight they adopted a young boy maybe a year or two younger than me named Jimmy. It took a while for him to feel comfortable hanging out with us. Next house over was the Reid's house, formerly the Evans house and then our house.

Across from us on Page there were about six or seven families that shaped my childhood. The Souza family on the corner, across from us. They consisted of an elderly couple and two adult daughters, Marie and Dorothy. Next to them was Mrs. Gara, one of the Basque neighbors that pretty much my claim to fame was, getting in trouble and yelled at by her for picking her flowers. She had a beautiful garden but I had no boundaries over that sort of then back then. Next to her were the Arbelbide's, Jeanne and Martin and their mother who lost her husband when I was a child due to an auto accident. She was a pretty strong woman to survive in a country where she didn't speak the language. They were French Basque and at one point in time went to France to visit relatives but that's another story, another time. Onwards west, another Souza family, no relation to the first. Three boys there, Wayne, Gene and Bobby. Wayne and Gene were the 'big kids' so not much socializing with them but Bobby was certainly part of the pack. Two more houses next to them that had older couples, the Macho's and the Jensen's (more about their niece and nephew another time) and then the Colzani's. They had a son, again, much older and a daughter Lisa who we did hang with some. That about gives the idea of the immediate neighborhood.

Once more time had passed, the empty land across from our house was replaced with homes. The Falasco's built kind of kitty-corner from us. They had a big collie named Bruce who would alert the neighborhood hours in advance of the garbage pick up and a black and white cat named Snoopy who didn't get along with our cat Bojo. Those two had many a fight back in the day. There were other houses across from us, but not people I really knew. Once they cut Page Avenue eastward to build the high school that I walked to, there were some kids I knew. The two Costa boys, who were fun kids to hang out with and several others that I'm drawing a blank on at this point. Too much time has passed. I just remember that one of the Costa boys died in an auto accident when I was in college. That happened much too soon.

I'll have to really scour this place looking for photos from that time in my life to put faces to the names.