Run, Lola, Run!!

Monterey California has always been one of my favorite spots on earth!! My time there on my own was a little too short.........but nevertheless, I managed to store some great memories in the two and a half years I lived there. 

First of all, for the first time in my life I got skinny!! I walked most places unless I used the city bus to get from one town to another.  And mostly my walking was done on hills.Years later I found out that I lived there through the mid 60's when the whole "flower child" era was happening but I never knew.......

On days when I wasn't working I would love to lie in bed in the morning and look out the windows at the fog........I think thats when I fell in love with "fog"! It was like a mask of sorts.......I guess I thought noone would notice me through the fog......lol  It made me feel safe.  On foggy Sundays I would love to walk for hours.....find something yummy for lunch and head home.  It made the my free time more enjoyable to hide in the fog.....lol

Early in the mornings when I would get ready to leave for work it would be dark and foggy.  But it was very peaceful, no sounds of traffic yet and my walk to work through the early morning mist, (never had to buy hair spray, the mist kept your hair frizzed!!) would just be a quiet walk smelling coffee coming out of the houses on the way down the hill.  The gas station at the bottom of the hill is where I would actually wake up! I would get a donut and a cup of coffee to eat the rest of the way to work which was about another two blocks. 

My lunch was usually a baloney sandwich ( still one of my favorites!!) and a soda. I would go along side the cannery and sit on the rocks at the waters edge to eat.  I can still remember how peaceful it was there in the middle of the afternoon.......seagulls waiting for me to drop my sandwich.......lol  Last summer Dan attended a conference in Monterey at the Monterey Plaza Hotel on Cannery Row.  I took a couple of days off and drove up to join him there and OMG.....that hotel is built in the same exact spot where that Frito Lay plant sat all those years ago!!  The picture of me on this blogs main page is taken in the hotel resturant where we had breakfast the next morning.......I will post photos I took of the rocks outside which they apparently built over and around.  It was amazing!! I got to show Dan where I would sit with the seagulls at lunchtime everyday!

Most days after work I would catch a bus to Seaside......one town before Monterey to work at the pizza parlor......but I did not work at the pizza parlor on Thursdays or Sundays  and on those two days of the week I didn't have to hurry to catch a bus......(Sunday I didn't work at any job!) I could leisurely stop at the store and pick up some munchies and then I would stand on the corner of David and Lighthouse and look up the hill and tell myself......."just go its not gonna get any easier"! lol I guess after getting off of the bus most nights at 10:30 I never really paid attention to how straight uphill that climb was....one, because it was dark and not so easy to tell and two, I was wayyyy too tired to think!! But on my Thursday nights especially.....my walk up that hill was a learning experience.  You could tell a lot about the people who lived in these houses........some houses were very ornate with gingerbread trimms and some very plain in need of some paint!!  Some of the yards were manicured and some of them looked like noone lived there except I could see people inside the house.  It was already trying to get dark and folks had their lights on indoors........the smells were incredible!! You could smell spaghetti coming from this house and chicken coming from two doors down, maybe a cake baking here or there and always just yummy smells to carry me up the hill !! I would watch what was going on as I passed each house (that made the walk much shorter I think!!) Kids at the dining room table doing homework, someone setting the table in the next window......mothers hollering at their kids to get inside, time for dinner! I daydreamed about one day having my own children and cooking!! Especially cooking!! You know, with your very own pots and pans and bowls and appliances........hahaha Yeah I daydreamed about pots and pans!!

I couldn't afford to get a phone installed so it was a given that every Sunday afternoon I would call my girlfriend Linda and sometimes if her Dad was home she would take the bus to my apartment!  We would walk somewhere and get munchies and then go to the park along the ocean and lay on the grass and watch clouds and share our dreams.  Wow........I had almost forgot about those times.......and they were amazing!! It made the afternoon go by so fast but at least we knew when her Dad was not in training we would get to visit and laugh!

Then after two and a half years I met my first husband there.  He was in the Navy and to say the least his uniform did indeed turn my head!! I was raised on Army bases and those uniforms did nothing.......compared to!  It was a whirlwind relationship.....hope that doesn't sound romantic because it was anything but........lol  We sat outside the pizza parlor one Saturday night after it closed for the entire night talking! Then I didn't see him for two weeks and the next time I saw him again on a Saturday night........well we decided to get married before he had to leave for Viet Nam.........six days later I was in Selma California meeting my new mother-in-law and wondering what the hell I had done!!! I still wonder sometimes what the hell I was thinking!! We talked and soon we realized we had a common goal.......to have a family, him to be the perfect father since his had ventured off when he was one years old and mine to have all my children belong to ONE father!! I could not imagine doing to my own children what my mother had done to me!

Well twenty-one years and four children and one grandchild later.........that happy story came to an end........but in a way we had both met our most important goal in life....he was nearly a perfect father and all my children belonged to ONE man!!  It was sad but I had to realize in actuality, we had beat the odds!! Alright so now move on Lola!! I'm not trying to say it was easy by any stretch!! The twins were 15 and the two older kids were on their own already. I learned to dig deep and bring my survival skills outta storage!  lol