Walking around my home town

 Went out for a walk again around my home town. Lately I have not been walking around as much on these streets, I have done more of my walking at the gardens I visit, but I try to make it out at least three times a week. This was a walk around downtown.

These days have been hot again. We are in mid October, and the leaves are just starting to turn color. During the next month and a half they will be glorious, and I hope to be ready with my cameras. But right now, they are still very green, although they are turning.

We've also had a little bit of a heatwave. We've had temperatures in the 90s, and they will continue for the next three days, at least. We are supposed to cool down by the end of the week. I really hope so. The nights are very cool now.

I went out for this walk on Saturday, Oct. 17th. It was also the day I ordered my Schneider Super Angulon 121mm lens. I ended up paying $330 for it, more than I was anticipating! California taxes really take a bit out of any purchase, even Ebay purchases. Still, there is nothing to be done about it. I was looking at issues of View Camera, a magazine I used to subscribe to twenty years ago, and was looking at the listings for used equipment, including camera and lens prices. This lens was listed at about $698 twenty years ago. It is crazy, but I guess it has depreciated by twenty years, so prices have to go down, right? And, of course, the more modern version of this lens, with better lens coatings, is the 120mm lens, but I will be using the 121mm lens. It is supposed to arrive by the end of this week.

Without any further delay, photos of my walk around my hometown.

This is the sign for a meat shop. It has been modernized to make it look more realistic. I prefer the old sign, and will always kick myself for not having taken a photo of it in the past few years. It was more childish and also, eerie and scary. 

A movie theater in my hometown. Now, it operates as a base for an outreach program that tries to change the lives of Chicano/a gangbangers. In my youth, they showed movies here, Spanish-language movies. My dad laughed so hard at the Cantinflas movies that I thought the roof would cave in. 

An impressive example of bank architecture, Italian style, right? But now, my hometown is not really cosmopolitan, at least not in the part where I live, which is the old northern part which is strictly immigrant and working class (with the descendants of these same immigrants). 

We are in election season, and Eugene is a slick politician who trades on his Hispanic name to float from one job to another. He has even been mayor, I think. Also, look at the gasoline prices. I know, Texans would laugh out loud and say they are way too high, but for us, this is low. 

A little bit of grace and elegance in these statures next to a bank which is located in the failing downtown mall which never seems to rise up. Now, when I walked through that mall, there was almost no business still active, and the homeless people were encamped, even with couches, in many of the spaces. The homeless have already taken over the city park, they have certainly staked their territory here. 

Another beautiful statue. Just about a month and a half ago they were all complete, I remember because I took my 8x10 pinhole camera and took an exposure of one of the statues.

Look what the vagrants have done. They smashed one of the statures. There is no shame here, just wanton destruction. It made me so angry and sad to see this. Sad and angry = sangry? My blood boiled.

They destroyed one of the few examples of elegance and grace in our town, a stature. It is bad enough that the mall is now a homeless encampment, it has never seemed to prosper and almost all the spaces have signs offering leases, but this is shameful.

Our Italian villa across the street from the church. I don't live here, but we are being invaded more and more by these apartment buildings. There is no end to them, and they will probably claim my neighborhood in the near future. That is fine, if I can hold out for 10 more years and retire, then so be it, we will sell if they offer a good price.

More of the apartments, a vision of what is to come.

A small shopping area next to the apartments and the highway (to the right). What caught my eye was the blonde woman opening up her business, "Karen's Hair". In these times of Trump when the ugly American is proud and loud and in evidence everywhere, I wonder if she feels comfortable with the sign. 

The 91 freeway. There is a homeless man who always sits next to a column under the bridge. My dad used to call him "El chupacabras". My dad had pejorative nicknames for everyone. I didn't like hearing them, but I miss my dad.

Walking down the street that leads to my home. The trees are turning, you can see it. We used to have a tree like this one when we moved in back in the 70s. Apparently those seed pods are edible.

Getting closer to home. The neighborhood is hard-scrabble, but there are houses that try to keep up appearances. We are in the next street down from this house.