I saw a guy
on a TV ad the other day who said that the average American moves some 11
times in their lifetime. My immediate reaction was that certainly was
not my case, but then I thought about theshort-term moves I've had and
wondered if those count:
1.
Left my home town (San Francisco) and moved to a dormitory on the UC
Berkeley campus. I had come from a small high school and was not
comfortable moving into a big, busy living situation, so I picked the
smallest dorm on campus--I believe that the total number of residents was
the size of my high school graduation class. The dorm was connected to
another, larger dorm which had a stern grad resident who made me nervous
because for some reason I decided she didn't like me. Sixty years
later, she's still my best friend. The main thing I remember about
that experience was that I saw a flasher and learned what lousy powers of
observation I have. A friend and I were walking back to the dorm and
this guy was sitting there displaying his shortcomings. We called the
police, who had us come down and give a report. My friend's
description of him was the TOTAL opposite of mine, so naturally I just
agreed with her and didn't give my description, since she had a better view
of him than I did.
2.
When I left school and moved out of the dorm it was into an apartment with
my friend Gerry, who is Ned's godmother. I don't remember if we lived
together for a year or just for a semester. Fun times in that
apartment. Most memorable was the night we were having a party and
someone in the apartment above us lowered a pancake down on a string.
What else could I do? I put syrup on it and sent it back upstairs.
There was a nice Mexican restaurant under us and I had a perpetual craving
for Mexican food. It was the only Mexican restaurant I've ever seen
that made cheese flautas. Everyone else makes beef and chicken (they
did too), but nobody makes cheese, which was my favorite. Sadly, that
restaurant is no more.
3.
After Gerry graduated and I got a job on campus, I moved into an apartment
across the street from "Newman Inn," the old building which was to be torn
down when they were ready to buid a new church on the property. In the
meantime, 7 guys were living in it, one of them Walt. I became their
part-time cook because few of them knew how to cook and I enjoyed doing it.
Newman Inn
4. I
had my first credit card when I was on my own, so I ran up a huge bill at
the local photo shop (I took lots of photos even then). I borrowed
money from my mother to pay off the bill but needed to save money to pay her
back, so I moved in with Mike and Char (Char--did I pay you rent?)
and shared a bedroom with daughter Tavie. I lived there for a few
months and then moved again.
5. My
last before-I-married place was an apartment 2 blocks from Char and Mike and
across the street from a fire station (on the morning of my wedding, my
father convinced the fire chief to move the fire engine out so we could have
our photo taken for the local paper).
6. After Walt and I married, we moved into an apartment
exactly one mile from the Berkeley campus (we knew that because we were
across from the first liquor store...in those days you could not have a
liquor store less than one mile from the campus.
7. Jeri was born in that apartment, but before Ned
came, we moved to a rental house in Albany, on the other side of Berkley.
That's when we got our first dog, Ho Chi Mutt, who hated baths..
8. We bought our first house in Oakland when I was
expecting Paul and he, Tom and David were all born when we were in that
house. It would have been too small to raise them all, but I still
miss that house today.
9. In 1973 when Walt's office moved to Davis we bought
our house here and have been here in this house ever since.
So so far I am behind the average, but I'm sure there is at
least one more move in my life before the final one.
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