Whizzing Through America: Living Memories Tour, Cupertino+

All the time we lived here, in Cupertino, we had a contract to buy the house we eventually moved into in Fremont. The sellers were stalling and our two months of temporary living became almost three.

During all of this time Marilyn drove our oldest daughter to the school she would be going to, in fact, all of our children eventually went there. The school delivery and pickup service commuting made Marilyn want to back out of the contract. (We eventually discovered that they were waiting on their condo to be finished. How they were able to stretch us out I don't know but Marilyn and I both blamed our Real Estate Agent.)

Still, living in Cupertino had some good points. It still had a lot of small town aspects in 1986. The Frontier Land playground had real wood made up to look like a small sized set for a Western Movie. We could find parking at all of the parks when we wanted to be there. And most of all, we were so close the Peninsula as if to already be there. Every weekend had us out making some new discovery. Indeed, this set the stage for many weekend trips to the Ocean, Heritage Grove on Alpine, Los Trancos, ... Marilyn was a big fan of combining learning with exercise, which made Los Trancos particularly good.

The best part of this place was the orange tree right in the back yard. I know I had so many that I got acid blisters. I think everyone else was a little more controlled. (It's still there! I almost thought to try and pick one from the school side but thought better of it.)

Plus the school right next door had a playground just perfect for our age of children. We also took advantage of that until our oldest daughter lost a tooth in the ground cover. I think her brother was involved in some way either by helping to complete its coming out or by causing her to drop it when she was showing us. She was devastated. We helped her compose a suitable note to the Tooth Fairy and low and behold she got the most money for it she ever had.

Since my job at Amdahl headquarters started the beginning of July and Marilyn and the children were staying in Houston until school started in California, I had a much smaller temporary living place in Sunnyvale. I had a nice short commute while Marilyn had to supervise getting us packed. I got one trip a month home to Houston for basically a long weekend each time and Marilyn got one house hunting trip sans kids.

While we did house hunt, finding the place in Fremont, whose major selling point was the five bedrooms and great school district, we also used the front wheeled drive rental for some serious curve traveling on the Peninsula. On one of those trips we were stuck in traffic on Skyline Blvd. We didn't see the accident but did see the life flight helicopter come for at least one of the tandem motorcycle riders. After I got my motorcycle much later, I stayed away from that stretch of 35 for this very reason.

The best part of Marilyn's visit was the white lace body stocking she wore for me. (No, no pictures, just memories.) I kept getting her gifts that I thought would keep on giving but with children apt to come in the bedroom at all hours, they rarely did, keep giving that is.

In reality, I didn't spend all that much time here. Since I had no one to go home to, I worked longer hours. After we got the house contract, one Saturday I hiked up Mission Peak and proclaimed that I wanted to do it regularly and often. I didn't.

The long and the short of it is that I really don't remember where these apartments were. They may have been torn down because this empty field seems to be in the place I seemed to remember driving to. There were a couple apartment complexes on Mary but neither of them had the configuration I remember. Oh well, this field is it. Who will tell me differently, or care?