We boarded a plane and flew directly from Sacramento to Long Beach to see my grandparents. It was a short vacation.I remember my grandparents huge house on Granada Avenue. It was the biggest house in the neighborhood and walking distance from the beach. I remember Grandpa waving good-bye to us as we waited to fly back home.
A year later, my dad's time in the Air Force ended and our family returned to southern California and settled in the San Fernando Valley. Every single Sunday, we drove from the Valley to Long Beach to visit my grandparents. Eventually, we moved to Belair, which was a bit closer to Long Beach.
Once in awhile, we'd go to the beach or visit Grandpa's store on Pine Avenue. Sometimes the entire family would go out to dinner at the Katella Deli in Los Alamitos.
My father's roots in Long Beach went back to 1928 when his parents moved there. In fact, all of my granfather's brothers and sisters lived in Long Beach. There was Tom, Irving, Max, David, Rose, Dena, Edith, and another sister in my grandfather's clan. My father grew up surrounded by aunts and uncles and cousins and a grandmother in Long Beach who loved him so much. The stories my father tells of those days almost seem like something out of a movie. Sometimes I wish I was around to enjoy those happy times.
Grandpa owned a jewelery store on Pine Avenue in downtown Long Beach called Maxwells. It was a family business. Some of Grandpa's brothers worked there. Going to Maxwells was an adventure for me as a child. Grandpa gave us watches and alarm clocks I recall. I remember being fascinated at how big the store was and sometimes playing inside the offices on the floor above the store.
Eventually, my parents left southern California. My dad became the Director of Pathology at the University of Health Sciences/Chicago Medical Schoool and my brother Billy and I moved to Colorado to train at our figure skating. My sister Lynnellen stayed in California. In 1976, my Grandpa Max died. I remember being back in Long Beach for the funeral.
In 1978, when I graduated from college, I left Colorado for Long Beach and moved into my grandparents house. That was when I got to know my Grandma Fannie. She really had not been a widow for long and missed my Grandpa Max. Most of Grandpa's siblings were still alive then and I enjoyed getting to know all of them. They lived walking distance from Grandma's Belmont Shore home.
In early September, 1978, I met my husband to be, Dan Farris at a youth camping trip. The group took a boat to Catalina Island. Dan and I fell in love that weekend.
In April of 1979 we were married in Dan's parents' backyard. Dan was born in Long Beach and we were married in the house he grew up in. It's funny, but until I met Dan, I had no idea there was an entire section of Long Beach that was not walking distance to the beach. His family lived in an area of Long Beach called Los Altos.
When Dan and I first were married, all of Dan's brothers and sisters lived in Long Beach, or lived nearby. There were six kids in Dan's family. Dan's grandmother lived in an apartment just around the corner from Dan's oldest sister. We could bike from our house to Dan's parents house and also to Dan's sister's house and to Grama Bee's house. Sometimes we'd see Dan's brother Pat at Long Beach State. Both Dan and I did some graduate work there and rode our bikes to the campus. Dan rode his bike to work.
Two of my closest friends, Marion and Helen, also moved to Long Beach. Both of them visited me there, and decided to stay! Helen lived in a house in Seal Beach for awhile and also lived ON a boat! Marion and Dan worked at the VA Hospital. Marion met her husband to be, Bruce Curtis, while living in Long Beach.
Dan and I left Long Beach in April of 1988, but our link there still remains. Dan's parents still live there and so does Dan's brother Mike. Dan has a cousin or two living there.
My sister, Lynnellen, also settled in Long Beach. She bought a home there and raised her three children there. She now lives in the the same house on Granada that I visited every single weekend of my childhoood.
My family now owns a condo right next to The Bay. That bay is the same bay that my father and grandparents swam in in the 1930s and 1940s! It's the bay that my grandmother took me to play in. It's the bay where Dan and his siblings learned to swim.
So many memories are there. I remember walking through the streets of Belmont Shore in 1978 with Dan and falling more and more in love. I remember waiting at the bus stop with my Grandma Fannie when I was a little girl. I remember going to the beach with my parents there when I was a child. I remember going to the movies on 2nd Street and buying candy at a store in Belmont Shore. I remember shopping with my grandmother at Howie's Market and eating meals with my husband at Hof's Hut or Hamburger Henry. I remember seeing Grandpa Max's brothers and sisters on the streets and visiting them. I remember holiday celebrations at my grandparents house. I remember riding bikes with my husband Dan through Long Beach for hours and hours every day during our early days of marriage. I fondly remember the early days of our marriage when Dan and I ate out every night at a Long Beach coffee shop or restaurant! I remember all the special friends the two of us made in Long Beach.
Now, my own children have Long Beach memories. They will remember the summer of 2009 where they played on the beach, walked on the beach, flew kites, rode kayaks, and also visited with family and friends. I am so glad that the place my father grew up at and the place my grandparents and my husband's family decided to call home can also be a place that will bring happy thoughts and smiles to my family!
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