The apartment looks shabby these days, but it wasn't back then. The kitchen was certainly in need of renovation, but the place was clean and well taken care of, both outside and inside. The front steps that lead up to the apartment were also in beautiful shape in those days.
What I enjoyed the most about living here was that South Gate was on the direct flight path into Los Angeles International Airport. The noisy jet aircraft from the 1960's would roar overhead, significantly lower at this stage of their approach than when we lived in Whittier. I would run out onto the second floor landing and look up to catch what airline and what type of aircraft it was. Very quickly I could recognize all of them--the BOAC 707 from London, the Air France 707 from Paris, Scandinavian Airlines DC-8 from Stockholm or Copenhagen, Air New Zealand DC-8, Qantas 707 from Australia, Mexicana Comet from Mexico City, Japan Airlines DC-8 from Tokyo.
During this summer, I would also work on the model aircraft and model ship kits that I had acquired before we moved in with mom. We didn't have any friends in South Gate, although Ann would make a few friends later in the summer. I watched a lot more television than we did before on the black and white set mom had. It was this summer, too, that I fully experienced sexual maturity, requiring a number of long showers.
That summer we often walked over to a small convenience store across the tracks for groceries. At our end of South Gate, there weren't any first rate super markets within walking distance and would not be for a few years until a Lucky Supermarket was built on Firestone Blvd., a few blocks from Orchard.
This summer I came down with an ear infection that lasted for more than a week. I was in agony all the time--mom could not afford to take me to a doctor. I took aspirin until the pain finally went away one night when my eardrum broke and warm fluid drained from my inner ear. Fortunately, I never had any problems resulting from that infection, though during subsequent physicals doctors have noticed a slight scar across the eardrum.
In the contemporary photo above is the maintenance department and back lot of the automobile dealership. When we lived there, the dealership property did not extend all the way to Orchard. Three nice homes were on the same side of the street as our apartment and continued to Long Beach Boulevard. On the corner of Orchard and Long Beach was the nice, older home of a fortune teller with a prominent sign out front. Across Long Beach was also the Hoot Owl Cafe, in the shape of a giant Hoot Owl. Both the fortune teller lady's home and the Hoot Owl Cafe are long gone. When we lived in the apartment, every day of the week we could hear the continuous calls over the intercom from the dealership, announcing that a car was available for pickup or for someone in the shop to answer a call about a repair.
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