B
Joined: Dec 17, 2005
Posts: 77
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B
You asked for it!!! We had a 99 year lease on an old 1920s Country Club, which was a part of the Land Grant from the King of Spain to the early Sepulvedas. Louis S. owned it at that time.. he ahs since sold it to the State of California and it is called "Royal Palms State Park" where the family gets together nearly each year and we have FUN! It is 2000 foot Cove right on the Pacific Ocean a couple of miles above the Lo s Angeles harbor. Anyway.. there was only a little shack on the property and we slept outside under the palm trees until we built our home..
We didn't have much money, and so we built it mainly by ourselves. When Daddy wanted to build another room.. he'd send we 4 girls up the beach a couple of miles. We'd take hammers, nails and rope.. to a Cove where lots of lumber washed in each winter from the lumber schooners coming down from Wash. and Or. So, we'd get to the Cove and start collecting 2x4s, 1x6s etc. we'd heave, and slide, and push and pull until we had this big stack beside the water. The beach was not nice and sandy..it was rocky and the waves crashed on it at high tide!
Two of us got in to the water and the other two would slide lumber out to us.. you see, we had to make the raft in the water..or we couldn't launch out into the deep! We got banged around with the waves, knocked over, completely soaked... until we finally had put together this huge pile of lumber. Flo, my oldest sister, then said, "Grab a Paddle!" so we all got pieces of wood for paddles, jumped on the raft and paddled like mad through the waves. The current headed down towards our house, so paddleing wasn't too hard. When we got right off our building site, Flo would say, "Wait"! and we all waited, tense! Ready for the word! it came!"Paddle" we paddled like mad, until the perfect wave caught the raft, and then, "Jump!" and we all jumped off and with hammers and nails.. swam the rest of the way into shore to gather up the raft.. and carry it up to the house so daddy could create another room!! I could swear that my dad never used a square or a ruler.. it was always eyeball and measuring from nose to end of hand.. and measuring off by stepng off yards! I still do that today, and am fairly accurate!
When Eli was called by someone to make an estimate for a decorating job.. whether it was large or small, he'd look aorund and find a piece of cut off board.. or something similar, get his carpenter's pencil out of his pocket, and start writing it all down.. then, he'd hand it to the owner of some big job (like Steven Crane of the Luau in Beverly Hills!)and say, "What do you think of something like this???" I saw this happen several times.. and they loved it!
So long for now! I am setting up a campfire Christmas Eve Party, complete with Texas chili, hot dogs, and somemores... anyone want to come!!! Rememember! Cowwa Bunga!!!
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