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By Steve Flores
Sunday, May 06 2012 08:00 PM
My wife, Susie, and I recently went driving through her old East California neighborhood where she grew up. As she always does and as though I am hearing it for the first time, again, she recounted the neighborhood families who lived in each home, gave me the history of what happened to whom, who was related to which cousins and how much fun she and her twin brother, Paul, and younger brother, Larry, had growing up on Bates Avenue.
I always enjoy listening to Susie narrate the drive through her old neighborhood. It's kind of like the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland. If you have been on the ride enough times, you know exactly what the Tour Guide will say at each point of the cruise. And you don't mind. You actually enjoy and welcome it.
I love it when Susie gets to the part about walking to school. Her face lights up and she describes in detail each stop along the way to and from school with her many neighborhood friends.
I wondered how far she actually walked to school. So this week, we measured the distance. In elementary grades she went to Guadalupe School and later in her teenage years to East Bakersfield High School. The distance was almost the same for both schools. From her home on Bates Avenue, it was just over a mile.
Not to be outdone, we drove to my old neighborhood in southeast Bakersfield to measure the distance from my old Watts Drive home to Casa Loma School. I became the Tour Guide on the Jungle Cruise and retold Susie my adventures of walking to and from school. Our group of friends started on Watts Drive and turned north on to Lotus Lane, picking up more friends as we made our way to school.
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My latest column about the 1968 Jimi Hendrix concert in Bakersfield generated lots of reader response. Email came from across the country.
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I walked into the "Read More" Magazine and Book store in the College Heights Shopping Center in northeast Bakersfield and found the latest issue of "Guitar Magazine." The cover showed a smiling Jimi Hendrix seemingly pointing his finger directly at me saying, "Hey Joe, pick me up!" It was March 1997.
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My large family of siblings, in-laws, nephews, nieces and friends know never to call my sister Espie and her husband, Edison, before noon. Both retired in 2007, she as a state employee and he from Bakersfield College. Their retirement schedule includes staying up as late as wanted and sleeping in as needed. They are blessed to have retired at a young ripe old age and enjoy their lives with no alarm clocks, no meetings and no bosses.
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I am a strong advocate for women. By women, I mean females of all ages. By now, I thought I would have trained myself to not be surprised when a female shatters a stereotypical male dominated occupation, sport or interest.
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You have probably heard this story before. Many musicians around my age can point to one happening in their lives that transformed them from an uncentered and confused teenager to a focused and rambunctious wannabe rock star. The "happening" was 48 years ago and gave them the musical genesis to pick up a guitar, learn to play drums, or try their hand at the piano or other instruments of their choice.
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I would like to thank many readers who have sent emails regarding my 2011 columns. And I thank others who have stopped me in the local convenience stores, at the gym or in the most unexpected places to share your opinion regarding my column topics.
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"Must one need an excuse to help those in need?"
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As with most families, holidays have traditions born within a tradition. For example, on this Thanksgiving Day, some will play an annual game of family football. Others may attend a special religious ceremony, while a few -- well, likely many -- will bask in the glory of turkey overload on their couch while watching their favorite teams play on a big-screen TVs.
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Depending on your belief, most historians agree and date Halloween's origin back almost 2,000 years. For my adult children though, each Halloween is like a newly discovered event, which mandates new levels of debauchery and mayhem in our home -- all children-friendly, of course.
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It is a scene played out hundreds of times almost every evening throughout the fall. Depending on your neighborhood or which area of town you live, the ritual varies greatly.The youth arrive by bicycle, parent drop-off, or bus. And then there are others who walk through suspect neighborhoods deemed unsafe by most people -- just to get to football practice.
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The cataclysmic effect of losing my mother, Emma, to leukemia brought the unexpected blessing of our maternal grandma Ochoa to live with us in our small yet abundantly blessed southeast Bakersfield home.
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Without fail, the sisters spoke to each other every day.
Bakersfield athlete killed in bicycle race
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