Someday never comes

In 1977 ,a pretty naïve girl and the saying " head west young man" filled my head with a desire so strong, only death would have prevented me from venturing to the state I was born in , yet didn't remember. I was 22 years old, had a strong home base, had my eyes set on full forward, LIFE, that was it. It was the end of whatever started in the mid sixties , then sort of ...sold out...for lack of a better description. I had planned well for my new life. My girl and I talk about it for a year and saved.. We had started planning on new years eve 1976. We both worked two jobs, of course it was bi-centennial year in Boston so we had to stay here for that too. New Years 77 was a different story,
Time to go.

D and I were indestructible.
Beautiful  L.A.  About to be conquered by D and Al. Bold ,young, idealist with plans. Our plans were to head north to Carpentaria, her cousin was there all set up. We had a nice nest egg ,we should have been all set to establish ourselves, so we thought.  I was well into a restaurant management career by this time with 4 years of Friendly's Ice Cream' management on my resume. D could work any farm, handle any animal hands down. Neither one off us were lazy, just over eager and new to a cruel world. Lessons were about to come hard and fast. Dees' cousin Drew and his girl Lisa had a place by the ocean 12 miles north of Santa Barbara, said they could get us in if we headed that way. Told us Sambos, a restaurant chain headquarters was up the road to send along my resume , he would carry it ahead for me. Our first view of L.A. above, on the overnight stay, waiting, for the bus to Carpentaria the next morning. Little did we know or did we even imagine that in a few short months we would be homeless on these very streets and actually miss the cold comfort of our homes in the wintery northeastern states.

Jim, ironically, from Vermont, was the only person from the Santa Barbara area who did not rip us off. I took this in Drew's' apartment one morning shortly after our arrival. Across the street from this window is a campground that led to the Pacific Ocean with a view of drilling platforms in the distance. Somewhere in my 45 years of photographs' I do have shots but I doubt I have enough life left in me  to find them. We lived in the campgrounds. I gave Drew $1700.00 to process  with management ,for our own apartment, he was working there. D got a job on our second day in town, in a sandal factory, got paid by the piece, daily, cash. Sambos', that restaurant chain, I looked like an ass, had no resume for me , so the process was starting from scratch. Drew apologized, he forgot to walk the three blocks up the street  the previous month. Back then it was all done by snail mail. Still  all was good, we were young ,following our dreams, living the virtual hippie life. making sand candles to sell on the beach walks, involved with the peace and the love thing. In Californian in the 70's  it was  the same as it is today only worse, if you had no car, phone, or no place to call home, an employer did not want to talk to you. To get around proved hard and time consuming. The scenery in lower Ojai Valley is beautiful as my eyes can attest to, film was expensive, my shots were few, my skills were not well developed if you will excuse the pun. Aside from the restaurant headquarters, there were no other food service institutions within 15 miles, and Rapid Transit District or RTD was anything but. A month went by, still no prospects for sustainable work on my end ,D still had piece work. Savings getting low, no apartment open yet. We were meeting some great people along the way, one of whom would be instrumental in preventing two souls from becoming lost. Jill and Alice are two girls we met camping and Jill's' mom Jean Menagay.  I'll get back to "Saint Jean " later.

 April 4th saw D's birthday so a celebration was called for that night. We had been there three months by then and never caused a problem, nor had we that night except for the fact that when the new park ranger went by and seen beer cans on the table, she stopped to check our id's .Lisa and D were only twenty so they got arrested. Had to go to Santa Barbara jail overnight, courts the next morning ,plead them out and pay their fines. Drew didn't have it. Just about all of our nest egg gone.
No transport back to Carpentaria  that night, walk 12 miles. Next morning campground informs us when our rent runs out we are out. Go over to the apartment complex Drew "worked' at, he and Lisa are gone ,they only subbed. Rent down payment to. So much for blood loyalty.   Quick thinking young and agile, we wasted no time and took up Jill moms offer and headed back to L.A. A couple a weeks earlier when we met Jean, she gave us contact info should we get into her neighborhood. She knew we had been waiting for a place to stay. She owned rental units in N. Hollywood. She had made sense when she said jobs would be easier to get for me there. Said she should have a place open soon , keep in touch. We Greyhounded back to LA, de-boarding below the iconic Columbian record building not knowing it would be our view in a tough few months time. I had contacted Jean to see if her offer was still open she said yes next month upstairs was going to be open and we could use her phone and address for apps and check with her there in the meantime. We grabbed a room at a flop hotel for a week and  had enough cash for flop house weekly rentals for 2 weeks if we didn't eat at this point. L.A., EVEN IN THE SEVENTIES  WAS VERY EXSPENSIVE. we stayed the first week in a courtyard motel on Lankershim Blvd, not to far from Van Owen and started pounding pavement  for work. Jean was right, restaurants were plentiful, I couldn't count that high, write that much or handle enough territory in one day. Luckily I have always had a good sense of direction, and always found our way back at night. That city is HUGH. By the end of the first week ,we realized we would have to make contingency plans to expand our resources and make them last in case. While in the campground we lived fairly normal ,kept clean, fed, regular routine type situation. Now.............
Money was getting real tight, we had Jeans' address and phone to use for on applications, but we were not living there yet ,we had no car, we did not know our way around, we had no local work reference, cell phones were on Star Trek only, I was 22 looked 17, D just turned 20 ,looked even younger, I'm sure we were making a big impression on L.A. We decided to keep our stuff in the lockers at the bus terminal,(pre9-11 thing) while we search for work. This way we were able to eat a little more. We would snooze in parks in the afternoons or at the libraries, then wander at night. When we would run out of clean cloths, I carried the dirty backpack, her the clean, we would splurge, get a room wash cloths, bathe , out the next day till next cycle. Five weeks in, Jean is having trouble getting her troubled tenant out. D and I are down to doing Safeway supermarket shopping fakes. Not proud of it ,but scared children are very creative. In the days before surveillance cams we went in the supermarket got a cart like we were doing regular shopping , picked from said cart till cravings ceased ,left cart full in aisle ,out door we went. For five more weeks we ate like this. Just about every supermarket in walking distance of Sherman Oaks, Thousand Oaks, Van Nuys, North Hollywood, Glendale....I don't know a long time ago, one tries to forget the bad ,emphasis on the good.
We got to the point we could no longer afford the lockers or rooms. It was roaming, all of our worldly goods were with us 24/7.  D was withdrawing more than I, I believe.




U-Haul became one our favorite snooze spots. Not fun to awaken to them being moved. This shot left was right before we had to get out of one real quick. Next shot was taken by pawn shop guy to make sure my camera worked. That was the last shot it took in L.A. until a week before we left a few months later when I got it out of pawn. When I had to pawn my camera we were scared by then, D had been doing the checking in with Jean all of a sudden. Then things started happening fast so forgive me if my sequences are off ,almost 40 years have since gone by.
 One Day I had just applied at a place on Roscoe called Naugles.  We were on the corner of Van Nuys & Roscoe  in front of a Bobs' Big Boy ,a lady seen us with backpacks and sleeping bags and asked if we were hungry. We denied it and thanked her. She boarded a bus. Later we found fifty dollars stuffed in our sleeping bags. We both broke down, that was big money in 77. D called Jean that night ,Naugles called, wanted me for graveyard shift, start in 3 days. Still no luck with apartment, but D and I were to come and stay on her couch for the interim, free, especially with D's problem! WHAT !   That is what she and Jean were talking about.  Jean helped her through Ca. law.  Roe vs. Wade just became law. I am even dumber than I ever realize. Females instinctively know things males will never understand. I have never questioned or judged, just given my blessing and asked your forgiveness. We stayed on Jeans' couch another month while she fought battles with her upstairs occupants. I worked graveyard, which disrupted her household, a single mom ,running an apartment complex ,a 10 year old girl, and I believe 3 teenage girls too. Jean Menagay , you  were a  SUPERWOMEN , I will never forget you ever, thank you. is so little to repay you with. One afternoon I was sleeping, D woke me up, said someone is outside with a rifle, I said call LA finest, they surround 6700 Kraft Ave . It was the black rubber around the wire on a tree. Jean laughed so hard she dropped all her pills out of her huge vitamin box. The disruption was disturbing us, making us feel uncomfortable, so we made arrangements to stay at Jeans boyfriend, Genes', house until things worked out. That took another couple of months, D would come to work with me at night, we sleep days, then we got our apartment, but by now we had become so homesick and jaded it was a very very bittersweet joy. At this point we were making rent. Food we took care of at the restaurant. I managed to get my camera out of hock. The last two shots taken were of Camille and her friend which I did not develop till long after I was back at the right coast and the young lovers had forever forged a new destiny.

 My blogs are not story land images being put into words, only very distant memories, how accurate?
From my view, anyway. My friend Roger has letters I wrote him then , he said he didn't know how we survived. What I regret the most is the way we thanked SAINT JEAN. I hope in her infinite wisdom and goodness she knew and understood and forgave me and D when on that Sat morn. of the third month , when our rent was due , We took her rent and boarded a Greyhound back to our homes.



1989

 



1999

2009

2014

Nothing has changed since then , homelessness, is homelessness.