ABOUT

“You can’t go home again”
With thanks to Thomas Wolf, I didn’t listen. I went back to where it all began. Well, for me that is. With my mother in tow, (who is suffering with dementia), we went back to our old neighborhood in South East Fresno, CA–not far from “downtown.”
As a 5 year-old, walking to and from Emerson Elementary, I remember a neighborhood with grape arbors, fig, apricot, peach and plum trees. In fact, trees lined up and down all the streets providing relief from the burning sun. They were even trees along the patches of warehouses and food processing plants. It made sense. Summer temperatures reached well over 100˚ for weeks on end.
The neighborhood was comprised of the hard working poor with large families. They came from Armenia, Portugal, Mexico and Italy, as well as Oklahoma and Texas. All were beginning a new life. They brought truckloads of their “native culture” and exuded pride in their new community.
Don’t look back.
Through great foresight, Fresno’s city planners decided to change the landscape. The result of this change resembles people with psychological issues who self-mutilate themselves. Deep gouges and scar tissue abound.
The little houses and trees on Sarah, Mary, L, M, N and Van Ness streets vanished and were replaced with vacant lots among metal warehouses. Like a cheap Sci-Fi movie, where aliens ate 99% of humanity, there was hardly a soul on the streets. Occasionally, as I wandered the vacant streets, a workman on a forklift or on a loading dock would stare at me–as if he saw a camel on roller-skates.
I did look back and came away with this series of photographic memories taken through the lens of time.