Memories

 I went to bed early after what should have been an easy 3 mile walk.  The allergic asthma makes this hard.

I woke up a few minutes ago with memories that will not shake, and that I think may interest some of you.

It was 1965 through 1967.  I was 9 - 11 (fourth through sixth grades).  We lived in an Edwardian house that had been subdivided into three apartments; my family occupied the bottom floor.  It was 857 3rd Street in Santa Monica so we were three blocks from the Palisades, overlooking the beach.  We were on the northwest corner of the intersection of 3rd Street and Idaho Blvd.  In summer, which seemed to last forever at that age, my sister Marilyn and I would walk down Idaho to the Palisades.

At Idaho, erosion had cut the edge of the cliff back to where Idaho met Ocean Blvd.  In some years, we would hop the fence and carefully climb down a path to the Pacific Coast Highway and somehow crossed it without getting killed.  At some point, we started taking the pedestrian walkway at California Blvd. that crossed the highway, at what in retrospect was a pretty major height,

When we left the house about 9 or 10, it was usually still foggy.  By 11 or 12, the fog burned off and we would play in the waves.  Marilyn and friends went swimming a bit offshore.  I was not able to swim yet so I stayed ijn very shallow water.  About noon, Marilyn would give a couple dollars to walk over to the Sorrento Beach Grill to get a burger, fries, and a Coke.  I remember walking back across the hot sand as fast as I could safely carry our meal.  I can still see the "No shoes, no service" sign inside.  At that age any food was pretty awesome.  By 4 or so we would make the climb back to the top of the Palisades to go home.