The Kid

                                                       By kiki

The tired old man with his eyes close was rockin' in his rocking chair when an image of  a kid appeared in front of him. The kid who was about seven years old was running towards the old man. As he got closer the old man thought that he had seen the kid before, but he couldn’t remember when or where. When the kid was upon the old man he took the old man’s hand and told him   ”come with me old man, I’ll show you a shortcut”

“Son, are those little wings on your back? oh no, you don't! I am not ready to go, I still have things to do here” the old man said to the kid.

“No old man, it’s time for you to join us”, the kid with the tiny wings said to the old man as he gave him a tug.

The old man took the kid’s left hand as the kid was tugging him and said to him “what’s that mark on your left hand?”

“That’s a birthmark”

“Funny, but, I too have such a mark on my left hand”

“That’s because we are one and the same” the kid replied

“You are me when I was a kid?”

“Yes, since you’ve always behaved like a kid, the powers that be thought it was appropriate to send me to show you the shortcut”

“No, no, you go back and leave me along. When I am ready I’ll take the shortcut on my own” the old man said to the kid as he pulled his hand away from the kid’s

“Okay, but I’ll be watching you,” the kid told the old man as he took the shortcut

The dream the old man woke up from; was as disturbing as it was bizarre 'Damn, I must be going crazy, seeing myself as a kid, who does that kid thinks he is anyway, wanting to show me the shortcut. I am not ready to go, besides who will take care of my animals if I take that shortcut? the old man thought to himself as he jumped up from the rocking chair.

As the old man was out in the meadow watching his animals grazing he thought that he could see the kid with the tiny wings running around and playing in the tall grass as he once did. He wondered if the dream had returned or was it real this time, there was only one way to find out.

“I am not ready!” the old man yelled as he followed the Kid toward the shortcut.

Willie: Para Para!!

Willie Hernandez

                                                                
By kiki


One day in the early 1970s, my brother-in-law Willie Hernandez and I were riding our motorcycles east on Valley Blvd. at a pretty good rate of speed. We made a left turn on California Ave; one block up on Nelson Ave was a stop sign, and as we stopped, I saw a red light on my handlebar mirror; I turned to Willie and said.

"Para (stop) Willie, there's a cop behind you."

We crossed Nelson and Willie pulled over to the curb, and I kept going, got home, grabbed me a beer, and I waited for Willie to arrive from his meeting with the cop.

Soon Willie arrived hotter than a firecracker.

"Para! Para! Willie yelled at me as I met him at the curb with a Coors.

"What's wrong, Willie?" I asked him.

"The cop said he wanted you for loud pipes, but since I stopped, he said he would give me the ticket." 

He cooled down after a couple of brews.

Willie died in 1982, but up until his last days, every time he would see me, he would yell at me, "Para! Para! Cabron!"

Rest in Peace, bro. You know I loved you like a brother.

Raul Martinez

 

       
By kiki

                                                 

In 1954, my Simons Brickyard friend Raul Martinez's parents bought him a 1954 Chevy hardtop like the one you see here; it was also the same color as the one above. (Raul's parents owned a mom and pop store and the local pool hall on Date Street) The first thing Raul did was to take it to "The House of Chrome" on Olympic Bl. in East L.A. The House of Chrome specialized in custom bodywork and paint. They claim to be the first shop in SoCal to do the original Candy Apple paint jobs. Raul had the hardtop lower all the way around. It was lower, so low to the ground that when he had a car full of friends, we all had to get out of the car so he could go over a railroad crossing. Raul was one of a hand full of guys driving a brand new car to Montebello High School.

Damn!!

By kiki

 Damn! I've known that I've been sliding into geriatric senility for some time now, but I didn't think I was this far gone. This morning I had my cell phone in one hand, my wallet in the other. So what did I do? I put the wallet in the phone holster and the phone in my back pocket. What's next? Putting on different color socks and different shoes?

Central Avenue and the Dunbar Hotel

Few places hold more import in Los Angeles' black history as Central Avenue, the birthplace of the West Coast Jazz and Rhythm & Blues scene and a magnet for those that sought a better life as they moved north from the Mississippi Delta.

By kiki

I remember driving by the Dunbar Hotel on Central Avenue in South Central Los Angeles in the early '50s. Central Avenue was an extraordinary center of musical activity at the time. The Dunbar Hotel was where most black celebrities would stay when visiting Los Angeles back in the days of segregation. The Dunbar and other Central Avenue nite clubs were the Los Angeles mecca of jazz and blues-loving aficionados back then. On any given night, the likes of Duke Ellington, Dinah Washinton, Big Jay McNeely, Charlie Parker, Bobby "Blue" Blend, Johhny Otis, Dexter Gordon, Dizzy Gillespie, and other iconic jazz and blues artists could be heard in one of the Avenue's many jazz and blues clubs.

Central Avenue would come alive as the sun set over the Pacific Ocean. With its high neon signage burning brightly above the smoky air developed over the City of Angels, the Avenue would be turned into a veritable hepcat jive orgy. 

All up and down Central Avenue would be packed with parked cars, mostly Cadillacs. The hepcats, with their bright color clothes, their ladies dressed to the nines, would be strolling and jiving as they boogied to the music blaring from the clubs as they made their way up and down the Avenue.

I was not a part of the Central Avenue club scene because I was too young to walk the neon life of the Avenue. Nevertheless, I'd witness the comings and goings of the action on the Avenue as I would hang at Dolphins of Hollywood Record Shop on the corner of Vernon and Central in the early years of the middle decade of the twentieth century.