Photoessay #2567 - San Gabriel Valley

I'm back here again.  In my mind.  Actually I have not been to this place in years, in my memory.  It's part of my return (a pun!) to my examination of my birthplace inspired by Edward Casey's piece on Place from my landscape archaeology class.

How is that archaeology class going?  The professor had warned me that it would be difficult.  And it is.  One thing we have to do is enter "discussion topics" for the reading each class session.  They need to be thoughtful analysis of the reading and posing some further question.  They need to be blessed by the professor.  Your supposed to have 9 blessed topics.

It's for a grade.  But I won't have a grade.  But, this professor treats accsss students (I believe I'm the only one though there are other older adults in the 15 person class) as regular students.

So I've tried my hand at it.  It's hard and I'm, um, having trouble getting my entries blessed.  In fact, he distributed everyone's progress (by student number) last night.  The number of approved discussion topics range from 1-8.  My score? 2.  So I'm right down there, not the worst but close.

Never mind about that.

The chronology goes something like this.  My father took a job with Aerojet in Azusa, CA soon after he married my mother.  They married April 1950.  They moved sometime in the next year and rented a house in Duarte.  My mother mostly talked about her friendship with their somewhat sketchy neighbors.  I was born in St. Luke's Hosptal  in April 1952.  A short time later, they bought a house on Bennett Avenue in Glendora (I think East Bennett, but not sure).  My parents with their baby (me) moved to Oak Ridge Tennessee (nine months? so my father could attend 'reactor school.'  I know I had my first birthday there.  I think it might run on an academic year schedule.  They returned to their Glendora home.  At some point, they also lived a short time in Livermore, CA while father did some work at the National Lab there.  My brother Charlie was born, also in St.. Lukes Hospital in July 1954.  I'm pretty sure, they were still in Glendora in Christmas 1955.  Then, (in 1956?), they moved to Sacramento as Aeroject had a large plant there in Nimbus.  I know I went to preschool in Sacramento and started kindergarten in September 1957.

Here's a map of the San Gabriel Valley.  You can see Duarte, Azusa and Glendora upper center towards the right.

I don't have strong memories of the place, I only lived there as a baby and pre-schooler.  My parents also did not stay there long and didn't have much connection to the place either.  But it is my birthplace.

It's more a story about motion than place.  My parents were in motion participating in the post-war engineering shuffle.  The place was also definitely in motion as it transformed from a rural orange grove area into an urban area.  Everything was moving.  My parents really just touched down and moved on.

It means something that I came into this world participating in all of that transformation...I'm just not sure what.