My parents picked Klamath Falls because my dad had a background in hardware. He was district manager for a company that eventually became Cotter & Company. Right before the move my dad and my Uncle Frank owned a roofing company. Uncle Frank was a certified carpenter and wanted to do something on his own. There was a Coast To Coast Hardware Store for sale in Klamath Falls. Dad sold his interest in the roofing company to Uncle Frank and purchased the Coast to Coast Store in Klamath Falls.
When we lived there downtown Klamath Falls was the place for businesses to be. Our store was on 11th & Main. The start of the business hub. Our house was on Alameda Street. The last house you saw as you left Klamath Falls on Highway 97. Alameda Street was at the bottom of the most ritzy place to live in good old K. Falls, Pacific Terrace.
Going back this time was a real eye opener because every where we lived or had a business was now in slum like areas. The town has grown but the business part of the town has grown out away from Main street and the residential area the ritzy area has moved both up and out.
This is K.U.H.S. dirtier and smaller than I remembered.
This is the front view of where our hardware store was. All of us kids were required to work in the family business to earn our keep. When I complained about the job dad got me a job on a farm weeding onions. I was happy to quit the farm job and go to work back at the family store.
This is the side view of where the store used to be.
To give you and idea of what a slum like area where we lived is now is this is the house next door to where we used to live.
This is a side view of the house we used to live in. When we lived there it was a beautiful white and well kept. This picture makes it looks nicer than it is. The paint has chipped and it is an ugly pinkish color. My brother and I shared a bedroom in the very back of the house. Our bedroom had its own door to the outside world. If you look very carefully beyond the fence you can see the door. It wasn't beyond my brother to come in the house's front door to meet his curfew, say good night to Mom and dad, then a couple hours later leave through our bedroom door. That stopped one day when he had a fender bender and the police called my parents. Mom "it couldn't be our son he is asleep in the back bedroom." That was until she looked in the bedroom. I got in trouble for not telling on the older brother. Something I would have never done. My brother got grounded for the rest of his life, and there was a dead bolt lock put on the outside of our bedroom door.
This is the front view of the house we spent most of our years in Klamath Falls in.
Hope this weekend brings you joy and love!
6 comments:
Bill, what a lovely couple of trips you've taken and what fun to see the pictures. You sound much more relaxed and happier and I'm so glad you decided to take this break, just for you.
Given how delighted your doc was and his consideration of cutting your meds, I'm curious as heck to know how the blood tests came out last week.
Great news about the caretaker. All in all, I'd say May has been a good month for you and I hope the good times and relaxation continue. Where are you off to next?
Hi DR
Always nice to see you here. I am a little more relaxed and it is helping to be a little relieved with Mom. The place where Mom is at really loves her and have offered her a free month if she stays so she is staying there through July. Still a lot of work to do with her house and making sure she gets out once in a while. However, when I am with her I see how it effects me and I just can't do the caregiving anymore. It really could be fatal for me. I'm hoping after three months she will never want to leave the place.
May has been a great month. The doctor said if I get down to 185 pounds I may be able to get off *all* of my medication. The trip to Ashland was great, however, the trip to Klamath Falls was really, really difficult in several ways.
I do think if Mom stays at Chehelam Springs until August 1, I may try flying somewhere, maybe the LA area, in June or July. Like I said I did one trip extremely easy another trip terrible but I think I can do the flying thing.
It sounds like an interesting trip, Bill. Things surely do change over the years. I once went back to look at the house we lived in until I was 12. The area had changed so much that I wouldn't have been comfortable walking the streets, let alone knocking on the door hoping to see the inside again.
Our house was a tiny one-bedroom doll's house in back of the landlady's house. My bedroom was a service porch. I did drive through the alley to get a look at the house, and it hadn't changed much except that when I lived there the yard was open to the alley.That alley was my access to the world. Now there's a giant fence around the yard, probably for safety reasons. What a shame.
Great news about maybe getting off all your meds! I know you can do it!
I hear you about your mom. Now that I'm back to fairly regular visits, it's becoming harder after a bit of a break. Plus which, the last couple of days, she seems to be declining. She's very hard to understand and doesn't make much sense, so I either say "Gee, I don't know", or try to agree when I don't know what I'm agreeing with. As they tell you in caretaking classes, it doesn't get better.
I can understand that because I didn't feel comfortable walking the streets where I used to live. I didn't knock on the door for the same reasons that you didn't.
Your house though small actually sounds very nice. Where did you grow up?
Getting more weight off has been really difficult. I do my walking which brings my blood sugar so low that I have to eat and of course eating keeps you from losing weight. It is a vicious cycle. I am going to make though, if it kills me. Because of some things that happened on the trip to Klamath Falls I am taking a couple of days not taking any medication to get it out of my system. So for the sugar levels are great and the blood pressure is just a little high but not dangerous.
I completely relate to you about your Mom and your visits. I bet you feel absolutely drained after your visits and are emotionally down. With my mom it is exhausting being around because everthing is either negative or guilt oriented or her ills are as great. There is never any positive energy coming from her. I can be with her an hour and I go from happy to depressed. I love her and I know she doesn't mean to do that to me but it is a reality that I have to face about continuing to care for her if she doesn't stay where she it. With your Mom it is like it was with my dad, you see a wonderful human being being something and someone they aren't. It is emotional draining. Vent here any time. The really sad thing is the only way it gets better is to lose someone you love.
Bill
I grew up in Long Beach, CA. The house was pretty simple, as was everything we had. By today's standards, pretty bare bones. Look at footage from the 40s (not major movies, real people) and you'd have an idea, including the big radio in the corner of the living room. My parents only bought things when they could afford them, so we lived in that tiny rented house until they could afford to build the house they wanted on a lot they'd had for some time.
I hear you about exercise making you hungry and what a cycle it turns out to be. But I know you'll manage it. Do be careful of going off your meds cold turkey.
Mom was more perky tonight, so maybe the last couple of days didn't mean much. It's hard to tell. It's funny what parts of the personality don't go away. She worries. She keeps wanting to pay for her meals. Tonight I told her (yet again) that it comes with the rent and it's all paid for. "You need to learn to just relax," I told her. A few minutes later, she announced, "I've decided something. I'm just going to relax." That lasted for 5 or 10 whole minutes.
Pat
I forgot that is where you grew up, old age memory. Everything seems bigger now. Although they seem to be going back to smaller houses now.
Everyone says to not do the cold turkey thing but I am with a lot of monitoring. More than normal. I'm more scared of some of the side effects than I am of going cold turkey.
I'm glad your Mom was perky and I hope the last couple of days didn't mean much. It is interesting that your mom wants to pay for things. Mom is still pretty good mentally and she wants to pay for everything to. With dad the part of the personality he kept was the calculation part. He lived in the period when he owned a roofing company and would say he was ordering materials for the rook and calculate the cost. He was always right on. I have so much empathy for what you are going through with your mother.
Bill
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