I had two distinctly different childhood homes. There was the home I was essentially born into; then, there was the “new house” we moved when I was eleven. My father was in education and my mom was an administrative assistant; at the time we moved she was going back to graduate school to become a teacher, so there was a lot of change all at once. Both houses were in the suburban Los Angeles city of Rancho Cucamonga, which always ignites a conversation when I am asked about my early years.
Our first house was a starter home, so it was very modest with three-bedrooms in a compact footprint. When I think back to my earliest memories, I always recall the highlight of our yard was a giant magnolia tree out front. And this was the 80s, so everything revolved around MTV when we moved in 1988.
The second home represented a dream for my parents. To this day, my mom still lives in that house, in part because they both took such great pride in stretching their finances to make the purchase. I’d say from an income standpoint, my parents were probably at the very bottom on our street. We lived next to a judge, the neighbor across the street had a brand-new Corvette, and the couple down the block drove a Rolls Royce! But my parents were so, so proud. And that pride carried through to me as their child because I remember that house being built, walking through the framing, smelling the fresh wood, and at least twice per week going up to the build site to see what had been accomplished. My parents would state what they saw as we drove up, “Okay, framing is up on the first floor,” or, “Now, there are stairs up to what will eventually be the second floor!” I shared in their glee at progress, and I still feel joy for the soul of that home 32 years later because I know what holds it up behind the drywall. First things first…Let’s go back to Hemlock Street. Our first house was a wonderfully cheery place; it was part of a development called Coral Homes. Things back in the 70s were built a little bit sturdier than they were just ten to twelve years later when we moved into our new home. The house was about 1,300 square feet and constructed in 1976, the year I was born. In 1984, the year my brother was born, my parents had a family room and covered porch added to the back of the house, which gave us a lot more room. There was Linoleum tile in the kitchen, and it was the days when everything had to match; green shag carpeting partnered with an olive colored pattern in the Linoleum kitchen floor which complemented the white tile counter top with olive green specks. Of course, my mom had to ensure that the telephone rented from GTE was also olive colored. Today, people would just be like, “Oh my god…what a designer disaster!”
My parents always made the most of what they had. The furniture wasn’t expensive but they did everything they could to coordinate as much as possible. And that was really the hallmark of my mom. If it had been up to my dad, who knows what the place would have looked like? He was happy-go-lucky and would do whatever she told him to do; he respected that she really worked hard to make sure that things all got pulled together.
The yard had lots of character. There had been so much love and care that had gone into creating the landscaping when my parents were younger in their late twenties and early thirties. They put the yard in themselves and had planted everything; when you have that level of ownership, pride takes on a whole new meaning. My dad was always out mowing the lawn every single weekend, so the grass kept its shape. They had hedges that separated the front yards of the houses next door and he would always be meticulously (at least, by his standards) trimming them. There was a hill in our back yard; they had ice plants, an inexpensive plant that keeps low to the ground. I remember my mom was always up on that hill weeding those plants. There was a small palm tree…I suppose it was a dwarf palm…on the side yard. One day I was running for some unknown reason, and I ran straight into that palm tree. They have those spikey thorns on the trunk; one of them went right into my wrist and I can still see the scar today. My poor mom felt so guilty for planting that tree because it injured her baby.
I’ll never forget my bedroom was light blue, just as you’d imagine for a young boy’s room. And my brother’s room was a pale yellow. I think my parents painted it that way because they weren’t sure if he was going to be a boy or a girl, so yellow was a good neutral color. He was down a short hallway from my room, but in my mind I had a separate wing, even though we were probably not even fifteen feet away from each other! At that age I was just so happy that he was at the opposite side of that hallway because I wasn’t really keen, having been an only child for eight years, to have to share anything with this new life form that joined us…including the house!
I was an introverted child and really loved to be alone. I would spend hours upon hours in my bedroom playing with my Hot Wheels cars and building Legos. It was just so peaceful and quiet; my room was a sanctuary for me. My parents rarely ever came into that room. I was a well-behaved child, so they just always knew I was okay to be left alone and I was perfectly content with that.
While I could spend countless hours entertaining myself, I did have one very close friend, Eric, who lived across the street. My first memories of my love for the hospitality industry comes from the afternoons we would spend on the front porch of my parent’s house creating hotels out of old cardboard boxes. All these years later, I often think back on those days and wonder whatever happened to Eric after his family moved away. He was so kind to humor my childhood fantasies, which ultimately led to a 20+ year career in luxury hospitality.
What I remember most about our first house was that big magnolia tree in the front yard. My dad and I would play catch under that tree almost every day in the summer. Because he was in education, he had his summers off, so I really got to spend a lot of time with him. My funniest memory of those summer afternoons could have turned out to be a disaster. My brother was a baby, about eight to nine months old. My dad had put him down for a nap and we were playing catch underneath the magnolia tree. We heard my brother cry. His room was on the front of the house and my dad had the window open. The crying was very short-lived, so my dad didn’t go to check on him; he just figured he’d woken up from his nap and went back to sleep. About ten minutes later, we hear my brother whining and crying at the front door, which was open because we had a screen door. He had climbed over the top of his crib, fallen on the floor and crawled all the way to the front door. It speaks to exactly who my brother was as a child, even at the age of nine months. I’ll never get over the fact that he made his way to the front door to say, “Hey, guys! What are you doing without me?” He had a fear of missing out, that is for sure. That was the way he was as a child; he was a rebel. Now, my brother is still being a rebel with a cause as a well-respected university professor in the U.K.
There were 8 years between us; that’s just a vast gulf when you’re young. I don’t know if I would call it fraternal jealousy, but we really had some communication challenges in our earlier years. And, boy, did he know how to push my buttons even as a toddler?! Of course, being the older child, I was supposed know better…I was told to be more mature. Now that we’re older and when you take the percentages of age difference as you get older, the gulf between you gets smaller and smaller; we have become incredibly close as adults. I can’t imagine life without my amazing brother.
In the area of the city that we lived in, you could do fireworks in the street on the 4th of July. Where the new home was located, you could not; the neighborhood was up against the hills and you obviously don’t need to start a brush fire in Southern California! On July 4, 1988, we were one week away from our move-in date, but my parents didn’t have the keys yet. My dad desperately wanted to go up to the new house and watch the fireworks display at the community college next to our neighborhood, but there was a protest. My mom voted with me and my little brother that we were going to stay at the old house, and that my dad would light fireworks in the street one last time. Despite Dad’s arguing, Mom was the boss and told him, “No, we are going to have this one last memory for the kids.”
I’ll never forget the day we moved out of our first house. My mom stood in the front yard and cried; that was my parents’ first home, it was the house I was born into and it was the house my brother was born into. They had worked so hard to make a “cookie-cutter” tract house – as they were called in those days – into a home. The painstaking landscape work, the addition and other upgrades had made it a special place for our family. We were close-knit, so the feelings of my mom and dad became my feelings, especially having been an only child for so long. I absolutely felt my mom’s grief on that last day.
It’s been a few years since I’ve driven down Hemlock Street. If you look it up on Google, there’s a couple of interesting landmarks near where that house stands that I always took for granted in childhood. Looking back now, I realize we lived in an area with significant historical significance to the region. At the end of Hemlock Street, there is an old ranch house called the John Rains house, which was the home of the landowner of the entire Cucamonga Rancho in the 1860s.
Just to the south of the Rains House is an old winery building. When I was a child, my dad and I would walk to the Thomas Winery, which stood on the site of the very first winery in the state of California, founded in 1839. My hometown was a very prolific wine region from the mid-1800s, before California was even a state, until the mid-1900s. The tasting room staff would do grape juice tastings for me as a child. We would walk into the cellar, a big room that was so cool and musty, as a respite from the heat of the California summer. I can still smell the old oak barrels in my memory.
As sad as she was over leaving our first house, it was actually my mom who initiated the move. She really envisioned that new home being a destination for our extended family and a place she and my dad would be for life. There was so much anticipation and excitement. This brand-new house would be beautiful, in a wonderful neighborhood…literally higher up on the hill. Then, all of a sudden the day came, and there was sadness and grief in making the transition. It made me realize that not everything about change is positive, that it is okay to grieve that which you’re losing.
Early on, I remember the smells that represent everything new after we moved – fresh paint, new carpet. But just like with a new car, you can never quite pinpoint when those smells go away. The aromas I recall most were related to cooking, probably like most people. My dad was always the chef. And God bless him; he tried so hard, but he was a terrible cook. He would even create his own dishes. There was “Hunter’s Delight” and something called “Hirschler (which is our last name) Concoction.” He would be so proud to make these dishes, which usually consisted of ground beef, some manner of packaged vegetables and a can of soup.
Thanksgiving dinner is one annual event that combines smell, sight and sound in a distinct memory of our new home. I don’t think my parents ever hosted Thanksgiving in the old house because it was too small. The new house had enough space to entertain the entire family – grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. I especially remember the smell of the turkey and the gravy and associate it with my dad; despite his challenges with everyday dinners, he did know how to make a big, proper meal really well.
Both houses still exist today. I am really happy to see the revitalization of the neighborhood surrounding our first house. You see this a lot in southern California today; older neighborhoods from the 60s and 70s that saw a decline in the 1990s have seen home values have gone way up, and people have done a nice job with reinvigorating the neighborhood.
In the new house, the furnace was in the attic above the second floor. Any time it would kick on, you would hear this whistling noise, a quirk I’ve never heard in any other place that I’ve ever lived. Given that the furnace was later recalled and deemed a fire hazard, the whistling sound was probably a sign that the thing was a death trap! Fortunately, my parents had the furnace replaced about 10 years ago, and the new unit (shockingly) does not make that noise!
When it came to landscaping the yard at our new house, my parents were really tapped out financially. They could only afford to do the absolute bare minimum. Fortunately, a standard feature of the house was something called Hydro-Seed. A big tanker truck literally shoots a green spray all over dirt, and several weeks later it turns into grass. Boom! We had an instant front yard! I am sure my parents thought, “Oh, thank goodness we don’t have to put sod in the front yard because we can’t afford to do that!”
The rest of the yard took shape over time. First, came the back patio, side walls and gates to the back yard. I remember being in the back yard and helping my dad dig the trenches for the PVC pipe so he could install sprinklers because they couldn’t afford to hire somebody to do the installation. I’m sure some of the issues that exist to this day with the sprinkler system are a result of his DIY installation! While exhausting and frustrating, it was such a point of pride for my dad to install that system. Where anybody else would have just paid somebody to get the job done because it was on a rocky hill with big boulders constantly in the way, my dad was determined to finish the job himself. He rented a small front loader and would have to ask friends to come over to help move a 500 pound rock so that the pipes could make it through.
Our new house was in a neighborhood that had just been carved out of the open landscape below the San Gabriel Mountains. After living in the house for only a couple of months, I recall a dump truck driving down our street and hearing the loud sound of the air brakes engaging. My dad and I went out to see what had happened. In front of the big dump truck was a massive tarantula walking right down the middle of the street. My dad was so fascinated by this and he loved science. He went upstairs to my mom’s closet and grabbed one of her clear plastic shoe boxes. He scooped up that tarantula and put it on top of his car. I’ll never forget my mom pulling into the garage and screaming when she saw a giant arachnid in one of her shoe boxes!
We had incredible stories living in that house as some weird things would happen. There was a huge wildfire that came right up to our neighborhood two months after we moved in. We were on high alert for evacuation, and the flames were lapping at the yards of houses just down the street…something truly scary for an eleven-year-old.
I felt a lot more protected in the old house. In the new house, we were just across the street from a bare hillside. The thought that a raging fire could burn fifteen miles across the hills overnight - the Santa Ana winds blow something fierce in the fall – was incredibly frightening, and something I had never experienced before. Our old house was smack dab in the middle of the city, and there was no way something of that nature could ever get to it.
In a nice, new neighborhood, you would think everything should be unexciting and normal. That was not the case for us. Police were always being called for different things. There was the mason who didn’t get paid what he thought he was owed so knocked down the wall he built and threatened that nice new Corvette. The judge who lived next door to us would receive death threats from time to time. You would always know when his life was in danger because there would be police cruisers guarding the entrance and exit to our neighborhood. I’ll never forget my dad wanting to put a sign in the yard that said, “Judge’s house is that way! à” For the first couple of years, it was unsettling because this was supposed to be such a great move up and we’d never had any experiences like those in our old house. Here we had moved to this great neighborhood, and you quickly realize crazy exists everywhere.
Looking back, both of my childhood homes had a significant positive impact on my life. Despite the “rocky” start to our time in the new house, it became the bedrock of our family. It has been 25 years since I left for college and I have lived all over the United States. However, to this day, every time I pull into the driveway, I always know I am coming home.
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