I've been having insomnia again so I'm listening to lots of podcasts (which this week are not putting me to sleep). A new podcast abut happiness was an interview with a woman who talked about how she found her creativity increased when she started working on her memory. She said that she spent time remembering the home where she grew up and how as she remembered, more and more things popped up. so I thought I'd remember the place where I grew up.
The windows to the right in this picture are the bedroom I shared with my sister. The windows to the right were my parents' bedroom, and you can see a bit of the window seat in the living room.
As a note from today, this was one of the steeper hills in San Francisco and it was a real challenge to parallel park on it, especially with a standard transmission (but I learned how to do it). There was also no greenery on the street. The last time I was there I was surprised to see that there is now diagonal parking...and trees!
You can see the doors to the 3 flats. Our front door was the one on t he left, then the windows to my bedroom, then the door to the upstairs flat, where Joe and Irma lived. There was a small concrete yard between that door and the door on the right. Our friend Leah lived there and introduced me to her nephew, Bill, whom I dated for 3 years. When Leah moved out, my aunt moved in and for a time my grandmother lived with her.
I remember leaving the house one morning on my way to school, putting my head down and running up the hill...not seeing a ladder leaning up against the house and I ran smack into the ladder. My mother was watching from the living room window, laughing.
It was interesting to visit Irma and Joe because they were theater people...I don't think they performed, but went to a lot of theater and their walls were covered with pictures of their friends. Irma also fought weight her whole life and if she bought a dress she liked, she bought it in 3 sizes, so she could wear it whether she was thinner, fatter, or in between
To enter our flat, you walked up the stairs and there was a mailbox on the left, which usually had a note on it saying "Day Sleeping...do not ring bell." My father worked for the railway mail service, working the mail on the train from San Francisco to Los Angeles. He slept at a hotel in LA and then took the train home again, working the mail from LA to SF. He got home in the morning, but had been working all night, so he slept all day. And if someone rang the bell, it was hell to pay and he wouldn't speak to us because he was awakened.
When you went in the door, you were opposite the kitchen. My father once sat there, with his gun (which he needed for work), when someone was trying to break into the flat. I don't know what happened to the would-be thief, but I'm sure he was surprised to find a man with a gun pointed at him.
The kitchen had a pantry where we washed dishes. It had a counter where I remember watching my mother roll out extra dough after making a pie to make cinnamon rolls for Karen and me. I also remember her making chocolate cream roll cakes. I watch the chefs on TV and the problems they have making chocolate cream rolls and remember my mother had none.
The kitchen had a small window to the back porch. Karen and I used to have "taste tests" with our father, who would stand in the back porch while we gave him foods in the kitchen and he decided which tasted better (he always chose the richest, fattiest)
Thee were also very large frescos on each wall of the kitchen, which dominated the room. I remember when my father asked Joe (the landlord) if he could paint over them when he painted the room. Joe said he could but when he saw the panted kitchen with his frescos gone, he was very upset.
Karen and I shared a bedroom that was to the right as you came in the front door. I think it was designed to be the dining room because of the way it was set up. It had a tiny closet and then a built in cabinet with upper shelves behind glass, a shelf with a mirror behind it, and then drawers underneath. I remember when the house was broken into and things stolen. My piggy bank was in one of those drawers and the thief broke the piggy bank.
So our bedroom was at one end of a hall, the big room that became the living room and dining room (with a couch separating the two rooms) at the other end. In between were my parents bedroom on the left and the bathroom on the right, with one of those bathtubs on feet. I remember standing on the toilet with my hand soaking in some substance--vinegar maybe?--before they put a metal guard over my thumb to get me to stop sucking it. I always managed to suck the thumb anyway and liked the taste of the wet metal.
The left half of the big room was the living room and looked out onto the street. It was fun on rainy days watching tourists try to drive up the hill. We were one of those streets that Bill Cosby talked about in his first comedy album, where you get to the top and there is a stop sign.
The right side of the room was the dining rom which had a wonderful view of Coit tower.
There was a heater vent in the living room and I loved to stand over it on cold mornings. I haven't found another heating unit like that anywhere.
It was a small flat but it was home. My parents were paying $47 when they moved out to a house they bought in Marin County in about 1971 (after David was born). Irma and Joe turned around and rented the flat for $200+ and in 2020 it rented for $3,750, according to Zillow. I have seen pictures of it inside and I can't even recognize any of the rooms.
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