Dennis Madura, mid-1970's, South Gate, CA

I met Dennis Madura in 1968 or 1969 through Mike's eventual wife-to-be, Lida, at East L.A.J.C.  She and Dennis went to school together at Bell High School, the town on the other side of the unincorporated berg of Cudahy from South Gate, just over from Huntington Park.

 

Dennis drove a hot 1967 white Chevy two-door.  He had an awesome sound system for 8-track tapes.  He also bought a Roberts 8-track tape recorder.  Until I bought one for myself, I would drive over to his house and we'd make 8-tracks tapes of our own to listen to in our cars.

 

Whereas Daylin and I might drive to West Hollywood to the Pickwick Book Store, Dennis and I would head there to the Tower Records store.  We also enjoyed planetarium shows at the Griffith Park Planetarium (hence the picture of Dennis and Ann inside the planetarium theater post earlier).

 

Dennis's dad ran a Richfield gas station in Bell, which Dennis worked at much of the time.  It was later converted to an ARCO station when they changed the brand.  Dennis's parents were also divorced.  We were friends from the late 1960's until sometime in the 1980's when we just sort of drifted apart.

 

The photograph above was taken in the mid-1970's, possibly 1976 or 1978, when Dennis and his wife, Linda, bought a house in South Gate, not far from where the Butlers lived, south of Tweedy.