That census thing... I'll try, but the years have been long and the miles many. I don't think I have lived in any one place more than about four years.
1971... I was turned five (my birthday is mid-year). We were living in Bremen Indiana. That was after m being born in Pittsburgh. We lived there for about two years. I can, to my mother's surprise when it came up about 17 years later, recall the layout of that house. Between Pittsburgh and Bremen I recall Michigan City, Ind. (we lived on the wrong side of town to be in Michigan) were we shared a "log cabin" with a family that had two kids. The four of us (my sister is 14 months my junior) slept in the loft. It was big, and there was a sense of comfort to having all of us sleeping in one big bed, which is how I remember it. There was a short chunk of time in Chicago, because the commute was too much for my mother, and the AMC Gremlin spinning 540° on an slippery road was more than she wanted to risk again.
Chicago (on the South Side... I was living there, in a second floor apartment when "Leroy Brown" came out, and I knew that the song was about, my neighborhood. I'd look out the window and sing along, "if you go down there..."), Chicago was where I broke my took, tripping and catching it on the table I knocked over on the way down. I remember the X-ray at the dentist, and not being allowed to have sticky/chewy candies because they would pull the crown off. He had blocks in the waiting room.
Bremen was a move to a better job. It was while we lived there that she (who was on call two-three night a week) taught me how to make soup, in case we needed supper when she was gone. It's also where, when I had an earache, I learned to take pills. The doctor asked my mother if I should get pills, or syrup. She told him to ask me. I asked what the syrup was. He said grape. I said pills. I got water from the faucet for the tub, and took the yellow antibiotics.
1981: Bell Gardens Calif. We moved there from Wickliff Ohio, a bit south of Cleveland. We'd been living with my Grandmother,but the house was a bit small, and ill-arranged for two (active) children, and two adults. The upstairs I never saw, it was storage from sometimes after my grandfather died in 1971. I can recall Pittsburgh, but have no real recollections of him, though there are photos of me on his knee. The backyard had a pump, and a screened gazebo; which was bought for us. I recall the tunnel spiders which lived in the corners. That got us outside in the summer. I went to school at The Immaculate Conception of Mary, where my mother, and my uncle had gone. A glorious gothic styled church, and an eight grade, roughly 16 classroom, with a library, parish school. It was walking distance, and I recall cutting through the lot at the end of the block to save about a block's worth of walking. The uniform was classic catholic school, black trousers, white shirt and bow tie.
But my Grandmother was 69, and having my sister all day, and then me in the afternoons... we frazzled her. Her arthritis didn't help. The house had a coal furnace in the basement.
So we moved to Wickliff and shared a huge victorian (two stories, attic, basement, kitchen, dining room, living room (with a huge fireplace) nursery, pantry, hallway, veranda, and porch. That was the first floor), on a couple of acres, with about five acres of woods. The bus stop was through the woods. It was wonderful in the winter. I have strong associational memories of those woods when I read The Wind in the Willow. esp. when Mole is headed to Badger's.
But my mother remarried, and we headed to Calif. in 1975. It was... different. The houses were smaller. They were shorter, and they had no cellars. This made no sense to me; where did you go when there were tornadoes?
We moved across the street, into a house we owned. Still a bit small, my sister and I shared a room. We got bunk beds, and kept them until I was about 12. When Kieth and my mother divorced we moved to Paramount. Got an apartment. I was taking two buses to go to St. Gertrude's; into which I'd been accepted just before they decided to divorce. Spent the afternoons at the Y, which was about 1/3rd of the way home. Took Judo, stopped doing Boy Scouts.
When I stopped going to St. Gertrude's we moved back to Bell Gardens, and took the house on the back half of Keith's property.
1991: Somewhere in the San Fernando Valley. In 1982 My mother and Marty got involved and bought a house. I lived there until about 1987, when I moved in with my girlfriend in Granada Hills. that lasted about three years, and I moved back in with my folks. That lasted about two years, and I did some bouncing around, looking for a place. Ended up in Altadena, when I joined the army. That had me away from home for about a year and half. I got engaged while I was in Moneterey, moved to the Bay (Rhonert Park), and it fell apart. Moved back to LA, and was in Sun Valley from August of 1994, until Nov. 1999, when I moved in with Maia, in Arcadia.
2001 We moved to Pasadena, taking a room with friends in Jan, 2002. I was deployed to Iraq in Feb. 2003. While I was gone she moved to SLO. I came back to Pasadena, and we spent the summer there; looking for a place in SLO we could both live (where she was wasn't suitable for the two of us). We found one in Grover Beach, and stayed there until she graduated. Moved back to Pasadena (were we had sort of kept the room; I as in town at least once a month, and in the summer we'd come down to visit) while she was in Grad School. We broke up in 2008, and I went to my Dad's in Tennessee. Moved to the Bay in August. The place I was, in Aptos wasn't well suited, and I ended up, temporarily, with
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tenacious_snail2011: Still with
tenacious_snail, who has been the best roommate I've ever had. Sadly, I am moving, in July, to New Jersey, where (all going well)
ladymondegreen,
akawil and I will be setting up house. It'a a strange thing to be leaving Calif. Uncertain, sad, wistful, hopeful, joyous... It a nation of movement. Of reinvention by relocation.
So, that's where I've been.
