What ever happened to that kid?

Today. I drove my Grandpa to a radiation treatment in UCSF.  He lived in the Sunset District with his mom for five years when he was in Junior High and High School, and after treatment he directed me around his old stomping grounds.  Apartments now stand where his high school, Polytechnic, once stood.  Both the boys and girls gyms still stand on either side of the apartments.  It was a four story school that took up a whole block.  Huge.

Office Max was a garage.  The movie theatre is now something else as well.  His house is now a Chinese Restraunt next to Pizza Orgasmica.  He lived on the second floor, near the back.  There are still some apartments there.  How cool would it be if I moved into those apartments some day?

There is a prominent Chinese culture in that area now, but when he was there, there were only two Chinese people in the area he could think of.  One owned a Mexican restraunt across the street.  

Grandpa had a million different jobs.  He had a paper route.  He worked for the post office during Christmas.  He worked as an usher at the movie theatre, he worked for an Italian butcher... and many other places right there in the neighborhood.

We drove home through the presidio, a route he rode bikes on when he was a teenager.  The sun was starting to go down, it was a clear day, and the boys were beautiful.

Grandpa dozed on and off a little bit.  He was tired after such a trying day, no doubt.  Just before we got home, he wondered out loud whatever happened to that kid.  The kid being himself, back when he lived in SF. 

I said he might still be around, but he wasn't too sure.

The Unplottable House

My Grandma and Grandpa moved into this house in the last 60's, back when Rohnert Park was brand new.  It's a great house.  It only has one tiny little drawback.

Boyfriends can never find it.

This house is a little like Hogwarts that way.  Hogwarts was unplottable so that muggles wouldnever be able to find it.  Maybe Grandpa made this house unplottable so boyfriends would never find it on purpose.

The most well known story involves Greg, one of the great loves of my mom's life.  He was supposed to come and meet her family, but he was very very late.  Mom got very deperessed, assuming he wasn't coming.  They were all sitting on the front porch when Greg suddenly drove up, quickly got out of the car, and threw his hands up and shouted "Thank God!" 

Then he noticed mom sitting on the porch with her parents.

That reaction saved him that day.  It prooved that he was genuinely lost.  I think my Grandpa lifted the curse, at least for Greg, that day.

The reason people really get lost doesn't really have anything to do with magic.  It's the organization of Rohnert Park.  RP is divided into sections, and all the streets in that section start with a particular letter of the alphabet.  A section, B section, etc.

I think I'd get lost if I didn't understand why all the streets were named Bonita, Beverly, Bonnie, (and so on) either