Walking the Walk

Our first home is in Echo Park, near the entrance to the Stadium. It is the last house on a walk street of four tiny cottages. People struggle with the concept. Delivery folks in particular. The entrance is a narrow walk. When we lived there it would flood during rain and high boots are required to walk to the car but the drainage system has since been upgraded.

George was a neighbor. Our barking dogs incensed him, particularly an escape artist Airedale who wreaked havoc in the neighborhood. George screamed and threw dirt clods at the dogs and occasionally us. Every night he donned a kimono and stood by the open window singing Chinese opera. He carefully tended hundreds of geraniums on his little hillside. The combination of annual and perennial varieties insured an explosion of red, pink and purple most of the year. There have been two owners since his death. I do not know the current residents, as they managed to pick up some real estate on the street above and changed the orientations of their home so that it no longer faces the walk. The geraniums are gone.

Himself's favorite childhood dog was an Airedale. I found one for adoption at a rescue sight in Moorpark. I told Himself that some customer hadn't returned a film, back in the days when we rented films, and I needed him to go to help me retrieve it. He pounded on the door demanding to see Andrew Millington and was presented with Andrew the Airedale. Unfortunately, Andrew, while playful and lovable turned out to be the most difficult of our many difficult dogs.

No matter how much we reinforced the fence, Andrew escaped. He didn't like men in work boots and certain other men either. The rescue lady suggested to me, as an absolute last resort, a psychic pet counselor. I sent Himself off with Andrew to the “behaviorist.” I left off the psychic part. I don't remember exactly what she told him but Himself related that there was some surprising accuracy to her intuition. Ultimately it didn't matter. When we took Andrew for his last ride, my assistant at the time asked, “How much does it cost to have a dog that size put down?” It was funny actually.

I have spent so little time in the little cottage since we moved away 27 years ago. It's hard to get the whole thing in my mind's eye. I lived on the top level of the duplex. The smaller unit is on the bottom floor. Tenants came and went. Friends between places. Weirdos I'd vetted poorly. The pleasant upwardly mobile short-timers. I lived upstairs. There is a bright sunroom we'd fill with music. We watched one night through the big windows a spectacular electrical storm. The L.A. Times published a photo, taken from the walk of the same storm.

My mother helped me, in my twenties, buy the tiny cottage. I fell in love immediately but living on a walk isn't everyone's cup of tea and Echo Park was very different thirty-five years ago. Not everyone thought it was a good idea but I was besotted. I befriended an amazingly tasteful neighbor whose tiny cottage was a jewel. I 'd yearned to own a place so I could paint with colors that would make a landlord apoplectic. The kitchen is green and red and yellow. There is an old six burner O'Keefe and Merritt stove, white with red trim. There is the original window from before the sunroom was added in 1940. The floor is checkerboard linoleum. I lived in the house for ten years but I can't exactly remember all of the kitchen layout, although I cooked many meals there.

The little walk is flatly carved out of a hill. The land beyond our little house extends to acres of wild land too steep to build on. Himself and I saw Dead Ringers at the Vista on an early date. My dear friend Richard saw the film a few nights later and was freaked out by it. Before cellphones friends would just come by. Richard came to the little cottage after being disturbed by the film and this was when he first met Himself. We'd have parties on the patio. There was a birthday party for Bowser, the best of all the many dogs we've had. It was attended by about a dozen dogs, and their people. A friend and I spent weeks planning an elaborate scavenger hunt which culminated in a big celebration on our porch. The last event that I remember is a surprise baby shower. The tiny house and the walk to it made it unfit for a larger family . We moved on.

The first time Himself came to see me on the walk I looked down the hill and spotted him far down on the street below, walking from the bus, carrying a bunch of flowers. My sweet little house became our house. It 's still is our house. And next year, we're moving back.