Thanks guys - you all brought tears to my eyes (in a good way).
Reflections are next.... (part II is gonna have to wait. It is rough for me to tell, and could have ramifications).
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When I was really young, in the CEO, there were a few things that happened that I remembered:
We all used to take showers together in a big room. They never had enough towels and so we would have to run around inside the shower room, wall to wall, to dry ourselves off.
I remember when I was 5 a bunch of kids came up to me and told me that two kids were going to try to have sex and we were all going to go watch. We all cramped into this tiny bathroom (right nest to the reception desk, actually, I wonder why they didn't notice). Well, they got naked and tried but it didnt go anywhere. Ha ha.
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I was playing around jumping on a bed with Seth Price and I ended up hitting my head (I was about 7) and made a big gash on my head. I do not remember it hurting, but I remember being really upset because I was getting blood all over my favorite outfit. They took me to see Dr. Shields to get fixed up. I was protesting the whole way. I was telling her that it was illegal and she could not touch me without my mom. She told me to stay calm and she was trying to sew up my head. I was moving all around. I remember thinking that I needed a new tactic, because she was not going away. I told her that it was past my bedtime and I had to go. I tried to get up again, and my mom came over (she had just showed up, having been on post and not around when I got injured) and told me to hold still. I was mad at her for siding with the docotor. I thought she should just take me right out of there (when I found out I was getting stiches, wow, I was so excited!!! Everybody else had them, now I had them!! So cool!).
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Able Schwartz was another kid around that time who was very out of control. I remember one time he poured gas all around the bed of Sammy Garcia and then lit it on fire, with her in it. We were all standing around watching the flames, trying to see if she was going to wake up. All the sudden we saw a fire man coming up the stairs! We were so excited to see a fireman (this poor girl could have been killed!) and then we found out it was Terry Hammy (our nanny) and we were all like "AWWW, MAN!!! Its only Terry". Poor guy. He was alirght.
And another time Able found a beebee gun or something and went to the roof of the big blue and started shooting the pigeons up there (I think by then, he was posted as an exterminator, because the post fit him well, I guess).
Another time, when he was still a kid, he put a firecracker up the rear of a cat and killed it. That made me cry. I wondered why this kid was allowed to do all that.
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(all this stuff in this reflections section is from the 70's)
I barely remember the Melrose building. That was where everyone lived originally. I do remember the yard there and playing in it. Then after that, we moved to the complex (which was white at that time). Then they acquired the Fountain building (which is right across the street from the complex, next to the parking garage that they have). I remember when we got that other building, which was called the ATA (Apollo training academy - was for schooling for kids and also for mid aged kid/teens to grow up. The CEO was for the baby's and toddlers). It was raining that first day we moved over there. And they had a cool fire engine shaped jungle gym thing that we could play on in the back. Cool.
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One time my brother and I decided to get pigeon eggs from the roof of the fountain building. (Well, its not really the roof - it is under the roof, but above the ceilings in the apartments). So we went down to check it out and he ended up falling through the roof into the room of our friends the Wrights (or Walzers): Chin Dao, Mettayya, Sayadina, Dharma and the later on Lahai (I dont know how to spell). They were all eating dinner at home (which, come to think of it, we never did) and we landed right there!
Well, Mettayya was my age and we were friends. I kept in touch with her until the late 80's. She was working as a receptionist at a mission in Florida, but then she got married to someone and totally switched religions and was long gone out of Scn.
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It's interesting to me to remember some of these names of people from way back when. There are more that I grew up with, in different time periods, but come to mind here, if anyone knows them: Cassavius Tabayoyan, Kim Fries, Sandy Fries, David and Andrew Harris, Bill and Suzanne Feeley, Jennifer and Justine Lipton, Suzanne Reynolds (Wendels step kid I think), Mettayya and that whole gang of sisters. Brings back feelings of the better times.
More reflections later.