Sunday, January 07, 2007


40 Bellefontaine & 310 Third St

Another day has arrived on this planet and I have no other clue as to where my mother is; I am tired of pestering my relatives for some obscure memory or photo
of her. While I was living in Alhambra on Third St. my father showed me a photo of her and he also showed me a photo of himself at the CCC camp with someones leg on a truck bumper; I think it was him. My sister also had seen these photos.
My half brother gave me a lot of photos but some had my father cut out of the photos. Had my step mother thrown out those photos just as she had thrown out my father for having an affair. I remember seeing his clothes piled on this red painted porch. My father always had girl-friends and wives. I realize it is also my fault for not pursuing those photos at an earlier stage in my life. How can my mother disappear so perfectly. All images and documents have been swept away so carefully. The only clue of her existence is my birth certificate. My dad said he danced in a movie doing the jitterbug in the background of a Dagwood Movie in the 1940's. Was my mother his partner? They met at a friends home at the corner of Bellefontaine St. and S. Fair Oaks Ave. across from the Elite Cleaners. I grew up at 40 Bellefontaine Ave. in Pasadena, CA. which was next door to the above address. I was born at the Mothers Clinic on Fairmount Ave. across from the Huntington Hospital. The clinic was located just below the "con" on Congress St. but is now only a memory for those of us born there. I was hit by two cars on two different locations on the map. One I was riding my small bike at breakneck speed through the Huntington Hospital grounds (I used the Hospital as a short cut from school near California Ave.) when I caught the rear bumper of at a passing car as I existed an alley near "Ave" in the Fairmount Ave name. The other accident happened when I stepped out into the street and was hit by a car while wanting to go to a grocery across from the intersection of Fair Oaks and Hurlbut St. Looking at this map nothing exists that was there in 1950's except the Huntington Hospital which has expanded to cover more ground closer to Bellefontaine. I chipped my tooth from jumping out a moving Ice truck on Alessandro Place. The tooth was covered with a silver cap. There was rail spur that came from South Pasadena up toward California Ave. It ran parallel to Fairmount Ave and Fair Oaks Ave. about 100' east of the green arrow on the 40 Bellefontaine map. Trains moving on the spur were moving at a walking speed and had one or two cars at a time.


1 comment:

Sandy Hatcher-Wallace said...

I heard that my dad was Aunt Kay's boyfriend first.