More Walking in Homeless Country

Homeless at beach with loose dog

I was born in Los Angeles and as usual I can't remember. My Father's parents lived at 78th and Vermont which is probably  where I lived. My father was building an apartment in Santa Monica at 1710 Tenth Street and that is the first place I remember living at.

Some Homeless can carry large loads

There was a war going on when I was a wee one so I spent lots of time with my Grandmother and Grandfather. My Grandmother had a little cart for groceries and she would take me with her when we walked a few blocks South on Vermont to the Ralph's.

Drunk before Eight AM

The Street Cars ran up and down Vermont and we would ride them into the City. Sometimes we went the other way South to the end of the line where the Conductor would flip the seats that were on a hinge so the passengers faced in the forward position.

Homeless apartment

At that time my Grandfather no longer drove an automobile but we have tons of him with pictures taken earlier when he was a proud owner of a car. My Father also has many black and white prints of him standing by his car with one foot resting on the running board. 

A common site

My earliest recollections of cars would be probably be a Nash, then a 1946 Hudson that my father drove across country to New York City with stops along the way in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Ohio. He later did the trip again in a Giant Hudson four door maybe a 1951.

Using the bathers shower

My Father also had a Ford Model A Coupe but the rumble seat had been removed and a stubby pickup bed was installed. The stock rear bumper was still there with the round rubber steps that had been used for getting into the rumble seat.

Extra points tent, bicycle and wheel chair

All my friends on Tenth Street loved to hang out with my Father. He then owned three apartments building in Santa Monica and only worked as a contractor once in a while. He would lets us ride in the Model A mini bed and we would drag our feet on the streets when ever we turned a corner. 

Need bike parts?

I can't say I worshipped my Father as we seldom went to church when I was a kid but I greatly respected his abilities. He had a drafting table with the triangles and T-Square where we drew building drawings. He went somewhere,I have no idea where, and brought back his Blue Prints. 

When he built our house at 988 Olympic he rented a Caterpillar and graded the lot by himself. He built the two story house by himself and only hired others that were required to sign off for the building inspector. He did the plumbing,framing and all the brick work, designed  his own Bay Windows with sliding glass for ventilation, The front room Bay windows would sound like a B-29 every time there was an earthquake.

Post Office San Pedro

So having lost where I was headed with this blog I will continue to ramble just line a Nash. My Father had his car and my Mother had hers. It wasn't that always that way when we only had one family car. But my Mother must have started winning at the horse tracks and she went to Santa Monica Ford on Santa Monica Blvd, and bought a brand new 1951 Ford with a fancy Continental Kit. Flat Heads were still being used and my Mother's cars was quite sporty. 

more post office

She later got another blue Ford from the same dealer and once the two of us drove it to Arkansas to visit my Aunt in Mountain Home. I was only fourteen but my Mother let me drive the car and I wanted to go see the Grand Canyon and she let me turn off the main highway and I drove to the Rim.

ugly lime green bike

Later my Mother and I drove to Arkansas in our Dodge 500 which was a 1956 model with a Hemi and lots of power but a two speed auto tranny. 

Most of the earlier Muscle Cars didn't have a matching transmission. The Fuel Injected 1957 Chevy could go a hundred in the quarter and it had only a three speed.

couple are extra points

These pictures are of the homeless and what I see when I walk my two dogs every morning. I have several cameras and enjoy taking pictures. I do not point my lens at a homeless directly and always tried to take candid shots. Some homeless don't give a fuck and some get rather upset if they see me with a camera strap around my neck. 

Fucking drunks at 8 AM

I have been reading Rachel Carson lately and there was an extreme low tide this morning. Since I live on a sailboat I don't have to use a tide chart to see what is happening I just look. The two furry ones and myself went towards the tide pools at Cabrillo Beach but at low tide the rocks were mostly denuded  and the pools were not full of color. On the way back from the tide pools (there is a walk way) we encountered three fucking drunks that were having a party (8 AM) at a bench on the sand. It is not uncommon to see homeless or drunks on the beach in the morning here. I still had my Nikon around my neck and we started climbing the uphill trail away from the beach when we were hasseled by the drunks. They started chasing us and yelling at us.  My German Shepherd weights around a hundred pounds and could probably rip someone apart but he was not trained to do that to humans, only squirrels and raccoons. He never catches his prey but he loves to bark at them. My other dog DeDe who is hiding out some where in the blue sky actually caught squirrels and rabbits. Any way the trip to the tide pools turned out to be a bummer when you can walk to the beach here. There is all this graffiti on the signs and walls, one wonders while there isn't someone who can fix that. Earlier I had seen two LA Port Police cars in the parking lot and on the way back from the beach I told the officers about the shitheads (not my two loving dogs) and the Port Police went over there and later there was a backup of a car and a M/C. 

Homeless can be violent  

Most of the writing here has nothing to do with the homeless problem here but serves as an autobiographic look at my past which at times is forgotten.

The pictures shown here are by the author and were taken with a Nikon camera.