The Apartment

I was reading Pearl's blog one evening. She is a wonderful writer, her humor knows no bounds, even her pith is to be admired. She is, among all the bloggers I have read, truly the best. That is not to denigrate anyone else, some she bests only by a small margin.

I had best get to my story before I jam my proverbial foot further into my proverbial mouth.

The post that I read brought back wonderful memories of an apartment I once rented. Now that I think about it, it was the first apartment I had ever rented. And it wasn't your traditional commercial rental apartment. It was a portion of the second floor of a two story house on a quiet residential street on the east side of Long Beach, California. It actually expanded and contracted and expanded again during the time I was acquainted with it.

You see, it was a "hand-me-down" abode. One passed from friend to friend and/or acquaintance. I first beheld it when it consisted of the entire second floor of that house. And consisted of three bedrooms, a living room, and one and a half bathrooms. It was occupied by two guys named Jay and a third guy whose name escapes me (Bob, I think) and a varying fourth guy. Sailors all, as was I at the time, in the United States Navy. I was a friend of one of the Jays. We had met during our first assignment after Boot Camp and remained friends throughout our tours of duty and for some time afterward (until time and circumstance came between us).

The apartment would change hands as sailors moved out due to deployments (sailors assigned to ships must leave when their ships do) and it came to pass that it fell into my hands during the second year of my enlistment. I had recently returned from my first West Pac cruise and was looking for some place off ship and base where I could stay. I stopped by the apartment and found it was currently unoccupied and for rent. It was also quite a bit smaller, thus making it cheaper and much more affordable and allowing me to rent it sans roommates.

I really didn't want to share an apartment at that point. I had just spent 6 months on a ship with some 200+ sailors, with 17 of them sharing a compartment with me, and needed some "alone" space and time.

The apartment now consisted of one bedroom, a kitchen, and an enclosed porch which had the half-bathroom (shower and commode and a sink) and no heat. The enclosed porch was also the entry into the apartment at the top of the outside stairway at the back of the house.

There is a secret that no one in California, especially in Los Angeles, will tell you. It gets cold there. Very cold at times. At night and early in the morning, the temperature can get into the low 30's. That's not cold! I hear you think. Yeah, unless you are a guy from Florida living in an apartment with no heat except for the gas oven in the kitchen. Then it is cold. Especially on that porch in the shower at 6 AM.

But the rent was cheap and I had a place of my own. I would live there for the next two years, it would expand into a two bedroom apartment (and adding a full bathroom which was almost a world of its own), and I would go through two roommates, two motorcycles, a car, and my discharge from the service.

It was an important place and time in my life.

It was owned by Mrs. Badger and her husband. Mrs. Badger was a sweet woman was like everyone's favorite grandmother. She definitely looked the part. I think I only saw Mr. Badger once and never spoke with him. This was her operation. She was the Landlady and she ruled with an iron hand... wrapped in a velvet glove. She had rules... most of which I broke. If she knew, she never said. The only time she reacted was one night I and my roommate at the time were up late after returning from a rock concert in Pasadena and not feeling sleepy, played music too loudly. I had dashed out, roaring, on my motorcycle for an impromptu visit to some friends a couple miles away. They were either out or hiding from this madman at their door at 2AM. When I returned, the house was quiet and Jay was very softly strumming his guitar, sitting in the kitchen in candlelight.

"Don't get upset," he said. "Mrs. Badger has turned off the electricity."

It was back on when I awoke later that morning and never a word was spoken about it.