A weird juxtapose in my mind’s eye. Once surrounded by open fields now surrounded by endless cars and it has returned to a field. Soon, most likely, to be filled with ugly aprtments and awful public transportation.
I liked Rocketdyne better in the 1950s.
The Reader View of Wikipedia
Viewing an image of Rocketdyne today at a Car Repair Shop in Canoga Park I was amazed by the structure.
The view was showing the perspective where the viewer can see the Verdugo Mountain range in the background. At the time of the picture, 1950s, Rocketdyne is surrounded by farmlands and wild fields. Canoga Ave, Owensmouth and Victory Blvd. small two-lane streets.
Vanowen street parallels the buildings as a rough asphalt two lane highway. Rocketdyne looks like a large computer chip including a large parking lot filled with cars.
Ironically and sadly today the same once futuristic rocket business is now an empty field where wildflowers and weeds are growing.
The only things remaining from the 1950s are a few old pepper and eucalyptus trees. It is now hopelessly surrounded by cars, apartments, and more ugly apartments.
Letter To: Councilmember District 3 Bob Blumenfield, 200 N Spring St. Los Angeles, CA 90012
“I was born in Encino. I grew up in Woodland Hills. I have watched as the big ugly apartments have taken over the San Fernando Valley. I find it so refreshing to hear “large scale apartments should not be wedged in-between single-family homes by right.”
I have a campaign that focuses on this. I have enclosed a copy. I hope you will support my fight. These big ugly apartments use too much energy and create too much traffic.
We need to support the people living here now. More libraries, more high schools, more DMVs. More social services.
I also am sharing my book “To Ride a Painted Pony Wild.” I share my youth riding the hills of Woodland Hills. I shared a story about when Canoga Ave. was a two-lane street. Near Ventura Blvd was a stable which housed a lovely red barn, whereas young girls marveled at the horse tack and leather saddles going back generations. Even Horse Buggy Parts and all the tools to care for horses.
I drove down Canoga Ave the other day. It was a shock to me to see all the apartments going up. Right next to the freeway. All the eucalyptus and pepper trees cut down. Do you remember when it was a lazy two-lane highway?”
The 1970s, The San Fernando Valley and The Santa Monica Mountains
Horses and their girls….
During a tumultuous era marked by global unrest and climate change, I recall a hopeful time shaped by nature, integrity, and innocence. Elton John’s music and Bernie Taupin’s lyrics amplified these experiences. My autobiographical novella, set in the San Fernando Valley and nearby California counties, follows three years of friendship and horseback riding through the Santa Monica Mountains. The story offers a journey into the female psyche and evokes memories of an untamed Valley, with “Madman Across the Water” and “Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player” providing the soundtrack as my friends and I sang Bernie Taupin’s lyrics during our rides.
Excerpt from beginning of Chapter Three.
3. HEADLESS HORSEMAN ROAD
A song we were singing ~ All the Nasties – By Elton John, Lyrics by Bernie Taupin
Canoga Avenue from Mulholland to Oxnard was overwhelmingly wild in the 1970s. It was only a two-lane avenue lined with some residential homes, farms, and empty fields. The enormous eucalyptus trees monstered along Canoga Avenue exalting the heart of Woodland Hills. We chased wild rabbits bareback where the city of Warner Center now suffocates the land.
Stealing pumpkins late at night from the many pumpkin patches was a scary treat for us kids around autumn. Now Kaiser Permanente stands tall over ghostly pumpkins which linger there only in my mind.
Ruff and I rode our horses after school which did not give us much time. We had to make it back home around dusk. This gave us a couple of hours to ride. We had it in our minds to visit down an old dirt road up near Canoga Ave., moving south towards Mulholland. We noticed this dirt road a few times on our rides up to Mulholland where it seemed endless trails awaited us, but now was not the time.
The dirt road branched off to the east and seemed a long one. The everyday valley trees mixed and mingled along the road with large rough trunks and heavy-handed branches. A small forest. We got off our horses to look around.
I worked for the Visiting Nurse Association as a Home Health Aide in Santa Cruz California back in 1991. I enjoyed helping the elderly, sick and crippled. I comforted them and attended to their simple needs of washing, food, and medicine. I loved their stories they shared. Most of my patients were in their 90s and their lifetimes were filled with a richness that I yearned for. They shared their stores with me.
I will share a story of Mary. She was alone in her parents’ home. A beautiful Victorian home near the shores of Santa Cruz. Only one room was used for Mary. All the other rooms, which were many, were closed off. The stairs that went to her room were something out of the novel Gone with The Wind. And to the right of these majestic stairs was a giant Ballroom with a crystal chandelier where Mary told me her stories. In the room where she lived was a single bed and a small bathroom with bath. On the wall was a painting of a lovely sailing ship. The painting was of her father’s ship. It was a family ship. She told me that she came from a sea family. It was a merchant family business.
As the times changed her family and Mary took to living on the land. She was born and raised on a ship. She knew the ocean well. Standing on ground was difficult for her as a young lady. Eventually she married. Santa Cruz was a cowboy town at the time. She told me one night when her husband made his usual advances towards her. She declined and fell asleep. He went off to the bars to sleep with a prostitute. He gave Mary gonorrhea and after that she could not have any children. It took some time, but she forgave him.
This is a poem about Mary and our walk to her special place. She told me that the wild animals that lived there sometimes would pop up in her toilet. Small rats, squirrels and lizards would sometimes appear. It did not look all that bad to me. Yet, I can only imagine how it once was.
Your patina is showing…. before I edited and cleaned up the issue for printing…..
My ‘initiation woman’ who abducted me into the punk scene was Donna Rhia but she no longer was playing drums with the Germs. I am not going to amplify the loss of Lorna Doom because there is enough on social media already.
I guess she was a part of the tight scene of nobodies going nowhere but lost and having fun. It was so exciting back then which is what keeps me going on the subject…
Courtesy of Hudley Loss Angeles Flipside Fanzine number two. (1978)
“In the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.”
~ Robert Green Ingersoll
Today while walking into Ralph’s supermarket, I saw the familiar old lady under yellow plastic. She was holding a white tissue to her red nose. She sat in her wheelchair at a prime target getting her ‘a little sympathy’. She got mine. I went into the store and purchased a $1.95 Starbucks house coffee medium. I am still amazed that a ‘cup of joe’ costs so much now. I remember when it was 25 cents.
“I like watching Noir films,”
I said to the barista.
“It is a wonder in those films that a ‘cup of joe’ only cost five pennies. Twenty-five cents got you a cup of coffee, a ham sandwich, and a piece of pie.”
The barista smiled at me as I got the coffee. I put in some cream and sugar and then headed towards the old lady in a wheelchair.
“Here is a cup of coffee, you look cold.?!”
“I don’t drink coffee it is bad for you.”
“Really, I thought it would warm you up. Coffee is not as bad for you as you may think.”
“I have never had any.”
She looked down to her right at a dirty bag of oranges.
“It is all right I had an orange…I am fine.”
I was a bit upset. I never thought that she would reject a cup of coffee on such a cold and rainy day.
“Lady sometimes beggars can’t be choosers?!”
I realized that I could not reason with the lady. She had her right to say no. So, I walked on remembering what an old myth taught me. All about a woman’s psyche.
As Persephone went on her journey, she was advised not to give anything to those needy people who asked for something along the way. It was important for her to hold on to her strength and parts of herself that were precious.
I failed the test today. Then that sorrow thread pulled in me. I call it the thread of sorrow.
I think that our current society does not embrace their share of sorrow. That is why we have so many drug addicts and alcoholics. A social epidemic.
We all need to hold on to or embrace our threads of sorrow.
It can pull hard.
It can be an echo that mocks.
It can sting like a jelly-fish.
When we run from our share of sorrow,
ignore it,
or get lost in our addictions hating it,
it only manifests in our world as a monster shadow.
Creating hate, chaos, and terrible politicians.
That is why I love Jazz because it speaks to the human heart and soul.
The unpredictable Crazy days are far behind me, and the routines of life have set in.
Family and cats bring the little rituals of life which bring symmetry into the chaos of living such as racing through traffic and surviving, watching current politics, and not having a heart attack, and realizing that we all die.
It is comforting to know that we live in a recycling universe, or so it seems. The point being within the light and darkness of life are the routines of everyday living that do bring joy.
Last night was a normal trash night. The difference in the routine is when husband said that there are two cars parked in our unmarked-marked trashcan places. The usual sounds of annoyance on his part made me think about visiting with our new neighbors and asking them to move one of the cars so we might have a place for our trashcans.
The green sweat coat with 1976 on it pulled over my shoulders and I was off. I found myself in front of the neighbor’s house. Placing a knock knock and then pushing a ring ring upon their door and door button. Something expanded when I heard the ring ring.
It was a different kind of ring ring. It being a tasteful and alluring sound. The front door was half window, and I could see in as one of my neighbors looked back at me. I mumbled something about the trashcans. The neighbor’s eyes widened open.
Dressed in a light blue robe, looking confused, my neighbor opened the door slightly. Having a face that was angular like something out of a Pablo Picasso painting such as Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907 during his cubism period; caught me off guard.
The new neighbors had radically changed the format and structure of the house since the last owner. As the door opened there was only a white hallway that met about halfway through the house. Directly on the wall before me was a giant painting of what looked like a Toulouse-Lautrec, Jane Avril Dancing painting.
Yet this painting was one woman with her leg up and a giant red dress like a blooming flower. Once there were two rooms here, one leading right and one left. One into a game room and the other into the kitchen. Not anymore. Straight ahead was a veil into another reality.
Our conversation was quick. I told the neighbor our problem. I was told that each of them had a massage therapist come out for a special treat massage and that the cars were theirs. I was also told that both were almost finished.
Like clockwork each masseuse left in their two separate cars. I put out my two trash cans under the crescent moon of a very dark night. Feeling nicely surreal and wondering about our new neighbors?
I wish I could say that they turned out to be nice… the neighbors got worse and worse and now they have moved.
…. Orthrift store, only sometimes it does end up in the Museum !
My progressed moon and sun are entering Taurus. The sun is a bit ahead. I guess the active Gemini moon and sun fun are going to be leaving me~ thinking wise. Says I will need to sleep a lot and I will not take all this political strife too well either.
Today at Trader Joe’s while checking out my groceries, I talked to a young punk checker. He declared himself punk! He looked more like a 70s punk than a current morphed-up pretentious one. We talked about thrift stores, art and a Polish artist that was considered a Polish Picasso. After his death they found his work in thrift stores. I told the young punk my punk line, that I tell all young punks.
“Yes, I found my first punk record at a used book-thrift store, The Saints.”
He told me he thinks he heard their name but will check them out. I will check out the Polish Artist. He told me about, a film / documentary came out about the genius Polish Picasso. I told the young punk about the Museum of Fred.
While driving home I thought about a few things the young punk and I talked about. It was nice to have an interesting conversation with someone in real-time. That the core “lifestyle” of punk is not dead. The idea of art as a process is a message I enjoyed sharing. Also, I admitted to him something I never have admitted to anyone. Though some have tried to label me an artist.
Young Punk Checker at Trader Joe’s:
“Are you an artist?”
I hesitated, but he did compliment me on my green hat with silver flowers & purple stone. (Even if it was a thrift store joke).
Me:
“Yes, yes, I am an artist. I love the process of art.”
I also confessed that I am not struggling and I’m quite content.
