HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

(Source for Father's Day graphic - Marvel Creations - http://www.marvelcreations.com/images/fatherban.jpg )

Like many men, my Father wore many hats. And in the case of my Father, Dad wore many patches. Here is a small sampling of what Dad proudly wore as a soldier in the U.S. Army. Dad was a veteran of 21 years from 1942 to 1963.

(Source for 1st Filipino Regiment shoulder patch - California and Second World War California's Filipino Infantry - http://www.militarymuseum.org/Filipino.html )

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Sometime in 1942, Dad enlisted in the U.S. Army. Uncle Fermin (Dad's brother) and Dad both left their jobs as bellboys at the Valentine-on-Broadway Hotel in Kansas City (MO ? or KS ?). Dad said that he was sent to Ft. Ord in Northern California for Basic Training and then to Australia for Jungle and Combat Training. At one time, he told of walking through a rainbow during a training march in Australia. The only other mention of his wartime experiences is his crossing the Pacific Ocean in a convoy. Dad was out on the deck top at night. The convoy was being fired on and occasionally a shell would strike another troop ship. He was very fatalist about the ocean crossing. “When your time is due your time is due.”

(Source for Third Infantry Division patch - http://www.stewart.army.mil/3DIDWeb/Homepage/3idhome.htm )
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After the Korea War began, Dad was a Military Police Officer in the Third Infantry Division.

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There were other units that Dad served in, but this is only a brief sampling.
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(Source for Sergeant First Class patch -http://www.tioh.hqda.pentagon.mil/Rank_page/History_of_Enlisted_Ranks.htm )

Dad's highest rank was that of a Sergeant First Class.

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This is a Happy Father's Day wish to all our Fathers.

Grandpa's Garden in El Sereno

h -, I believe that you may have inherited your Grandpa Costales’ green thumb. Dad loved to putter around the yard. Dad also had his own self-styled garden. He tilled the arid rock hard soil in our old Los Angeles/El Sereno yard. Grandpa Costales achieved this gardening feat by mixing our garbage in the soil; adding ample amounts of steer manure; and finally hard work.

Grandpa produced a variety of Filipino vegetables and fruit - chayote, kumquats, rhubarb, an exotic purple stalk with edible dark green leaves, etc. Grandpa also tried growing pineapples (which failed). I tried growing my first grade lima bean sprouts (which also failed). The El Sereno compound also had a huge grapefruit tree, peach trees, a fig tree, a lime tree, and Concord grapes.

The grapes were the source for the annual tasks of picking, boiling, straining, and bottling of Concord grape juice. If we had the known how, we should have learnt to make grape jelly. The small alcove produced an abundant harvest of grapes and the boiled grapes produced gallons of grape juice. Not quite Welch’s but just as purple and tasty.

When we returned from Japan to live in El Sereno, the yard also had a banana tree. Grandma Costales used the banana leaves to cook. You don’t eat the banana leaves but wrapped a variety of foods in the large supple banana leaves. Cooking with banana leaves is very similar to wrapping tamales in dried corn husks. There was also a small scattering of thin green bamboo in a small patch of the yard. The bamboo was only pencil thick and grew about a yard high.

The yard sported purple iris, bird of paradise, a very fragrant night blooming jasmine bush, red poinsettias, several rose bushes, a platinum colored rose bush (a gift from the family to Grandpa), a purple flowering plant (possibly a variety of Tulbhagia), and elephant ears/colocasia.

(Source for iris photo - Jan Tyler Photos -
http://www.tylerphotos.com/Floral/Purple_Iris.gif )

The front parkway was a bed of ivy and not the typical strip of grass lawn. There were at one time two black locust trees. One tree’s trunk was only a mere six to eight inches thick. But, the other tree’s trunk was easily a yard thick and the tree towered high above the house. This taller older tree, which stood on one corner of the lot, would later fall to disease or the city’s department of tree removal.

The rear of our pink stucco house was lined with a short continuous waist high hedge. This small hedge was the remnant of the huge hedge that lined the far border of our yard. The old house and yard straddled a city block. At one time, we had two addresses 4216 Garden Homes Avenue or 4215 Guardia Avenue. The latter address would become our mailing address after the three unit apartment was built on a half of the grounds.

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This makes us sound like old Californio land owners, but the total grounds were probably more or less two acres. As the apartments and small parking lot replaced the large St. Augustine grass lawn. The huge border hedge was replaced with a sterile and utilitarian chain link fence. The galvanized metal fence was brighten by magenta colored bougainvilleas vine entwined on the chain link.

(Source for bird of paradise photo – PACTT http://www.pcatt.org/pcatt/images/flowers/ACT.jpg )

To the right of the garage grew a three to four foot wide agave cactus. One summer I made the mistake of not using gardening gloves when I trimmed this cactus. My hands and face swelled and the swelling on my face was especially puffy around my eyes.

(Source for photo of night blooming jasmine - Gardino Nursery Corp.
http://www.rareflora.com/cestrumnoc.htm )

Later in life Grandpa had a collection of succulents and orchids which followed us to Baldwin Park when we moved from LA.

Love
;-) Uncle Jerry

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(Source for tulbhagia photo - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulbhagia )

(Source for agave cactus photo - http://www.thesimpleway.org/roadtrip/img/spring/agave.jpg )
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PS There was also a small strip of daisies.

(Source for daisies photo - Sommer Flowers - http://www.sommerflowers.com/wholesale-gerbera-daisies.htm )

PPS Please Don't Eat the Daisies - Click on this link for a little daisy fun with Doris Day and David Niven.