Duarte Golf Course

The last time I golfed here was with my brothers, Tom and Chuck, in the fall of 2008.

Oak Park Motel

I have terrific memories of this motel when my mom's brother, my uncle Jim, came out to visit us from Denver back in the early '70s.  Tom and Mike, Jim's sons and my cousins, came with him.  We went over to the motel to hang out and play in the pool.  That whole family was athletic.  Jim's sons were college and professional football and basketball players.  Jim was tall.  His wife, Helen, was tall.  Their sons and daughters were tall.  So Tom was athletic.  While one of the sons played for the Dallas Cowboys in its earlier years, another son played college basketball for the University of Colorado.  Hearing that gave me dreams.  It's like it gave me permission to be a star athlete.  Boy, did I disappoint.  Tom taught us how to walk on the bottom of the pool by expelling all of the breath and allowing the body to perform a controlled sink to the bottom and then walk on the pool's floor at the deep end of the pool.  It was a great memory.  Back in the days, there was a terrific arcade next to the motel with miniature golf, trampolines, an arcade with all kinds of video games, a giant slide, and a bumper cars lot.  It was great fun with my cousins.  I will always remember my uncle Jim. 

Federally-Funded "Community" Projects Destroy Small-Town Duarte

Duarte renovates its high school football field.  Goodbye natural grass.  Goodbye football cleats digging up dirt and grass.  Goodby grass stains.  The bell tolls for the invigorating autumn aromas of grass and nitrogen and oxygen and trees.  Now, we have synthetic carpets imposed on the kids and imposed on the home-owners through Measure E.  The destruction of a quaint old city rolls on.  I saw a post on John Fasana's Facebook page, dated last year where he wanted to introduce a biotech center at the northeast corner of Huntington Drive and Buena Vista, completely destroying the small-town feel to our beloved Duarte.  The article said that Phil Reyes had a hand in stopping that project.  I don't know for sure.  Maybe Phil is doing some good for Duarte after all.  What I don't understand is that Duarte has recently declared a technical bankruptcy, yet local residents approved bond Measure E at the tune of a $100 per property owner to finance the renovation of Duarte High School's football field from natural grass to synthetic carpet.  Also, the city of Duarte is partnering with the City of Hope who themselves recently received a 1.3 million-dollar grant from NIH to encourage Duarte High School students to become scientists.  But if the city of Duarte accepts and receives grant money from the NIH, which is a federally-funded department of the US government, isn't this effectively a federal bailout of the city of Duarte?

Eric Bergquist

Eric Bergquist is standing in the dark suit next to the podium, not behind it but leaning to his right, talking with the emcee perhaps.  This is a shot from the 2013 Trailblazers Hall of Fame induction, where his father, legendary desert rider, Larry Bergquist, a.k.a., "The Desert Fox," was inducted posthumously in April.  His dad was legendary, and Eric was, and probably still is, a great desert rider in his own right.  I regrettably did not attend the event, though Eric was generous and considerate enough to invite me.  A personal friend was in the hospital recovering from surgery.

I can't remember the first day that I met Eric.  He lived one block away on Conata Street in Duarte.  One of my prominent memories of this guy was when he rode his black chopper stingray bike down to our house on Elda Street.

I found the above photo at http://trailblazersmc.blogspot.com/.

Helen Lam, Realtor Extraordinaire

I first met Helen Lam when I started working as a Realtor at Realty World The Foothills in Duarte in the summer of 1986.  I started working there because Mark Peterson, a good friend of mine at the time, was doing fantastic work there as a Realtor with Pete Cordero.  The both canvassed Baldwin Park and sections of La Puente and El Monte, getting loans and buying up property, fixing them up, and selling them or renting them out.  Together, they did remarkable work.  Why is it that I am always on the outside of partnerships looking in?  Since I knew that Mark worked there I asked if I could work there with him.  He welcomed me.  I didn't get much training.  Carol Hinds explained to the new agents up front that she would not be going out on our first transaction to help negotiate it with me.  Fine, I thought.  Well, it turned out that it wasn't fine with her.  In my first transaction, I represented the seller; the buyer was represented by another agent in our office.  I do not remember her name.  She had red hair.  Well, that's no help, since there about 3 different agents with red hair. So, back to Helen.  I was an independent Realtor for 18 months.  Helen Lam had a beautiful red-haired secretary working for her.  The young woman was getting married.  There were problems.  I don't know what they were.  So, she left.  And since my 3 transactions had all fallen out of escrow in the same week, I asked Helen if I could work for her.  She agreed and we formed a decent partnership.  Helen was an award-winning sales agent.  She would post 3 to 5 listings per week, sometimes more, and her colleagues would shake their collective heads at how she did it.  I think that she even gave a presentation one time on sales within the office, but pride kept a few away.  Still, she earned the respect of agents who wanted to do well.  She could get more work done now that I, a Realtor, was also her assistant.  She promised me bonuses from the commission of sales, and she delivered on those promises.  She is a smart woman.  But what stands out about Helen was that she was award-winning.  She had won the confidence of so many homeowners in Duarte, Monrovia, Arcadia, anywhere she talked real estate.  The Hearthstone owners in particular loved her.  She was a decent marketer too.  At Halloween, she would distribute medium-sized pumpkins at 5 in the morning to the Hearthstone homeowners.  I know because I helped her deliver them.  I used my red pick-up truck to go down to the Food Mart in LA at 4am and load up the truck with a large carton box on a pallet in my truck and drive it on the 10 Freeway back to the Hearthstone streets and deliver these pumpkins.  It was fun and comical.  At each intersection, we would unload the number of pumpkins that matched the number of homes on that street, and Helen and Richard's great kids, Amy and Andrew, would place the pumpkin's on the residents' front porch.  Of course, there would be a sticker with Helen's name and face and phone number.  Like I said, she was a terrific marketer.  At Christmas time, she would buy dish towels, staple a business card to them, and hang them on the residents' doors.  On the 4th of July, Helen had purchased flags with wooden sticks.  We'd march up and down the Hearthstone streets with American flags and run them through the soft or hard ground at the corner of the respective driveways.  That was the fun part.  After we finished, Helen would treat everybody to a good breakfast at Crystal's Coffee Shop.  A good place to eat.

 

The BLVD CAFE

 

What a great memory!  I remember this cafe.  My memory of it was that it was on the decline or that it was a holdout against modernity.  Nobody that I knew ate here, or at least they never told me that they ate there.  That may not be totally correct.  Someone may have mentioned before that they grabbed a burger and chili there.  But that is it.  I do remember a large avocado tree in the empty lot to the east of this cafe.  I remember cutting through it occasionally to make my way over past the Santa Teresita Hospital and on up to Royal Oaks for my walk home.  I loved that walk.  I never thought of the distance of that walk, only the time.  It would be 30 to 45 minutes.  But I loved that 30 to 45 minutes.  I loved getting lost in introspection, pacing my walk and enjoying anybody who crossed my paths.  Step by step, foot by foot with a cushioned grind of the sand and pebble beneath my tennis shoes.  The sun was never a bother.  In fact, I welcomed it.  I used to walk the trail behind the row of 2-bedroom houses on the north side of Royal Oaks Drive.  This was my path.

Susie Tomasian, BLVD Cafe, 1982.  There was a family named the Tomasians who lived near the southwest corner of Greenbank and Royal Oaks.  When I was in the 5th grade at Valley View, I walked Tammy Tomasian home.  She let me carry her books.  Hey, wait a minute!  I don't know if this woman in the photo is related to the Tomasians who lived on Greenbank.