dedalus_1947: (Default)
[personal profile] dedalus_1947
I hear mariachi static on my radio
And the tubes they glow in the dark
And I’m there with you in Ensenada
And I’m here in Echo Park.

Carmenita, hold me tighter
I think I’m sinking down.
And I’m all strung out on heroin
On the outskirts of town.
(Carmenita: Warren Zevon – 1976)


There are communities in Los Angeles that spill over with images, scenes, and emotions from my past. They are a litany of evocative names that mean little to the many residents living in the suburbs on the outskirts of town. Lincoln Heights, Boyle Heights, Rosehill, Alhambra, and Silver Lake – these were the vecindades, or neighborhoods I lived in during my most impressionable years. People of different languages, skin colors, nationalities, and religions populated those districts. Every street had a different mixture. Walking along No. Broadway in Lincoln Heights, I recall passing an Italian grocery store, a Jewish shoe repair shop, a Mexican muebleria (furniture store), and a Japanese watch repair. A streetcar ride to downtown would take us through the wondrous pagodas of Chinatown to the exotic bazaars of Grand Central Market at the foot of Bunker Hill.

During the 1950’s, my family migrated through four rented homes around the city, never settling too far from my grandparents’ homestead in Lincoln Heights, a community Northeast of Chavez Ravine. Now, so many years later, when driving past those sections of the city, I find myself suddenly overcome with nostalgic fragrances of that past. That’s what happened last March, when I took my camera and strolled around Echo Park, while Kathy attended a school meeting in Silver Lake.


I was captivated by Echo Park from the moment I saw it, soon after moving into the Silver Lake area on Duane Street in circa 1953. It was the first “lake” I had ever seen, and at 6 years old, it looked immense. This urban body of water was surrounded by an oval walkway, with sloping green banks, and a tiny island located in the northeast corner that could be reached by a wooden bridge. It was anchored on the eastern shore by a boathouse with a miniature lighthouse tower. My siblings and I would often gaze longingly at that brightly painted boathouse, watching lucky families rent the two-person paddleboats docked there. Unfortunately, my mom and dad considered cruising the lake a frivolous expense, so we spent our time walking, resting, and wishing they would someday relent. They never did.




Even at a young age, I recognized that Echo Park wasn’t much of a “park”. It paled before the immense tracts of rolling lawns and wooded landscapes found in the two rustic retreats of Los Angeles – Griffith Park and Elysian Park. Those were the rustic preserves of the city that housed vast playgrounds and picnic areas, horse stables, Travel Town, the city zoo, the planetarium, and multiple recreational activities and attractions. Echo Park was simply a decorative urban pond, ringed by a sloping, ribbon of grass. It was only accidently that I discovered its playground area, located across the freeway on Glendale Blvd, with tennis courts and ballparks. The park was also rumored to house a swimming pool, which my neighborhood friends and I were never able to find while I lived there. Only as an adult, driving west on the 101 out of L.A., did I spot it from the freeway. It was a tiny “plunge”, not deep enough to include a diving board, hidden across the street from the lake at the intersection of Bellevue Ave and the freeway onramp. It was as much a pool as Echo Park was a lake. Yet despite all these shortcomings, I loved it, and took immense regional pride in utilizing it. This sense of propriety really took hold when I started walking and bussing to the park on Saturday mornings with my brother to fish. Yes, we were among the unlikely Sportsmen of Echo Park in the 50’s.



I wish I could recount a straight narrative of my experiences as an Echo Park fisherman, but my memory of that time doesn’t work that way. I recall a mixture of images and episodes involving fishing with my brother Arthur and our neighborhood friend Joey when I was 9 or 10. I don’t remember all of the particulars, or their exact chronological sequence, but I do know it began with our desire to fish, and it lasted less than a year, over a series of Saturday adventures.



The concept of fishing was first planted in my head when my mother and father bought 2 fishing rods to take as gifts on a driving trip to Mexico. I was greatly intrigued by this rugged sport that our Mexican cousins engaged in, and soon began pestering my dad, month after month, to buy us one. I really started badgering him after observing the large number of men and other boys fishing along the shore of Echo Park Lake. Although he never bought us authentic fishing rods, my dad did compromise on giving us some basic instruction and providing the most rudimentary equipment. He took Arthur and me to a fish and tackle store on Glendale Blvd near the park, where we purchased licenses, fish hooks, weights, floaters (or bobbers), and fishing line on a spindle-like device that I’d seen holding kite string. That was the extent of his investment in our sporting endeavor. I think my dad was testing us to measure our commitment, and see if our early enthusiasm would peeter out with the difficulties and frustrations of the sport.



On a cold, gloomy Saturday morning we began our careers as fishermen. At that time we lived on Cove Ave, a street that slopped downhill to intersect with Glendale, about 4 or 5 miles north of the park. I had recruited our next-door neighbor Joey to join my brother and I on this adventure. Since neither of our fathers was interested in sacrificing their Saturday morning on a seemingly frivolous infantile pursuit, they had provided us with bus fare, and a bag of sandwich bread to mold into balls of dough to bait our hooks. Thinking back on the three of us standing at the bus stop, we must have presented a pretty raggedy picture of fishermen. But at the time we were bursting with excitement and pride at our self-reliance and independence. We felt so confident and mature that we quickly started changing our plans and improvising. Instead of spending our bus fare, we decided to walk to the park, and use the money for lunch. Plus, an extended walk gave us more time to talk, imagine, and visualize ourselves mastering this manly art. Unfortunately, it turned into a disaster! The bread didn’t stay on the hooks. Our fishing lines, without the benefit of a pole, went straight down from the shore, where no fish would ever venture. We looked pathetic, surrounded by older, more capable men and boys, with gleaming fishing rods in their hands, fish knives on their belts, and bait boxes at their feet, casting their fishing lines far out into the lake where the big trout swam. Yet, we didn’t give up.





I don’t recall if it was Joey or Arthur, or both, but someone spoke up, magically dispelling the pall of gloom and frustration that had descended over us. This wasn’t defeat, they insisted, this was merely the first act in a play that had yet to unfold. We needed to recover, review, and reconsider what we were doing and what needed changing. They suggested that we stop trying to fish, get something to eat, sit back and begin studying the fishermen around us. So, with hot dogs in our hands, we took our time strolling around the lake, observing the fishermen on the shore, studying their equipment and movements, and asking questions. The men were more responsive than the boys our age, who probably felt more competitive and didn’t want us benefitting from their own learning curve. On that first trip to the lake we learned a lot. Fishing required an optimistic outlook because it took time and patience, but, at the same time, the sport reciprocated with opportunities for beneficial solitude and comradeship. The fishermen we encountered were thoughtful and helpful, gladly sharing information and advice. Most importantly, we learned that we needed real bait, preferably the worms sold at the boathouse, and actual fishing poles. Our optimistic and positive outlook about fishing soon began paying dividends, with the first of many providential signs and occurrences that marked our journey in fishing.


While walking around our neighborhood on the following trash pickup day, we came across two old bamboo fishing poles standing upright in a trashcan. Although no accompanying gear was provided, Arthur and I clearly felt it was a divine gift encouraging us to continue, and foretelling our success. Upon our arrival home, we combined the poles to our fish line, hooks, weights, and floaters, and felt ready to go. The next Saturday we truly believed we looked like fishermen, trudging along Glendale with the poles on our shoulders and a bucket in our hand. This time we combined our fares to buy a can of worms at the boathouse and set out baiting our hooks and casting our lines as best we could.


Thus began a series of mornings, when we passed up Saturday cartoons and the Little Rascals on television, to walk four miles to the park to fish. We continued week after week, with the occasional interruption for family events and trips, believing that one-day a fish would be caught. Our pattern was to buy worms (or bring our own), fish until they were gone, and then walk around the lake, observing, comparing, and soaking up more fishing lore. We learned how hooks were properly baited, rods were cast, and how fish were reeled in and gutted. Despite our impatience at never catching anything we never stopped believing in our inevitable success. In fact, our joking, laughter, and conversations about school, our parents, sports, movies, and television assuaged those feelings and gave us hope. Those lazy and languid mornings and afternoons, sitting on the banks of the lake or lying on the slopping grass, were the precursors of the talks and bull sessions we would have with high school and college friends many years later. When it grew late, or we became restless, we walked home – and talked along the way. Despite our failures, we actually got better, and were occasionally rewarded with tugs on the line and sinking floats or bobbers, indicating a nibbling fish. Those signs were just enough to keep us coming back week after week. Then finally, one Saturday, everything came together.



That morning, as we approached the lake we discovered a covered drainage bunker along the shore that contained soft, silt-like soil teeming with big, fat worms – eliminating the need to buy bait. We tried a new fishing spot, believing that shade and water temperature would make a difference, and we experienced some remarkably good casting, getting our floaters out to where the bigger fish swan. Then it happened. I felt a tug on the line and saw the floater sink into the water, and then the line went rigid.
“I got one!” I shouted for the first time. Immediately Art and Joey were beside me, whispering advice and encouragement:
“Bring him in steady”.
“Don’t yank!”
“You got him!”
Since we had no reels, I assume we pulled the trout in by hand, rolling the line around and around the rod. There he was on the line – a trout, about 4 or 5 inches long. It was the sort of fish most veteran fishermen would have thrown back, but this was my reward for weeks and weeks of early rising, and long walks to and from the lake. Ultimately that trout was our only trophy, and I wasn’t going to toss it back. Filling the bucket we had carried all of those weeks with water, we placed the fish inside and started home. Feeling happy and triumphant, we rode back home on the bus, dying to tell our families of our achievement and describing the event. The trout found a temporary home in our bathtub, where we showed it off all weekend, until it perished from lack of oxygen and neglect. It also signaled the demise of our fishing careers.


After walking around the perimeter of the lake, taking photos from as many perspectives as I could think of, I rested at one of the few benches dotting the shore. Gazing up at the new skyline that framed it’s southern horizon, I was reminded of a emotional passage from Nora Ephron’s movie, You’ve Got Mail, when Kathleen Kelly mused in an email about the passing of  time and her bookstore, Little Shop Around the Corner:


“People are always telling you that change is a good thing. But all they’re really saying is that something you didn’t want to happen at all…has happened. My store is closing this week. I own a store. Did I tell you that? It’s a lovely store, and in a week it will be something really depressing, like a Baby Gap. Soon, it’ll be a memory. In fact, someone, some foolish person, will probably think it’s a tribute to the city, the way it keeps changing on you, the way you can never count on it, or something. I know because that’s the sort of thing I’m always saying. But the truth is… I’m heartbroken. I feel as if part of me has died, and no one can ever make it right”.




I felt a little like Kathleen Kelly at that moment. Our family had moved away, our childhood friends and neighbors were gone, and all I had left of those times were my fractured memories of days long ago. I was also struck by the paradoxical idea of how much and, yet, how little had really changed as I looked about the lake and the surrounding homes, condos, and apartments. Much was the same. Angelus Temple, the church built by the evangelist, Aimee Semple McPherson, was still standing there, across the street, as glaringly white and structurally impressive as ever. The twin spouting water fountains still sprayed water skywards in geyser-like fashion, the boathouse still rented paddleboats, and the gardens of lotus flowers still floated on the surface of the lake. What had changed was the city around it, and the economic and ethnic makeup of the people who lived in this now trendy section of town. When we moved away in 1960, as part of the middle class migration to the Westside and the suburbs of the San Fernando Valley, Echo Park was the poor man’s Silver Lake, with a predominately Mexican and Mexican-American population. Over the succeeding decades it became more and more economically depressed and gang ridden. The grass and lotus flowers died, the trout disappeared, and the water became scummier and scummier. Yet, with the turn of the century, the city changed and the park was renewed. You can’t be disappointed in a city that keeps re-inventing itself, because that’s what world-class cities do. Cities just don’t stay the same. Neighborhoods change, children grow up and move away, and grow old. Yes, the city was different, but Echo Park and its lake had managed to survive and stay very much as it had always been. It was reassuring. Oh, and I learned that the city still stocks the lake with trout, and allows fishing during the summer months, from June to September. Some things should never change.





Date: 2017-06-04 06:01 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Another fascinating look at our Ciudad de Los Angeles. I remember going to Echo Park after Sunday Mass at St. Jerome's to visit my paternal Geandfather. Also the migration to the Westside did not deter my family from visiting Downtown LA. My Mom, who was born in Inglewood loved our city as do I. PKO

Loose matured galleries

Date: 2017-06-06 04:29 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Sexy pctures
http://blowjobs.sexblog.pw/?montana
erotic reading erotic novels erotic reviews erotic publishers erotic liturature

Mature galleries

Date: 2017-06-08 09:02 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Adult blog with daily updates
chubby gays pornography and women friends dating
http://sissythings.pornpost.in/?view.alina
male sex toy oral oral sex lady with man sex plastic sissy panties sexy boy to boy sex beautiful sex training submissive men change table

Grown up placement

Date: 2017-06-22 08:50 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Latin ladyboys
http://asianshemales.replyme.pw/?post.patricia
shemals shemals sex movie shemaile sex video tranys.com shemaler

Hardcore Gay photo blogging service

Date: 2017-07-21 09:23 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Day after day gay photos service
http://gay.boys.nude.erolove.in/?entry-freddy

My supplementary website

Date: 2017-08-31 03:49 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Started untrodden cobweb throw
how to use android download manager free download of xxx top 10 android games free best free android games download game mesum android
http://android.adult.games.yopoint.in/?epoch.bianca
google play android app free download download mobile android apps download what apps for mobile android apps installeren a116 android development

Experimental Project

Date: 2017-09-20 09:01 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
My new blog sites
http://sexypic.erolove.in/?post.virginia
chip della cartuccia non resettato resettato male o comunque in qualche modo danneggiato. free underagr oyeur porn indian sex hidden cam free videos sharp pain in left side trouble breathing and dizziness virgin pussy holl

Experimental Poke out

Date: 2017-09-21 10:03 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
My new photo blog
http://hotpic.erolove.in/?post-stella
toy schnauzer puppies blod hardcore babes legs are feeling weak and depresses indirect hot water tank blood urine men

Profile

dedalus_1947: (Default)
dedalus_1947

March 2024

S M T W T F S
      12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930
31      

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Apr. 26th, 2026 01:08 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios