A Trip to 22nd and DeHaro Street

Dear Lucy,
Today I decided to get my depressed behind out of the hostel and make a journey to the house Anne and I lived in while I was going to college.
This house was her grandmother's and her aunt lived in the main portion while we lived in a tiny two bedroom "inlaw" flat in the basement.
We paid part of our "rent" by cleaning out the garage which had been gradually filled with crap from about the 1930's when the house was built, until Anne's uncle died in 1992.

It took us two years, three garage sales, and two dumpsters to get it cleaned out. This venture is what gave me the original idea for Gold Fever where the girl finds some diaries while cleaning out her grandmother's attic.
As you can see by the picture, the garage door--though double wide--is still quite small. When Anne and I were in our accident that totalled her Jeep and we bought the green truck we had in Washington, it was too tall to fit in the garage on DeHaro so we would have to parallel park it every day!
This neighborhood is called Portrero Hill and on this side of the hill it is nice, quiet and safe. On the other side of the hill is where the Projects are and where O. J. Simpson grew up.




Front view of house


View from street


View of Twin Peaks neighborhood in distance, from around the corner of our place

I had to really put some thought into getting to the house as I have lost many brain cells in the 12 years since we lived here and I used to take the bus to school every day.
I remembered taking the bus from home to the Civic Center on Market Street and then transferring to another bus that I caught in front of a law school. Fortunately, the law school is still there, and I got on the right bus.
Funny how this place, that we hated (the place was a fire-trap, cold, dirty, and dark)living at could bring back fond memories. We used to say that one day we would look back on that time with fondness. I wish Anne was here to do that with...
--Kathy