Sometimes, a time past, a memory, sinks to the bottom, is forgotten. Then something happens. It breaks free, floats to the surface and brings back pain, long forgotten.
In 1979, I left Minnesota for Los Angeles. Everything I owned was crammed in a camper shell on my Chevy pickup truck. My transition to LA life was a near death experience, physically and emotionally. I recovered over the next few years. I am alive today to receive these floating memories.
By 1980, I had almost lost my truck when the underground parking of my flea bag apartment building in Hollywood flooded. I moved in with a roommate in the San Fernando Valley. I breathed the smog, he dealt cocaine and I worked as a teller at California Federal Savings and Loan. At first I worked at a branch close by, then transferred to one in LA proper. My roommate got a girlfriend and she wanted me out. I began my search for an apartment, one closer to my job.
The ad was for a $160 apartment in Pacific Palisades, one of the wealthiest parts of LA County. When I called the leasing agent he asked me, “How big are you?” I told him, “I am probably the smallest adult woman you will ever meet.” He said, “Good, I will show you the place.” It was a converted storage room, over a garage, smaller than my living room today. Of course I rented 16459 Sunset. What 28-year-old would turn down a cheap apartment by the beach?
I voted in my first California election, for Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale, being a transplanted Minnesota liberal. I got rid of my truck and bought a 1968 MGB convertible that turned out to be a total piece of crap. Carter lost, big time. And four years later Mondale would do the same, while my sisters bought “Don’t Blame Me, I’m from Minnesota” tee shirts.
One day after that 1980 election, Ronald Reagan made me late for work. While I was the best teller on the line and always stayed late to help balance the other tellers, I was disliked by one savings officer, Maria, so being late was a big deal. As I drove east on Sunset I saw CHP with lights flashing and a growing line of cars. The line grew longer and longer behind me, so I turned my engine off. Thirty minutes later Reagan’s big black car pulled on to Sunset Boulevard accompanied by more big black cars. The Reagans had a home there, but later sold it, as it was deemed unprotectable by the secret service.
Life moved on, I became head teller, an expert in ATM operations, an internal auditor. I went from one banking job to another, making more money each time. I bought a redevelopment condo in Carson, next to Compton, which was nothing like Pacific Palisades. I moved to San Francisco to work for Visa, got married, quit corporate life and became a floral designer.
But, in the last few weeks, 16459 Sunset burnt to the ground, along with most of Pacific Palisades. The end progression of greed and stupidity that began with Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump now controls our lives and the future of our planet. The emotional and psychological breakdown of my 1980 life has floated to the surface.
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