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May 24, 2003
Adams & Crenshaw
A mystery has opened up a time portal in my life, and a figure prefiguring these days has emerged and taken me to the days before I questioned and returned, questioned and returned. He writes me from New York at midnight while I was unawares xboxing with teens from Germany and France. His name is not familiar at first. Then I read the article about him and up comes the mystical incantation: Adams and Crenshaw. A reverie ensues...
click!
i too, miss arlington doubles. but specifically of crenshaw and adams, i remember miss thang who used to wave purple scarves and blow kisses to everyone on sunday mornings. i remember the nubian queen. the taco stand is gone. i remember the original chinese laundry. hell, i even remember the windmill.it seems like a century ago. back in the days when we realized (and this is really going to bake your noodle) that our streets were named after presidents and our telephone exchange was 'Republic' as in RE as in 73. All your phone numbers were 734 and 737. And don't forget 'Axminster', AX = 29. that's going back some, better than lauryn hill's looking back.
flip flop contests in front of dorsey pool. wading pool at vineyard. street luge on the hills between adams and the freeway before they built the bridge at west boulevard and buckingham. hama tv and tokyo aquarium. police league boxing. 'gold' zodiac medallions behind the counter at the liquor store. teen post on jefferson. the old record factories on jefferson (laff records included - redd foxx's label). smashed pennies on the exposition railroad tracks.
funny on that. i never knew that trains went more than 20 miles an hour from knowing the slow freights rolling down exposition's right of way. the who cliche of cars racing trains seemed to be an incredibly foolish thing whiteboys did. who couldn't beat a train?
anyway, i remember crenshaw before it was called the hood from which boyz sprang. i remember my home in southwest l.a. before southcentral blew up. (thanks but no thanks, mike davis).
I wrote one of my first poems about Johnnies Pastrami. Scuse me while I kiss the past.
Posted by mbowen at May 24, 2003 10:22 AM
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