Zip code survey, continued
Where I was born. Well, sort of. Would you believe, the house I lived in. I was born in a hospital in Ventura, California, but I grew up in a house that I only have vague memories of. It was on a street called Ward Way in Ojai, California. I was only there until 1963 or so. My dad built the house. The street was named after him because he was the first person to build a house there. Dad built it with his own hands, it wasn't a contractor job. He used a tool that currently resides in my brother's garage, called a ShopSmith. It was an all-in-one sort of tool, table-saw, drill-press, lathe, shaper, you name it. But so was my dad, really. He worked in the oil fields during the night, and built the house during the day. My parents lived in a trailer on the lot, though I wasn't born till after it was built. Real American Dream stuff— dumb Okie moves to California, educates himself on building codes and such at the public library, and builds a house that he expects to live the rest of his life in. It didn't work out that way.
In 1963, the oilfields slowed down and we were forced to move to Bakersfield. Most of my memories are there. What I remember most about Ojai was the smell. I'm not sure what it was, perhaps it was the orange blossoms, but I drove back there right before I moved to Arkansas and the place still smelled the same. It was a ritualistic kind of thing, because it was the place I should have grown up.
We'd go back often to visit as I was growing up, because of my Uncle Wendell. Wendell moved there, right after WWII, because my dad was there. Wendell was much smaller than my dad, and dad would always protect him when they were growing up. During the war, my father travelled across the country looking for work, usually as a welder in aircraft plants. He couldn't get into the service because he had a perforated eardrum. He found work, like lots of people, in California. Wendell was in the service, "Mule Pack Artillery," and as I was told, he was the smallest guy in the outfit. But he could dead-lift over 500lbs so people pretty much left him alone. After the war, he didn't need much protecting, but I know it hurt my dad to move away from him.
Wendell lived in a Quonset hut and played the twelve-string guitar. His wife was a fortune-teller and my cousins were sort-of hippie-like. I liked them, a lot.
Demographically, the place has changed a lot since then.Dominant ACORN: 2A (Urban Professional Couples)These singles and married couples with few or no children live in single-person or shared households. Most of them work in professional and managerial positions. They are well educated, with many holding a college degree. They live in high-density neighborhoods, owning single-family houses, condominiums or townhouses in urban areas throughout the U.S., but concentrated in Massachusetts, New York, and California. They drink imported wines, listen to classical music, travel overseas and in the U.S., and visit museums. They play tennis, golf, and go biking and jogging.
2000 Income Figures
Median Household Income $48,351
HH Income Under $50K 51.2%
HH Income $50K-$100K 32.8%
HH Income Over $100K 15.9%
2000 Housing Figures
Average Home Value $384,624
Average Rent $648
My father and mother had three children. Mom did graduate high-school, and worked as a telephone operator until I was born. Dad, according to him anyway, was kicked out of the sixth grade though my mom insists that he made it through the eighth. He hates high-density neighborhoods, and when we lived there it was a long way from most things, nestled in the hills. Mom liked a little wine, but usually it came from a gallon jug(or a cardboard box, in later years). Dad was strictly a bourbon man, and usually cheap bourbon at that, though he would occasionally treat himself to Jim Beam. They listened to country, blues, and a little early rock and roll, though dad's major preference was boogie-woogie piano. They never travelled overseas, and usually only traveled to the mountains to fish or back to Oklahoma to visit relatives. Neither played tennis, golf, biked or jogged.
The house sold for around $30,000 in 1962. It had a massive stone fireplace that my dad built by hand, and a garage with a pit for working on cars. The lot was around an acre and it was next to a school. In the early 80s, before they moved again to Oklahoma, they found out that the house sold for about $500,000.
Though the demographic information would lead you to believe that I came from an upper-middle class background, this couldn't be further from the truth. My dad was, and is, my hero— because he was always chasing the dream of a real home. "A working-class hero is something to be..." The years in Bakersfield were rough on him; it wasn't where he wanted to be. He was a nature guy, and there wasn't much of that to be found in Bakersfield, unless you count the occasional roadrunner.
There is a happy ending though; the next house Dad built was in the middle of a National forest in Oklahoma. That time, he hired some contractors, but the scheme was basically the same. He did most of the work himself. But that's another zip-code entirely.
holy moly! how things change, eh?