A TOUR

Yeah, that was then. If you are wondering where am I getting these old photos, well they have been sitting on my desk at work for the longest time. People come in and ask, are those your little kids? I always have to tell them, "Yes, but they are all grown up now". Maybe I just want them to still be my little kids, or maybe I am just the eternal procrastinator that has been meaning to update the pictures around the office. Either way, old pictures are always fun to look at, don't you agree?


And this is now.

While on the topic of what was then, during our L.A. trip on Labor Day Weekend we went to the alleys which happen to be very nearby the neighborhood I grew up in. So before we went back to West Covina we decided to show Michell and Junior my old stomping grounds.

First stop was the apartments where I lived when I first arrived from Mexico City back in 1973. We used to live on the second floor in the apartment to the left. My parents lived a block and a half away from the factory where they worked, a house went up for rent and my parents looked into moving in.


My first residence here in the US. I believe I lived there about a year.

The rent was cheap although a little more than the apartment. However the apartment only had two bedrooms and there were seven of us. Can anybody say cramped? The house was a two story sort of Victorian looking structure and the best part was that it had four bedrooms, a living room, a formal dinning room and a kitchen. Unfortunately for a big house it only had one restroom on the second floor. Back in the day when we lived there it was white with a gray roof.


Now it sports this really unusual shade of pink with a green roof. Only in L.A.

Once we reminisced a little off we went. Mi chica remembered the most excellent shrimp cocktails from this sea food place called "Mariscos Manzanillo Seafood" that has been on the corner of San Pedro and Washington for about 35 years and at this point in the day we were hungry so ceviche tostadas and shrimp cocktail sounded like one of the best ideas of the day, I had mine with abulon and it was delicious. This place is very small but it's kept very clean, because their overhead is very low they are not stingy with the shrimp portions and for $5.00 you cannot beat the price.


Mariscos Manzanillo. Corner of Washington Blvd. and San Pedro St. in Los Angeles. The best places are always the holes in the wall type of businesses.

We were about 25 miles away from West Covina so mi chica thought eating on the go was the thing to do. As we headed East on the Pomona freeway I decided to extend the tour just a little bit more. We exited on 7th Ave in City of Industry and headed towards our last California residence. We used to own a small house in Hacienda Heights and we were sure Michelle did not remember it. As we cruised by it the current owner was outside cleaning his garage so I could not steal a picture of it but mi chica decided that since we went that far it was worth getting off and talking to the man. I stayed with the kids in the van while Michelle, Junior, Becka, Jessica and mi chica all walked towards the house.

Ten minutes later they all come back, apparently the current owner is only the second one since we left, came to find out that the lady we sold it to had passed and eventually the house was abandoned. He even claimed that we still get mail there from time to time. He even allowed them to take a tour of the house and the back yard. After they said goodbye and were heading towards the van Michelle actually took this shot of the house.


This is the first house we ever owned, at 1200 sq. ft. we thought it was big.