Dave Moore was my best friend throughout the 1960's. Even before we moved from Orange, Dave had the guts to ask Willene one day if I could come over to his house for an afternoon. Willene lied and said I had things to do. But we did get together on weekends. We'd save up our milk money and splurge on some kind of dessert when I spent the day. He and his family lived a couple of miles away, in the direction of our old address on Oak Street. His dad was in the Marines. His was one of those families that looked good on the surface but had many dark secrets (for those days anyway) that they kept hidden.
We corresponded that whole summer before he was able to visit, probably over the Labor Day weekend. To still have a best friend even when we lived so many miles away was terribly important. I would make a couple of friends the next year at South Gate Junior High school, but Richard Watson's family would move away first thing the following summer, before high school, and Mike Leonard's family would move away not long after that. So in high school I would have to make new friends all over again.
The picture above was taken in the small backyard we had behind the apartment over the garage. High wooden steps lead from the back porch laundry room and exited down to the clothes line and a small rectangle of grass. That summer mom even invited a couple of relatives over and we had a little luau back there with a small hibachi to grill burgers on. Our landlord who lived in the front unit of the triplex seemed a nice enough sort. But mom was upset to learn that he had had his wife committed to the Norwalk mental facility where she died of something minor like strep throat after being held there for a few months. Since the triplex was in her name, mom always wondered if he hadn't done it to get her out of the way.
My friend Randy Bancroft also spent a weekend that summer visiting us. He was just as impressed as I had been with all the aircraft flying relatively low overhead, and he would join me out on the landing to catch a glimpse of each one and identify it before it disappeared from view. The only problem for all of us to get together was that there really wasn't even bus service between Orange and South Gate. There was a bus you could take from Downey, several miles away, that dropped you off in downtown Orange. But it was much too far away to walk to. None of us was yet old enough to drive a car, though Dave would have his license by his senior year in high school. But that was still three years away. Corresponding by mail or, very rarely, by phone, would have to do. Eventually, dad would visit us one day a month, and once in awhile he'd drive us back to Orange, for Ann to see one of her friends or for me to see Dave for an afternoon.
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