Memory Lane

A couple weeks ago, Kim and I picked up our Great Aunt and Uncle from San Diego to take them back up to Hollywood for a trip down memory lane.  Hollywood is where they met and married in the early fifties, bought a parcel of land above the Sunset strip in the hills and built a home.  Uncle Bobby’s normally bright blue eyes were visibly more vibrant as we drove up the windy narrow road to where their house was.  I asked him how he felt, to which his response ‘exhilarated’ came concisely and without delay!  Their house was still standing, constructed soundly by Uncle Bobby’s own hands over fifty years ago, now directly above the Chateau Marmont.  They sold that house in the fifties for $3,500, a subject that always makes them shake their heads slightly and smile. 

Afterward, we made our way to The Apple Pan, an old-time diner Uncle Bobby had frequented since close to it’s opening in ’47.  A place who’s reputation has been famously solidified by hard work, customer relations and a dogged resistance to selling out as evidenced by it’s original structure, a converted house, now surrounded by a giant mall and large commercial buildings.  For a moment at that counter, I shared in Bobby’s reclaimed youth, and felt fifty years younger myself.