Peanuts In My Pocket

I visited the cities of San Fernando and Sylmar yesterday to meet with a prospective client for my fledgling consulting business. My last visit was around 2017. The area has changed for the worse in some ways, but it has also become more interesting. There is a noticeable increase in homelessness. Several streets were packed with derelict mobile homes and the associated garbage that tends to pile up around them. The area was also full of street vendors selling tacos and tamales. I had some time before an early meeting, so I spent it enjoying coffee and a tamale at a random shop. This experience alone was worth the hour-long drive.

Sylmar is a hot place. LA has some areas where you don’t want to be once the temperature hits 95 degrees or so. It’s even worse if the winds are blowing. It’s a place where you can really feel the weather, and there’s nothing like a 95-degree day with a 40 mph wind blowing in your face. It’s like living in a dusty blast furnace. While it was hot during my visit, it wasn’t windy, so I count that as a win.

I drove over to a manufacturing plant where I worked a few years ago. I used to make the one- to two-hour drive each day to get there, and the two- to three-hour drive home as part of my assignment. The first part of the assignment was the initial acquisition, followed by a year or so of stabilization support, and then an ERP system implementation. It’s hard to quantify, but I spent a lot of time in an ugly old building on Bradley Avenue in Sylmar. I thought it would be fun to revisit the place. Imagine my surprise when I couldn’t find it.

At some point since my last visit, my former employer had closed down the business and sold the property. I assume the new owner tore it down. A place where I spent years of my life and built some great memories and friendships is now an empty field surrounded by an ugly green tarp. The place was erased and will fade into history. It’s a disquieting thought. At least Los Three Hermanos is still serving delightful Mexican food.

Losing physical places has happened before. My great-grandmother lived in a tiny house on Bennett Ave. in Fontana. The house is a hazy fixture in my memory from my youth. It was tiny, but had a scary root cellar and a big yard. I remember playing with my sisters on the endless hot days of summer.

I drove by the location with my mother five or six years ago, only to find that the house and all the houses around it were gone. In their place were cheap multi-unit apartments. Many important life events happened there. Now it’s gone and exists only in our memories. I’m not even sure I have a photo of it.

By the way, it still takes one to two hours to get there and another two to three to get home. I ended up spending 3.25 hours in my car yesterday. I did not like that one bit.