Another Excerpt From “Marlene”
We stopped in Lone Pine for lunch. Melvin pointed across the highway to a rounded rock formation. “The Alabama Hills is where old Western movies were shot, Tom Mix, Hopalong Cassidy, and John Wayne, among others. They made two reelers, technically the term for silent comedies, but any short B movie including talkies is a two reeler these days.”
“On Saturday mornings at Marlene’s house in Baldwin Park I watched Randy Rides Again with John Wayne and serials like Flash Gordon. Her dad usually woke up on the couch and watched with us. A nice man for a hopeless drunk. I was sure the outdoor cattle ranch scenes were shot up in Calabasas and Santa Suzanna.”
“In your father’s words, this is all useless mind candy. He has always been a killjoy when it came to having fun for its own sake.”
Another Excerpt From “Pasadena 1984” - About Generation X
Generation X was strikingly different from Baby Boomers. Alex P. Keaton was an epitome—as were my own children, Matt and Sandra. White kids were sullen, resentful, and conservative. They preferred alcohol to pot smoking, but they consumed whatever chemical was at hand.
Eaton Fire II
In Altadena Mary Jo and I bought our first home in 1983 following the end of my twenty-year first marriage to Julie. It was destroyed in the Easton Fire of 2025. We moved away in 1999. It was sold a few years ago for over one million dollars. I feel sorry for the current owners. It’s not about the money, we also loved that place and installed a special stained-glass window in the master bedroom upstairs. I feel the collective ache of the displaced Altadenans losing prized possessions, pets, cars and their identities.
It is a diverse, bohemian enclave in the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains.