Garden Grove

Ding Dongs, Twinkies, Hi Hos and Cupcakes.


That is what I was standing next to when I checked out of the grocery store yesterday. All reminding me that I had enjoyed all of them, in abundance, at some point in my young life. I could actually taste them as I picked up the boxes. I have strong smell association and I guess, strong gooey sweet memory association,  as well.    I can tell you that they all pretty much tasted the same, except for the Twinkies. Twinkies are their own animal. They have the glorious sponge like texture that doesn't exist anywhere in nature. They have that cream filling that always seemed to go too fast for the rest of the sweet sponge. The other 3 chocolate delights were truly the same thing, molded into different shapes. All delicious and melty and rib stickin' good. They bring me back to a childhood to a place of lonely delight. I know.. kind of an oxymoron, but when I was in need of some friends, I found comfort in Hostess and Starsky and Hutch. 


We moved from a South Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Orange, California in 1974. My dad was tired of shoveling snow and loved the idea of a change for his family. His brother lived a city or two over from where we landed, with his 6 children, lovely wife and her parents. They had a great house on a culdesac. Debbie Lane. I remember the 1st time visiting them in the spring of 1973. I was wearing a plaid jumper that my mom had made. We walked up to their front door in Garden Grove, California and the smell of night jasmine overwhelmed me. I had always loved gardens and flowers, but this was an entirely an new smell. It was not the fresh smell of tulips in the spring, nor peony in the summer. It was not the old fashioned smell of roses or iris' that bloomed all over the Midwest. This was exotic and mysterious. As was the fragrance from the orange blossoms in the back yard. The "Garden Grove Mitchells" had a jacuzzi in their back yard. I had never seen a jacuzzi before..what that it would freeze and crack in the cold Wisconsin winter. They had chairs surrounding an old washer tub, propped up on bricks, for night bon-fires. The fire would sparkle through the holes in the tub in the evening and keep us warm..even though it was 65 degrees. The back yard was lush and green. It felt like a jungle. It seemed to go on forever, but my guess is that it was a pretty small space that tricked the eye into thinking we were enclosed in a garden retreat. The neighbors lived close in Southern California, separated by big brick walls. One could not see a brick wall in the Mitchell's back yard..because everything, if I remember right, was covered in ivy. I can not tell you how big their house was. They had 8 people living in the house itself and the grandparents living in the apartment attached to the house. There was always a flurry of activity when we were visiting. My guess with 6 children and 4 adults and a dog named "Charlie", there wasn't much quiet time. Their home always smelled great. From the 1st visit to the last time we were there for their going away party(my aunt and uncle moved to Pennsylvania after about 25 years in Garden Grove) you knew that there was something good cooking. Homemade bread or huge cakes or a ham wrapped in rye or a lovely pie in the oven.

My Aunt Mary was and is still slim. She cooked for an army and still rocked a bikini. She wore brightly colored clothing and big sun glasses. She looked like a movie star, all tanned and fashionable. She also sewed her own beautiful outfits. All this with 6 kids. I am lucky to get out of my running shorts on a good day. We have one child and a dog. I microwave the majority of our meals. My Aunt Mary made 3 foot high cakes for the kid's birthdays! I ate a lot of cake at their house. I always looked forward to what was on the kitchen counter when we came over. Then one day I remember Aunt Mary started cooking like wheat and honey and natural stuff. I did not eat much of the cake then. No offense to Aunt Mary, but my palate was pretty much a flour and white sugar bias.

The house had a living room, a big kitchen, a family room with a pool table that doubled as a kid's table for holidays, 3 bedrooms, a small office type room that was converted into a bedroom off of the guest room and 2 bathrooms. For 8 people. That would never fly in modern day suburbia. Big houses these days, friends. Big, big houses. We would spend a lot of time outside, if I remember right. We were always doing handstands and headstands and cartwheels and running and jumping and why was I so chubby?   My cousin Jenny and I would dress up in crazy outfits and find Aunt Mary's old wigs and I think walk up and down the culdesac. All this at 22. OK..we were 9. We also played Gin or Cribbage until we couldn't keep our eyes open. My boy cousins were always blowing stuff up. OK, not always, but on fun holidays like the 4th of July, they would take M80's that they would buy from Tijuana, lodge them between some books and light 'em up.    Next came a HUGE blast and then it would rain confetti! Happy 4th!! I also remember them inventing (if they had only pattened it..) the first water balloon launcher. It was so powerful, that the balloons would reach the next culdesac, to party goer's surprise. Fun cousins...all 6 of them. The boy cousins still have all of their fingers too.

I remember coming in from playing outside in the California air with my girl cousins Jenny, Nell and neighbor, Jenny Hines, ...and looking for my parents. I had seemed to forget about them the past 5 hours..like I see Luke do often lately. A great thing about fresh air and running wild. You feel free. I would follow the cigar smoke and find my dad and Uncle Ray playing cards, sipping whiskey and usually laughing. Sometimes we would find them around the fire pit with my mom, Aunt Mary, neighbors and now and then, the grandparents. Sometimes they would be singing. Especially when other Mitchells were in town, you could pretty much guarantee you'd hear "My Wild Irish Rose" etc.    I can see their faces glowing by the light of the fire pit. Every so often Jenny and I would get to go in the Jacuzzi. I can't remember who it was, but one of the cousins showed us that you could stay under water a long time, if you put your mouth over the air holes on the seats.   Funny.   Gross, but funny.


Jasmine takes me back to Garden Grove in the mid 70's.   A Twinkie box, next to the 20 items or less..lead me there. 



Wednesday  May 2,  2012  11:59 pm












Comments

  1. I remember the Ray Mitchells --The Garden Grove Years! You know they were the first of the Milwaukee Mitchells to make the break from Wisconsin. My dad had always wanted to move to California but I think Uncle Ray and Aunt Mary showed him it was actually possible.

    We Brhels moved out in Oct’68. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. Changed my life. I was going into 8th grade at St. Mary’s grade school – a pariah at 13. Try being the smart, weird girl with no fashion sense in a class with only 30 girls. No place to hide, even if I was the type. LA was a whole new start. Now I was the smart, weird new girl at a huge junior high. The other kids thought I was interesting. No more of the constant catty remarks. No more being ostracized. Heaven for me.

    At some point, my mom and dad brought all the kids into the living room and asked “Who wants to go back to Wisconsin?” I thought they meant for a visit, so I raised my hand. I had no idea I was voting to MOVE back. I guess my dad hadn’t figured on how hard a relocation could be – financially and emotionally. (These days, I always tell people who have moved to a new city to give it at least a year to get over the homesickness. Usually by that time they have made some new good friends and found the parts of the city they like. If not, time to cut your losses and move back. But I digress.)

    So... August ’69, all eight of us are packed in the Chevy Belair station wagon and driving back to Wisconsin. Six kids in an un-air-conditioned car going through Arizona in August. But that’s another tale. We moved in with (descended en mass on?) my aunt and uncle (sister and brother) in my dad’s childhood home in Cudahy – the house that never lets people leave (also another tale –one perfect for a stormy night). But Cudahy was better than moving back to South Milwaukee. Again, I was the new girl. I did quite well there.

    So, I guess this is a long way of saying thank you to the Ray Mitchells for changing my life – even though I ended up back in Milwaukee. But it would have been fun to still be living in LA when the Charlie Mitchells came to town.
    CC

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