Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Lẩn thẩn nhân buổi sáng phòng lab bị cúp điện

Hôm nay bên duy tu nâng cấp mạng điện ở bên khu EUIII, lab không có điện. Nhân tiện có email của một người mới đến hỏi giá nhà ở đây có rẻ không, mình cũng tò mò tìm hiều thử. Nhà rẻ thì chỉ có ở mấy cái mobile home thôi. Đọc linh tinh một lúc thì bắt gặp những dòng này trên Davis wiki. Một người nhớ về những ngày còn bé sống ở khu nhà Slatter Court, Davis. The memories are so sweet! Còn mình, ký ức tuổi thơ giờ rơi rụng đâu mất hết rồi? Vắt mãi cũng chả còn nhớ hàng xóm mình ngày xưa như thế nào nữa .

2009-01-22 22:57:06 In about '71, when I was 12, I became friends with Francis Wilkins whose family ran Slatters Court at the time. They lived in #71 which even then was called The Big House. There were six kids; Stephen, Mary, Francis, Joe, Maritn, and Martha. I think you can still see the repair that had to be done to the garage next to the house when Mrs Wilkins tried to pull the Travelall into the garage with the boat still on top. There was a store at the entrance directly across the from the Barber Shop that we called The Little Store and it was run by Mr and Mrs Chase who lived with their son, Jay, in one of the two trailers that were on the east side of #71. Francis was a hard working kid who would do work around the place outside of regular kid chores for $1.65 an hour which was the minimum wage at the time. I thought it was unusual that Francis would spend his own money for a haircut from Frank The Barber until I saw the haircuts his mom gave. She did a modified bowl cut that looked like she cocked the bowl over to the side before cutting around the rim. Now, in the mid 80s that would have been a hip and stylish asymmetrical bob but at the time it just looked strange. My theory was that she figured by having the hair longer on one side it would always look like it was combed to the side. Maybe I give her too much credit. The smallest bungalow in the place was right next to the back gate to the SP tracks-#47 or maybe 49-where Mr Ord lived. It was maybe 8 by 10 feet. I don't think it even had a toilet. There were some buildings with showers and toilets and sinks spaced around Slatters Court for the bungalows and people with little travel trailers back in the campsite days that didn't have showers. Mr Ord mowed lawns. His arms hung oddly in front of him permanently in lawnmower-gripping position. Each day his brother would pick him up from in front the big cork oak by Guiseppie's Restaurant. There was a worn circle at the base of the tree with a little path coming off of it that went out to the edge of the pavement. Mr Ord wore that spot out waiting for his brother under the tree occasionally walking out to the street to look down Olive Drive for his brother's truck. He seldom spoke (maybe he never spoke) and sort of gave me the creeps which I felt guilty about because it seemed sort of sad living in that tiny place. Once the Wilkinses went on a trip so I took Francis's place cleaning the shower rooms and the bathroom in the building that was called the hall which had a long hallway with men's rooms off of it and at one end a communal (shared, anyway)kitchen and one or two bathrooms with showers. When Francis was showing me the ropes he showed me where Ray The Bum kept his razor; sort of behind a the hot water heater in one of the shower rooms. Ray The Bum lived it a pile of stuff with corrugated metal on top of it next to the tracks behind the group of houses situated on the other side of Slatters Court's eastern fence. I call it a pile of stuff because it was too short, in my opinion, to be a shack. It was maybe three and a half, four feet high in there. Francis showed me the inside once. There was a console TV-no electricity but there was a TV. In the winter when it was real cold or rainy they let Ray The Bum sleep in the lobby (if you want to call it that) of the Hotel Aggie. —JohnBaker

From: http://daviswiki.org/Slatter%27s_Court

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