GARGOZO MANUSCRIPT

I need to set the record straight.  None of the internet comments from customers and former owners about the burger joint on Eagle Rock Boulevard have the complete story.  The internet accounts identify correctly the progression of the recent names for the place from "The Bucket", to "Dee Dee's Dive" and as of today, "Patio Burgers and Beer."  What's missing from this is that prior to 1965 the place was called "Don's Bucket." Don was a former owner who was long gone by the time I first went there in the 1950's with my dad.  The place was then owned and run by a scruffy old Greek named Nick who took your order, cooked your food and collected your money.  The current fenced-in area with the covered patio, table, chairs and TV all came 30 years later.  The original Don's Bucket was strictly a dumpy little stub of a building, painted shit brown, and shaped like a giant thimble with rounded corners and...

During the latter part of the 1960s, Carey owned Mt. Washington.  Each weekday he visited people's homes on every street on the hill for conversation, a cup of coffee or to play with the family dog.  Carey drove a route for Sparklettes when the 5-gallon, 40-pound bottles were still made of glass.  He drove one of those ugly green company trucks up and down the impractical network of steep, narrow and winding lanes that cover the mountain.  At every stop, he took 2 bottles off the truck and carted them into customer's homes.  He grasped each bottle by the neck, holding the first down by his side and the second perched on his shoulder.  Carey was the only Sparklettes' employee to regularly carry more than one full bottle at a time.  In addition, company policy forbade resting a bottle on your shoulder lest the glass shatter and decapitate the driver.  Mt. Washington has very little level ground.  From the street to the fr...

My dad's parents came from Italy in 1910 and before long settled down to raise a family at the foot of Mt. Washington in Southern California.  Their first house still sits on the corner of Maceo and Aragon in an area known as Cypress Park.  The house is a cheap version of the craftsman style but looks to be in decent shape given its age. Cypress Park is in the Elysian Valley and on the north bank of the Los Angeles River at the base of Mt. Washington.  It was first settled by a Shoshone tribe.  In 1769, Gaspar de Portola led the first European exploration of the area and described the area as a "very lush green valley".  The land was later subdivided and established as a community in 1882.  Jim Jeffries who became the World Heavyweight Champion in 1899, grew up in a house in Cypress Park where Florence Nightingale Middle School is now located. East of Cypress Park is Boyle Heights where Alfonzo Cordoba, my mother's Basque fat...

There are several hill-top neighborhoods that stretch northward from downtown Los Angeles.  The first of which was called Chavez Ravine before the neighborhood was replaced by Dodger stadium.  North of the stadium is an area called Elysian Park consisting of a neighborhood and a sprawling public park that covers 575 acres.  The park was founded in 1886 and was the site for the pentathlon shooting competition during the 1932 Olympics. Located in the park is an historic marker indicating a 1769 campsite used by the first recorded European exploration of California.  Gaspar de Portola led a Spanish exploration of what was then referred to as Baja and Alta California.  He was accompanied by Junipero Serra, the head of Franciscan Missionaries who helped establish the 21 missions that survive to this day.  The northern rim of the park looks 600 feet down to the Los Angeles River which was so named by the Portola Expedition. The Los Ang...

Panoramic view of the community of Chavez Ravine, circa 1952. Photo by Leonard Nadel Chavez Ravine was once known as the "poor man's Shangri La".  Since the early 1900's, a community of mostly Mexican-American families enjoyed an idyllic small town life in the center of Los Angeles. Chavez Ravine, 1949; photo by Don Normack The ravine is a shallow valley that sits atop a hill less than a mile from city hall.  Set in the base of the valley, the community was surrounded by open hills that shielded from view the city sprawl far below.  Residents who found work in the city would climb the hill at day's end to find a country setting like the Mexican villages that had once been their home.  Chavez Ravine was a self-contained village in many ways.  Many families grew their own food and the schools and churches were operated by the locals.  Evenings were spent with friends and neighbors gathered by campfires to talk, laugh and...

Louis Leakey is best known for his paleoanthropology work in Africa and for being a dirty old man.  I was unaware of the latter until yesterday, when for the first time, I bothered to read the back of my anthropology trading cards.  When I purchased them years ago as an investment, I put them away for safe keeping without giving them more than a quick glance. The cards came in a small set with a good share of them representing members of the Leakey family.  Most of the cards depict individuals whose life's work made major contributions to various fields including anthropology, archaeology and primatology.  The individual is pictured on the front of the card and career highlights are detailed on the back.  Unlike baseball cards which are mass produced by large companies, the anthropology cards were created in a single limited edition by a reclusive hobbyist named Leon Mankiewicz.  Soon after retiring from 34 years in the printing busine...