OT: Houses (yet again)

House near my childhood home in the San Gabriel Valley rehabbed and sold last year by HGTV's Flip or Flop

This post has nothing to do with Our Current Crisis (please). But it was kind of amusing when I came across an episode of "Flip of Flop" a while back done in my own childhood neighborhood in the San Gabriel Valley (I lived there from 1954 to 1959.)

Well, in truth, it isn't my own neighborhood; it's the neighborhood next to my neighborhood. The dividing line between neighborhoods was Lark Ellen Avenue.  We called the houses in this neighborhood the "Storybook" houses because most of them were two story, whereas for the most part, suburban Los Angeles homes in the 1950s were aggressively one story.  School chums lived in this neighborhood. I don't think the house featured in the episode of "Flip or Flop" was the home of my friend Bobby, but he lived in a house similar to it on the same street, and I visited his place quite often. So when I saw this episode, the house was very familiar, and I probably passed by this one practically every day to get to the grocery store down the street.

According to the map, it's about 1/2 a mile from where I lived, maybe less. The elementary school I attended was just behind my house across a drainage ditch. We lived within shouting distance of the San Gabriel Mountains, and snow capped Old Baldy was a prominent presence throughout the winter. At least when we could see it at all given the nearly perpetual eye-stinging smog. In those days it was worse than you can imagine. These days, they say, not so much. But that's another post, too.

Unfortunately, the episode is not available online at the moment due to the fact that it is scheduled for re-broadcast on HGTV at the end of December and through January. When it is back in the online queue, I'll try to remember to put a link and make remarks on the sameness of practically every house hunt/rehab project show HGTV has ever done. It's truly bizarre.

But that's for another day.

Today we have the EC. What fun!