"afternoons with my grandparents"

Posted on June 12th, 2009 

From the time I was ten on, we would pack the Ford XL and head up to
Yerba Buena Road in Malibu where my grandparents and my mom’s brother’s
family lived. They all lived together in a 7000 square foot home on the
side of a hill that had been poorly graded by the previous owner, a
crook, according to my grandmother. The homemade grading resulted in a
large 20 foot long crack that was two inches wide across the master
bedroom floor. This was one reason the five acre property was such a
steal when my constantly unemployed uncle convinced my grandparents to
buy it.

The dream of a big family compound was always one that my uncle had
promoted. I think he knew his ability to provide would be challenged. He
and my aunt as well as their two children lived with my grandparents in
this giant house in a harmony that not so quietly eroded along with the
hillside.

Truly the house was in a beautiful spot. The full chain of the Channel
Islands could be seen from the 1200 square foot living room on a clear
day. This never impressed me as a child. The house was where my
grandparents lived and we visited often, it was fairly boring there
compared to the adobe house they had moved from in Tujunga with its
terraced desert gardens. I was always a bit sad that they had made the
move. I would ride by bike around the paths that circled the house over
looking the Pacific Ocean avoiding the ones that were dropping off the
hillside, never questioning what was eroding.

The house was “L” shaped. The long part of the “L” was a row of bedrooms
and bathrooms connected by one long wide hallway, culminating at the
master bedroom with the afore mentioned crack. The master bedroom had a
bathtub the size of two hot tubs that could never be filled because of
the water heater was incapable of producing that much hot water before
the whole thing cooled down. At the bend of the “L” was a huge kitchen
sporting an “island”. I think that this was the failed prototype for
kitchen islands. It was so big  that it was horribly difficult to cook
anything in. The room was dark with one tiny window. My grandmother
would have to sit in between tasks to save her legs from the miles she
had to walk to cook a simple meal in that kitchen. Her legs were always
hurting her. I cannot remember a time when they didn’t hurt her. I
assumed it was the extra pounds that she carried on her small five foot
one inch body, but maybe it a was the kitchen.

The enormous living room housed only two things, my grandmother’s piano
organ and a orange brocade couch. Every visit we would be commanded to
sit on the couch and listen to her play and sing along to a variety of
show tunes. I rarely glanced out the three walls of windows, I was
intrigued at the spectacle.  Every note she held down, on the keys of
the organ, were long and wobbly as she searched the music for her next
note. She sat legs splayed in her homemade paisley muu-muu, reaching for
the peddles of that organ, singing those songs, pressing the myriad
buttons with names like “samba,calypso,ragtime,or minuette”. Her fine
gray hair was always pulled up tight into a tiny bun on the top of her
head. “Come over here and sing with me.” She would invite one lucky
member of the audience to sit on the organ bench beside her. I never
anticipated a day when this might embarrass me.

Certainly my grandparents were the two most “in-love” people I had ever
witnessed. My grandfather was a Scotsman by decent. He was handsome, six
foot four inches with a full head of white thick hair. A second marriage
for both of them after both being widowed with young children, they had
found the happiness they deserved. This sweet love affair was so
intoxicating, I longed to be around it. I spent many weekends with them,
driving out to the desert to pick pears, picnicking down at the beach
under the sycamore trees, or driving out to El Rio near Oxnard for their
favorite mexican food. We always had fun and we always ate well.

When I was younger and my grandparents were younger, although they still
were old to me, they lived in Tujunga, near Pasadena. My sister and I
spent every weekend with them in their adobe house on Glory Ave. The
casement windows were painted turquoise. The yellow painted kitchen
faced west and the afternoon sun lit up the room with the glory of the
afternoon cooking. I knew that the street was named Glory for a reason.
I was only happy there. The front of the house had a wide covered porch,
perfect for playing dolls in the hot afternoons. There was an old goat
pen, now covered over with trees and shrubs that my sister and I spent
hours in. Best of all were the enormous granite rocks that lined the
front of the property on the street, maybe there were ten. Those rocks
became  pirate ships, castles, orphanages, or houses, thousands of
times. We had to work hard to jump from one to the next, they were so
big. In the evenings we would watch television in my grandparents living
room with the recessed lighting, hearing gently the hum and glow of the
fish tank that separated the kitchen and the living room. We were safe
there, away from the struggles of my parents marriage. In the mornings
we would crawl in bed with my grandparents, my grandmother would snuggle
us, keeping us safe.

In the afternoons we would always go on some excursion. The most
exciting part of the excursion was the drive. My grandfather was a car
nut. In 1965 he drove an orange convertible BMW and a Isetta. An Isetta
was a 13 horse power, one cylinder, BMW that sported the front door as
the entire front of the car. The door opened with the steering wheel
attached. The car was not the most amazing part, it was that both my
grandparents and my sister and I could fit into this thing with bags of
groceries on the back shelf and drive back up the steep hills of San
Gabriel Mountains. My father had one for a short time also, but he sold
it one afternoon to the guy for $15.00 who towed us home off the
Camarillo Grade. I wish I had that thing now, just to look at it and
remember the laughing afternoons with my grandparents.

Years later after I was married, I visited the adobe on Glory Ave. The
new owners had put a chain link fence around the whole property.  I hope
it was to keep something in. I got out of the car and stood next to
those granite rocks that came hip high. I was sorry that my grandparents
had moved, I loved this place, it had been my hideout.

They are both gone now. The house in Malibu was sold for a song due to
the eroding hillside. The last I heard was that the house was used for
making erotic films. My grandmother would have hated this, but the dead
make few decisions.