1960

Four spankin' new immigrants (well, five, including the fluffy Mr. Prince) arrive in Southern California! Naturally, we had to visit Santa Monica.

I do believe that Annie and I did not speak English at the time.

Just thought I'd throw that out there.

We rented a place in Anaheim at first. It must have been close to Knott's Berry Farm, 'cuz we could hear Richard Nixon speaking there during the notorious 1960 Presidential campaign. (Of course, I had no idea who Nixon was.)

Check out the incinerator. Every home had one. Virtually all of them were demolished years later.

This place doesn't look like much, but it was a big step up for the Bauer family, which was accustomed to trailers in remote power stations in the Canadian bush. But we saved our money and, soon, we moved into a new home.

This is actually from about 1962. I suspect that it's Pismo Beach or perhaps a bit further north.
Ray was born late in 1961.

My parents bought this house toward the end of 1960, I believe. It is in the City of Orange, but very near Villa Park (Santiago Blvd.), where I attended school. As I recall, we paid under $20,000 for this "pink house." My parents still own it (they moved to the Trabuco Canyon area in 1975).
In my view, the home designs of the time were, well, ugly. I wonder if growing up in an ugly, pink home messed me up? That '61 Ford in the driveway wasn't much better.
I've never understood tolerance of those gawdawful telephone and power poles. Don't they strike you as seriously ugly? To me, those poles are like turds on a birthday cake. What kind of people would enter a shiny new neighborhood, even one with pink houses, and not marvel at the absurdity and stupidity of sticking crudely hewn, tar-encrusted poles in the ground and hanging ugly black wires on 'em?
But the zeitgeist of 1960 embraced "progress" and plasticity and new-and-improvitude. It's damned hard to defy a zeitgeist, isn't it?
Well, that explains pink, squat, meandering, crap-encrusted houses and flashy, bewinged Ford crapmobiles, but how does it explain those fucking poles and wires? I dunno.
I seem to be peevish tonight.
Sorry.
And urban sprawl! Even as a bewildered little kid from wild and woolly Canada, I was shocked and horrified by the disorganized and promiscuous spill of humanity that is urban sprawl! How could people flock to this? What is the matter with them? Will they next move onto methane-belching landfills and vacation on oil-drenched slag heaps? Anyone with half a brain knows immediately (I thought then and think now) that any person who is insensible to the soul-killing ugliness of urban fucking sprawl will eventually abandon car batteries on his lawn, toss old couches into the street, and will inevitably shit on the sidewalk.
(Sorry. The weather's awfully nice here, though, isn't it? Yep.)

Archives: 1983-4

Early in 1983, my little brother Ray decided to join the Marines. "Good grief," we all said.

Ray received basic training in San Diego. We all went down there for his graduation, or whatever it's called. Took these pics. (Click on them to enlarge them.)

The next phase of Ray's training occurred at a camp inland between San Diego and Orange County (Camp Horno of the 1st Marines; it is within Camp Pendelton; at a later date, he trained up near Bridgeport). There, he "humped hills," he later told me. He was a squad leader (or some such thing), and this involved kicking colleagues, if necessary, to motivate them up these hills.

Ray actually broke his foot kicking one guy "in the ass." As I recall, he characterized the fellow very colorfully. For some reason, Ray did not consider getting treatment (for his foot, I mean; don't know about that other guy's ass). It became necessary to re-break and mend the foot a year or two later.

One time, he and one of his Marine pals (a "dark green Marine," they said) stayed over at my folks' place. Late Saturday night, Ray, his pal, Kathie, and I were out on the patio, drinking beer and staring at the marvelous night sky. It's really quiet and dark out in those hills at night.

That's when we saw an amazing enormous UFO, flying slowly over us and then off to the east. All four of us saw it. It was impossible to miss.

Ray is now dead, but, for years, I would occasionally bring up that incident. 

"That really happened, didn't it?" I'd ask, sometimes over the phone.

"Sure it did," said Ray.

Kathie remembers it too.

Don't know what to make of it all.

This picture was likely taken near Fashion Island in Newport Beach. Kathie and I used to hang out in Newport Beach and Corona del Mar. Used to eat at the Blue Beat, among other places.

By '83, my little brother Ron was a high school senior. I had encouraged him to take up the guitar a year or two earlier. At some point, he advanced rapidly, and he soon managed to duplicate complex folk/blues pieces by John Fahey and Leo Kottke. We were impressed.

He and I would get together on occasion to record our own songs.

We were terribly serious about this, in a way. But it was always great fun.

In 1983, Kathie and I were living in Verano Place—graduate student housing at UCI.

Here's Kathie on the balcony of our third floor apartment.

The construction of those old apartments was such that the act of typing, with an IBM Selectric, produced a pounding roar--especially in the apartment immediately below us.

At one point, the Iranian couple that lived there complained to officials that Kathie and I were "trying to torture them." I've forgotten how the dispute was resolved. 

I do remember saying, "Nope. We're not trying to torture anybody. We're trying to type."

During my graduate student years, which continued through the early 80s, weekends usually meant parties and drinking. To a degree, this practice extended to my parents' place up in the mountains. Invariably, our friends ended up at some point partying and staying at my folks' place, which became almost a grad student hangout and Teutonic Absurdity Center.

My parents are terribly hospitable people. They've got this Old World charm, I guess. (My mom retains a heavy German accent.) So several of my friends became virtual members of the Bauer family.

Even one of my professor mentors befriended my parents and hung out in the Canyon.

I was horrified. But I was powerless to do anything about it.

Opa, before his stroke, sometimes joined in the fun.

Here he is hammering himself in the head. (My mother, in the background, seems unimpressed.)

I think the hammer broke.

You'd have to ask Ronnie about that. Ronnie and Opa were tight during those years.

(Ronnie's German is pretty good.)

I don't recall what the occasion was. I think my sister Annie had come down one weekend and set up a sheet on the wall for photographs.

I came across a few crazy photos today that involved that sheet.

In that next photo, they're kissing passionately.

My parents don't drink anymore. Haven't for years.

Probably a good thing.

     This slide was in terrible shape--beyond the scope of restoration, really. What you see is the best I could do. But it does give you a sense of the scene at the Bauers' Canyon "Compound" in those days.
     Booze. Hilarity. Art. Excess. Large and lovable German Shepherds. Astounding cats! (Moon Unit, GreyBall, Felix, Maurice, et al.)
     We made movies, played songs, argued about Reagan and Prop 13, and made increasingly extravagant and spicy pizzas.
     Good Lord, the pizzas! They were unbelievably excessive. It was as though there were a contest, and the winner simply dumped more spices in the sauce or piled more meat and junk on top than anybody else. I started to develop the view that we were insane, pizzawise.
     At some point, I incited and accomplished a revolution. I assembled everyone to the kitchen table. In essence, it was a call for simplicity. "If," I said, "one approaches the making of pizza with the foolish notion that more is always better, one will end up with this [I pointed at the offending pie] hideous, bowel-wrecking monstrosity!"
     Everyone in attendance was astonished and annoyed.
     But they were guilty, and they knew it.
     I then pulled out a sheet of paper. Written upon it was an exceedingly simple pizza recipe. I laid it upon the large oak table for all to see. "There."
     And it was good.
     Many grumbled, but all knew that I had spoken, and acted, wisely.