Where We Grew Up
Cupertino
Before the orchards became parking lots
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You slid down on Clorox bottles, three pairs of cut-off Levi's layered on because the concrete ate through denim faster than you could climb back up. The green water at the bottom was a dare you never refused.
Stevens Creek Reservoir
You Knew You Were From
Cupertino When…
You measured summer not by the calendar but by how fast your hands cracked open from cutting cots all day. Fifty cents a tray. You counted every one.
The garlic smell drifting up the valley from Gilroy meant autumn was coming, and the tomato cannery at the tracks in Monta Vista confirmed it. You could taste the season in the air before the leaves turned.
You had to be home when the streetlights came on. Not a minute before, never a minute after. Every kid on every block ran by the same clock.
You called it Highway 9. You still call it Highway 9. Anyone who calls it something else wasn't there.
Your first paycheck came from a place that no longer exists. Mike's Heroes. The Red Barn. Herfy's. Gemco shoe department. You were fifteen and you thought it would all be there forever.
You could ride your bike from morning until dark and your mother never once asked where you were going. She just said be careful and be home for dinner.
The mustard weed turned the hillsides yellow every spring, and the orchard blossoms made the whole valley smell like something you'd spend the rest of your life trying to remember.
You put pennies on the railroad tracks and waited for the train to flatten them into copper ovals. You kept them in your pocket for weeks like they were worth something. They were.
A single scoop on a sugar cone cost a dime. You and your brother rode your bikes there, produced your shiny coins like you were paying for something important. You were.
Swenson's Ice Cream
Gemco or K-Mart?
The Blue Light Special argument has been going for fifty years. You picked your side before you were ten. You haven't changed your mind since.
You climbed into the pipes when it was pitch dark and your heart hammered against your ribs the whole way through. You came out the other side where someone had hung a rope swing from a tree, and the fear turned into something that felt like flying.
Calabazas Creek / Park
What's on the Design
Where We Ate
Burger Pit · Farrell's Ice Cream Parlour · Swenson's Ice Cream
Where We Went
Santa's Village · Vallco Mall · The Oaks Theater · Aloha Roller Rink · Flint Center · Futurama Bowling
Where We Played
Memorial Park · Blackberry Farm · Stevens Creek Reservoir · Linda Vista Park · Portal Park · Calabazas Creek / Park · McClellan Ranch Park · Fremont Older Preserve
The Landmarks
Cali Feed Store · Apricot Orchards · Highway 85
The apricot blossoms came first. Then the fruit. Then the trays in the sun, and the smell of sulphur from the drying sheds that hung in the air all summer long. You didn't know you were living in the last of it. Nobody did.
Apricot Orchards
They paved the orchards and renamed the roads.
But they can't rename what you remember.
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