Duarte May 5, 2012

An out-of-focus shot I took of a 1982 photograph on display at the Duarte History Museum.

That street behind the electric tower is Greenbank.  Just to the left is Terry Talexson's home, which means that that road running up to me was the old and infamous Avocado Grove.  The scary Avocado Grove where stories of Keith Larsen getting shot by guys with a pellet gun and being chased by Doberman Pinschers.  Those stories were enough to keep out of there. 

This is a flood basin at the top of Tocino Avenue in Duarte.  That field to the left is that Nursery that gets split by Royal Oaks.  When we were kids, Kevin Moore and I snuck into that field one night--they were growing strawberries at the time--and plucked 2 bag fulls of juicy, sweet and pungent strawberries.  Those were the days.  We were kids having fun. 

I took this picture of the Monrovia Convalescent Hospital behind the Duarte Public Library because I and the rest of the Duarte Cross-Country team used to cut through here on our way over to Mountain Avenue up which we'd run to Foothill Boulevard and on up Canyon Blvd. to Monrovia Canyon Park.  That was a tough run. 

It's hard to see from this angle but that white building over the wall is the Huntington Drive Medical Center.  Our family doctor was a Dr. Ramos, a Filipino man whom we put a lot of faith and trust in.  The last time that I saw Dr. Ramos in 1985 for a splinter driven deep into my skin.  I didn't have a pair of tweezers.  At that time he was no longer in this building.  His office then had moved to a professional building on Buena Vista north of Huntington on the same side of the street behind the old Winchell's Donuts.  I loved this town.  I lost so much when my mom passed.  I lost our family's ancestral home on Elda Street, I lost my mom and a few siblings withdrew never to have returned to a family, and I lost a city in the process.  The city has changed so much.  No more Swiss Park.  No more Trails Restaurant, my mother's favorite.  No more Columbia Bowl.  It is sad.  I am surprised that this hospital still stands and didn't make way for townhouses or condominiums.