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Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Union Station, downtown Los Angeles...
Los Angeles Union Station, Train Depot...Built in 1939...Historic Landmark...
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Please click on photo for larger image...
Friday, April 15, 2005
My Family Ancient History Photo....1911...Phillipsburg, Kansas...
From left to right, My grandfather, Joseph M. Fiske, holding my mother, Mercedes, my grandmother, Berenice Fiske, My uncle Clyde (behind Berenice), then two unknown ladies (unknown to me because I wasn`t around in 1911), then I think the kid is my cousin Dean Bickford who later in life had his arm taken off because he was driving his car with his arm resting on the opened window section and a car came along and sideswiped him and took off his arm...And then next to him is my greatgrandmother, who was born in 1866, one year after the assassination of President Lincoln....She died in 1953, at the age of 87, while we living on Kenoak Drive in Pomona, CA (Our first residence in Pomona)...My greatgrandmother had also come out here to California with us, to live with us, in 1950, from her residence in Phillipsburg, Kansas, where she had been living alone... My mother was born in Philipsburg, Kansas in 1911...My grandmother was born in 1888, in the Mid-Western United States, and my grandfather, Joe, was born in 1878, in a small town in Missouri called "Moorseville", two years after Custer`s last stand agaisnt the Souix Indians...My grandfather, Joe, died in 1951, at the age of 73, and not very long after the family moved out here to California from Iowa, and it was my grandfather who drove us all the way here in his late 40`s model Buick, at the time...My grandfather had been employed as a railroad train conductor with "The Rock Island Line" which was based in Iowa, before he retired at age 65...So, finishing up, next to my greatgrandmother, Alice B. Stinson, is another unknown woman and next to her, on the end, I think, is my greatgrandfather, Frank Stinson..And this photo was taken at my greatgrandparents` house (On my mother`s side of the family) in Phillipsburg, Kansas..And why everyone looks so concerned about the kid, hiding in the background, I do not know....A bit of ancient history of my background for those who might be interested...Please click on photo for larger image....
Please click on photo for larger image...
Please click on photo for larger image...
From left to right, A friend, my mother, my grandmother and then another friend...Photo was taken in 1977, not long before my grandmother passed away at the age of 89...my mother was age 66 here and had already retired from her work as an insurance clerk at the Pomona First Federal Savings and Loan Association where she had been employed since 1951.....The family moved out here from the mid-west in 1950 and my mother was working for a bank in Council Bluffs, Iowa as a bank clerk before we made the move to California....She was living with my grandparents, who had raised me from birth, after she had left my father, William, when she was living with him with my older brother and sister in Amarillo, Texas...She left my father in 1942 and was living with my grandmother ever since until the year 1979...My grandmother, Berenice, died in January, 1978, and left my mother all alone in the apartment they were renting on Towne avenue in Claremont, CA...in this photo, they are pictured here standing in front of my mother`s and grandmother`s apartment in Claremont on Towne Ave....So, in March, 1979, my mother left Claremont and her apartment and me and my sister and my niece, who also were living in a nice house in upper class, Claremont, while I had a middle class apartment in Upland, Calif with no furniture in it, what-so-ever, and this was the last time I ever saw my mother, to this day...If she is still living, she would be 94 years old now....
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Please click on photo for larger image...
Michael Benner...Radio Personality of Radio Talk Shows (mainly, telephone talk)...He started a show on KLOS-FM in 1977 which was really inspiring to me, personally...I had to call the station and be on his show to tell my sad story to the world in 1979, around April, but I lost the tape of the show, much to my grievance...I called in on two occasions, in fact...This guy is really smart and knows a whole lot about everything..He is against everything that Bush stands for and against all of Bush`s wars and just war in general..He believes in taking more personal responsibility on everything on not blaming everything on other people...Micael is five years younger than me, actually....He left KLOS-FM in 1987...But you can catch him now on KPFK-FM in Los Angeles, CA on Friday afternoons at 1:00 pm on a show called "Innervisions"..that is 90.7 on the dial, a free speech radio station...This guy is dedicated into helping people, believe me, and he really knows his stuff.....Also you can listen to Roy Tuckman on week nights, all night long, on a program called "Something`s Happening"...And you will become more informed on what is really going with the world right now and especially with the United States...And "Gary Null" is usually on there on Tuesday Nights, another guy who is dedicated into helping people....Please click on photo for larger image......
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Please click on photo for larger image...
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Entrance to Paramount Studios on Melrose Avenue, Culver City....Lot of Great movies were made here, a lot of classics...The Marx Brothers, Bob Hope, W. C. Fields, Jerry Lewis, Bing Crosby, Alan Ladd, Mae West and the list goes on and on...
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Please click on photo for larger image...
Thursday, April 14, 2005
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Frances Farmer...In the thirties and early forties, she was a great actress...Then she started taking drugs and drinking and her mother put her in a state hospital in Washington state in 1943...She would run away and then her mother would have her sent back...The conditions inside the mental hospital were barbaric..There was no rehabilitation, what-so-ever, only human warehousing...And extreme cruelty...Frances was subjected to insulin shock, ice baths, forced drugging with tranquilizers. shock treatments and finally a lobotomy..The food was thrown onto the floor for everyone to fight over...She was raped by servicemen who were brought to the hospital and by the guards....Frances was finally released in 1950, but she was never the same again... a completely broken person...So who was responsible and should be held responsible...surely not Frances...She was the victim of all of this...I say it should have been her mother who should have been put into the asylum, not Frances and let her mother get a taste ofhow the other half lives and experience the same amount of torture and misery that they had to endure...No doubt her mother had no compassion for Frances, what-so-ever, but only contempt for her daughter to do something like that to her and ruin her life forever..It was her mother who was to blame and should have been brought to trial for "killing" her daughter!! ..She just signed her over to the state of Washington...all nice and legal!!..So who is going to question the word of a shrink against someone who is diagnosed with being crazy??...You already have the stigma written all over you from the start and no chance in hell of wiping it away!!..That`s what it amounts to once you are diagnosed with mental illness..and this is what happened to Frances Farmer...She died at the age of 57, completey all alone and penniless...no more Hollywood lights and glamour for her..So what ever happened to her mother who was responsible for her tragedy ..that`s what I`d like to know...They made a movie about Frances Farmer in 1982 called simply "Frances" with Jessica Lange....A very depressing movie....But it was a true story...
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Me, I just turned age eleven here...My mother took the photo while she and my grandmother and myself were spending Halloween, on a Saturday, at Knott`s Berry Farm in Buena Park, California....Please click on photo for larger image.... 
"A" Barracks..Brown Military Academy
While I was attending Brown Military Academy Boarding School, I took this photo myself at the age of thirteen...This was "A" Barracks where the junior college cadets were housed...A lot of military officers from the Second World War were employed at this school as teachers and supervisors and everything else...It also had an R.O.T.C. program so you could go right on to West Point from here after graduating from here...They had the same exact uniforms that they use at West Point....Dr. Brown, the school founder, was a very elderly man and he was also a protestant preacher and would give sermons in the auditorium building on Sundays...So, it just figures this is why my mother picked this school for me to attend...It is a very religiously based school and so was my mother and grandmother..very much so
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Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Photo of me at age thirteen while on home leave from Brown Military Academy
Me, age 13, at the time I was sent to a boarding military academy in San Diego, Calif, Brown Military Academy and also at the time we were living at the corner of Wisconsin and Alvarado in Pomona...This photo was taken in the backyard of our house at that address while I was on some sort of leave of absence from the school, probably for Easter vacation or something..I was very depressed while attending this school and i was completely miserable while I was there...But my mother and grandmother and my sister insisted that i go to this school after they had bribed and talked me into it , which adults can do to 13 year old because you generally believe in what they are telling you...But my guardian, at the time, which was my mother, had alterior motives for sending me to this school...It was just to "get me out of her face" and not because "it was in my best interest"...How niave I was at this time in my life...I, for the most part, believed my guardians actually cared about me...not true, not true..They actually cared more about themselves and their Presbyterian (Pomona, California) Church and the false sense of security their religion gave them and nothing for what I felt or cared about..But you can get away with a lot if God will forgive you as you confess your sins to him, right?
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From left to right, my older brother, John, and then me at age 13 or 14...My brother is four years older than me so he would be eighteen in this photo..We are pictured here in front of our house which was located on the corner of Wisconsin and Alvarado streets in Pomona, Calif.....this was our second residence in Pomona...We moved three times, in all, while living in Pomona and while I was growing up in this city and attending public schools...The reason my brother, here, looks so, rather, disgusted with everything is because we just got out of church, the Presbyterian Church, to be exact...My mother and grandmother were very religious people and made us kids attend church every Sunday...My Grandmother died in January, 1978 at the age of 89, just one month before her 90th birthday...My mother was then living in an apartment on Towne avenue in Claremont, CA with my grandmother, a two bedroom apartment, and she literally went to pieces right after my grandmother died since she had always depended on her, and vise virsa, so now she, all of a sudden, was all alone...My mother was at the age of 66 at the time..I was living in a motel in Pomona at this particular time, also..I never attended my grandmother`s funeral, but everyone else did, including my niece, who was 19 years old at the time of this event, and also my sister did attend the funeral....I was not in contact at all with either my niece, my sister or my second brother-in-law, Arnold, at this particular time in history and during this event...My sister got divorced from Kenneth, my first brother-in law, in 1964 and then she found this, Arnold, A college professor at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, CA, and whom I do not care much for at all, but we won`t go there... And my sister, Dorothy Lee and Arnold have a nice house up there in Claremont....But that is more information on my background for those who might be interested....Please click on photo for larger image......
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Clifford Clinton, the person who first opened this cafeteria in downtown Los Angeles in 1931, on Broadway Avenue, was also heavily involved with early Los Angeles politics and on the right side of it, I might add...The cafeteria is still going strong today and I have eatin here myself in the past as well as the other cafeterias of Clifton`s located around Southern California area..A very good place to eat, I might add....My mother and grandmother first introduced me to Clifton`s Cafeterias some years ago when they took me to one for the very first time....Please click on photo for larger image....
King Edward Hotel, 5th and Los Angeles Streets, downtown Los Angeles...Built in 1903 and named after King Edward of England, at the time...Robert Blake used this hotel when he was filming his "Barreta" TV Series and this hotel was his residence in the show....I also have stayed in this hotel in the past and I once worked as the elevator operator..A historical hotel...Behind it, another historical hotel, The Hotel Rosslyn, where my grandmother and grandfather stayed when it first opened at the begining of the last century....Please click on photo for larger image...
Monday, April 11, 2005
My mother, early photo...She was an only child and I think she probably was pretty much spoiled by her parents...she met her husband, my dad, while attending boarding college...They then got married and then they lived in Amarillo, Texas where she bore my older brother and sister...My father was born in Cody, Wyoming...He was a corporate lawyer for the Amarillo Oil Company...My mother was still carrying me when she left my dad with my brother and sister because he was threatening them with a gun and had a drinking problem and also mental problems...he was suicidal..they had to hide all the kitchen knives from him to keep him from killing himself....Please click on photo for larger image....
Post Card From Knott`s Berry Farm in the early 1950`s
One of the early day features at Knott`s Berry Farm..A sort of an exhibit you could look into from an outside window...There were others like this, also...I remember it well from my childhood visits to Knott`s berry Farm in Buena Park, not far from Disneyland, Another World Attraction in Orange County, California, which first opened in 1955, but Knott`s was there long before Disneyland was built...
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