Kim and I were both born in the Los Angeles area -- Kim on June 13, 1937 and I on July 20, 1938. (Bruce/Kim When Small ) We both had the good fortune to come along at a time in our parents' lives when they actually owned a house -- their first, and a singular event in their lives for many years. Our little house was in the so-called "Hollywood Hills" part of Los Angeles at 357 Mavis Drive, which at that time (1937-38) was a somewhat rural, almost country setting, but is now (circa 2017) a rather densely settled, cross-cultural mix of working-class, culturally mixed housing. The house was on a fairly good-sized lot (possibly as much a substantial fraction of an acre of land) located partially on a hill and surrounded by very dry ravines. Water for the half dozen or so homes in the immediate neighborhood was provided by a very substantial metal tank partially buried in the ground a few tens of vertical feet higher up the hill -- perhaps a quarter mile walk up a small two-lane road, which just above our driveway turned from pavement to dirt. One of our earliest memories was of frequent fire sirens on a road directly across the small fields adjacent to our property, about a mile away, and considerably lower down the hill -- fires during the summer were an ever-present danger. Our father would have to climb up on the roof of our small house with a garden hose and wet things down well to make sure no airborne embers would set the wooden shingles on fire. One of our fondest memories was of our pony "Smokey" who was housed in a small shed-like stable/barn filled tightly with bales of hay for Smokey's use -- both as feed and bedding! The stable was also the larder for the substantial crop of soy beans that Jimmy grew and put into sacks that we very much enjoyed poking out way into and spilling all over the ground in the stable (it was still the Depression). The stable was located a few tens of feet down a fairly steep path from the house, and one of our favorite tricks was to jump from the path into our father's arms as he was standing next to the barn three or feet lower than the path. Another strong memory of that time was a very rainy night when a rather forlorn-looking goat came wandering along one of the ravines -- lost, wet, and very noisy about the whole situation. Our father went out in his yellow slicker and big hip boots trying to get the poor creature headed back for home, but the animal seemed to feel he had already found his long-sought home and decided to spend the rest of the night in the little horse stable before eventually disappearing (we were never quite sure how or where!). We lived in the house on Mavis Drive until about 1942 when Jimmy left to go to Central America to work for the Army Corps of Engineers as part of the multi-cultural team laying out the newly planned Pan-American Highway (planned to run from the top of Alaska to the bottom of South America to provide transportation in the case of a potential Japanese invasion -- an early 1940's concern!) (Jimmy in Costa Rica ). Tedi was forced (by practical concerns) to move to a smaller house at 626 North Arden Boulevard which was within walking distance of Paramount Studios where she was then working (the house at 357 Mavis Drive was sold in 1943).
We lived in the house at 626 North Arden Boulevard for about 3 years, including a brief period after Jimmy returned from Central America, but when the war ended the owners wanted it back and eventually sold it. During his single year at Glendale High School from 1923-24, Jimmy had made good friends with a classmate named Al Taliaferro, who had become one of the early Walt Disney animators and with whom he remained life-long friends. Al and his wife Lucy owned a small duplex in Glendale at xxx Chevy Chase Drive, and Al offered us the use of the front half. It was apparently a bit of a God-send, as housing had suddenly become hard to find, what with large numbers of soldiers returning from the war in the Far East. However, it was quite a distance from downtown Los Angeles, where Tedi and Jimmy had very recently started up their dressmaking business (Kims-of-Cal )in the Pan American building at S. Broadway and W. 3rd, right in the heart of the old downtown area (directly adjacent to the Angels Flight funicular railway, Grand Central Market, and the Million Dollar Theater, and within walking distance of the old Red Line central terminal). They later moved the operation to Louis Pizer's factory on E. Pico Blvd and Wall Street(?). We began several years of long commutes -- for Tedi and Jimmy from Glendale to downtown Los Angeles, and for us both from Glendale to downtown Los Angeles, then further on (by bus or with Tedi's dad) out Wilshire Boulevard to Beverly Hills and North Swall Drive where we had recently begun school at Berkeley Hall, a Christian Science school of Tedi's selection (somewhere between 1-1/2 to 2 hours drive each way from Beverly Hills to Glendale!). The whole commute was really quite insane for Kim and myself, especially as there was a grammar school right across the street from our house in Glendale, but Tedi had bought into Christian Science unequivocally and apparently could not be swayed by Jimmy, who certainly had very ambivalent feelings about the whole situation! The ride out Wilshire Boulevard with Tedi's father (Leon Strashun) was always fun (at least for me!), as he would try to teach us Russian and get us interested in classical music (he was a very talented violinist and conductor). He had taken a position at the UCLA Music Library in Santa Monica overseeing the cataloguing and cleaning-up of a large colllection of scores (mainly opera) salvaged from European cities which had been ravaged by the Nazis. It was actually a very responsible position, and the work was very worthwhile. He would from time to time interact with well-known musical figures of the day, such as Arnold Schoenberg, Franz Werfel, and even Alma Mahler (who by that time had passed through three husbands -- Gustav Mahler, Walter Gropius, and Franz Werfel!). A well-known Tom Lehrer ditty of the 1950s runs -- / Oh, Du, Alma Mahler, please tell us / All modern women are jealous / Which of your magical wands / Got you Gustav and Walter and Franz ? / !
Once we left Los Angeles, we embarked on a long period of living in rented houses scattered across the Southern part of the United States in a line stretching roughly from Los Angeles to Atlanta, Georgia. To give an idea of what we were embarking on, listed below are the schools we attended from 1st to 12 grades ...
Los Angeles Kindergarten (several weeks in public school somewhere around 626 N. Arden Blvd)
Los Angeles Busy Bee Kindergarten (1 week) -- Verdugo Hills (same place Malcolm Walker spent time)
Los Angeles Berkeley Hall 1st-4th grade (+ Kindergarten) 300 N. Swall Drive, Beverly Hills
Santa Fe Carlos Gilbert 5th grade (2 weeks) 300 Griffin St, Santa Fe, NM
Santa Fe Manderfield 5th grade 1150 Canyon Road, Santa Fe, NM
Santa Fe Gormley 6th grade 141 E Booth St, Santa Fe, NM
Santa Fe Harrington Jr. High 7th grade (2 months) 700 Don Gaspar Ave
Lubbock O. L. Slayton Jr. High 7th grade (3 months) 1602 32nd St
Lubbock Carroll Thompson Jr. High 7th grade (4 months, out for several weeks due to vaccination hassle) 13th and 14th Streets
Marietta Elizabeth School 8th grade (whole year for Kim, whole year minus 1 month for Bruce)
Marietta Keith Schol 8th grade (1 month, for Bruce only)
Marietta Marietta High 9th-10th grades
Atlanta Northside High 11th-12th grades
