Spreading My Wings by Irene

Spreading My Wings

When the family moved to Portland, Oregon in 1945, the winter weather consisted of rain and more rain. Snowstorms were usually limited to one per winter and did not last more than a few days. But by 1956, the weather seemed to have undergone a major change. While attending Portland State College I suffered frostbitten fingers and toes waiting for a bus in a snow storm so I began to think of warmer climates.

My older brother, Jack, had left home in 1954 right after graduation and moved in with my Aunt Tommie in Los Angeles, California. Aunt Tommie invited me to come for a visit for Christmas in 1956 so I took her up on the offer. The average temperature while I was there was 80 degrees. It seemed that I saw bougainvillea and poinsettias growing up every wall and blooming riotously. What a wonderful place! The beach was only 20 minutes away. There was even a college with tuition of only $28.00 a semester. This place seemed like paradise!

I checked into the job market and found that many places wanted you to have lived there for several months so I went back to Portland determined to move and started making plans. I got a job with Pacific Bell Telephone Company as a long distance operator and after working for six months, I requested a transfer to Southern California. My transfer was approved at the end of August and I started packing my trunk.

After Labor Day, wearing my Lilli Ann suit and carrying my train case, I boarded the train headed south. I watched the scenery gradually change from thick pine forests in Oregon and northern California, past the Cascade Range peaks of Mt. Lassen and Mt. Shasta, to the rolling hills of the central California coast.

Since I needed to change trains in the bay area, I had made arrangements to spend two days with friends in Berkeley. They took me sight-seeing in San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley and treated me to my first experience with pizza at a favorite University of California student hang-out.

When it was time to leave, my friends told me that I did not need to go all the way to the Oakland station to catch my train because that train came right though the Berkeley station. We arrived in the early evening and waited for the train. It did come through Berkeley but unfortunately, it did not stop in Berkeley as we discovered while we watched my train roll past the platform on its way to Los Angeles. I had to wait another twenty four hours before I could board the next train in Oakland. I finally arrived at Union Station in Los Angeles where my aunt and uncle met me. I was finally there in sunny Southern California.

I completed college while working for the telephone company and then began my career as a school teacher with the Los Angeles Unified School District. I worked for LAUSD for thirty five years before retiring. I lived in Southern California for forty years from September 1957 until November 1997 when I moved to Texas. But that is another story for another day.

March 2003
Revised July 2008

Didn't this just make you want to go live in California? What a wonderful story. Irene painted this life changing event with the perfect words. We could feel the bitter temps of Portland one minute and in the very next minute Irene swept us away with her into the warmth of California beaches. Her next stop: Texas. Now that is a story to be told. Talking about warm temps!

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