The Paloma Court apartments are located in the valley of Pinole, California and were built in the early 1960s. By the 1980s, when my family moved in, the complex was showing its age. We moved to the Paloma Court apartments after my mom left my dad. Mom was 19, I was three. We would live in the Paloma Court apartments for nine years. It was always difficult for people to find my apartment. There was no street sign for Paloma Court.
The apartments ran alongside Pinole Creek on a sloped patch of land, which made for an interesting layout of the apartment complex. Every building was a different size and shape, with a series of sidewalks, driveways, and tunnels connecting them to each other. There were two community laundry rooms, a community pool, and a clubhouse for special events. The buildings were propped up like stilt walkers, with car parking and storage units situated underneath the living accommodations. I lived at 2346 Paloma Court, apartment #2. (Good luck trying to find it.) Our unit had three bedrooms and a balcony that faced the community pool. The bedrooms were tiny, the kitchen was little, and the bathrooms were cramped. In fact, everything about the apartment was small, except for the giant floor-to-ceiling windows in the dining room that overlooked the driveway leading to my building.
My favorite feature of my apartment building was the roof. There was a permanent ladder installed on the third floor that provided access to the roof. The rooftop was sloped at a steep angle and covered in tar and loose gravel. When I was having a bad day, or just wanting to be alone, I could climb to the top of my building and sit up there all by myself. Sometimes I would read books or play with my Etch-A-Sketch. Other times I just laid there on the gravel, staring up at the sky. I never told anyone about this secret hiding spot, not even my friends. I liked that no one knew where I was when I was up there. Everyone should have a spot like that.
Adjacent to the apartments was an empty lot (where I once found a litter of feral kittens,) a small church (where my mom found Jesus,) the public library (where I discovered my love for reading,) a city-owned tennis court (where I discovered my dislike for tennis,) and a 7-11 convenience store (where most of my money went.) A chain link fence was all that separated me from Pinole Creek, which provided countless hours of exploration and entertainment for me. I liked climbing trees, digging holes, and looking for creatures. The local wildlife included snails, snakes, slugs, ants, butterflies, spiders, and my favorite, rolly-pollies – or pill bugs as some people call them.
The local elementary school was situated at the top of one of the tall hills surrounding the Pinole Valley. It was impossible to walk to school because it was several miles away and the route was entirely uphill. My mom drove me to school on the first day of Kindergarten, but I locked myself in the car and refused to go to school. After that, Mom said I had to take the bus, which would pick me up on Estates Avenue. No bus would ever drive down Paloma Court. Walking home was fine, because it was all downhill.
The Northern California weather was mild most of the year. Summers were not particularly hot and the winters were not very cold. We never had snow, but fog was pretty common. The only troublesome things from Mother Nature we had to contend with were the occasional earthquake and rain. Some years it rained a lot during the winter, causing the water level of Pinole Creek to rise and flood into the Paloma Court apartments. The water would run so high that it overflowed into the lower areas of the complex. Mud covered the sidewalks, ran across driveways, and filled the community pool.
A little bad weather never changed my desire to be an outside explorer though. On one such day, I was tromping through the mud near one of the laundry areas and encountered a large patch of mud that was getting hard to walk in. Not to be deterred, I plodded on, taking step after step into the mud while it continued to get deeper and deeper. After about four steps, I found myself completely stuck up to the top of my knee-high rain boots. I couldn't go anywhere and the rain continued to pour on me as I stood there immobile, hoping someone would show up before the mud claimed the rest of me.
“Help!” I called out. “I'm sinking in the mud!” I felt like one of the cartoon characters that you see on TV falling into the dreaded quicksand. I imagined the storm continuing until the mud reached my waist and eventually my mouth and nose. Maybe they would find me in the springtime, still standing there, dead and caked in mud. Fortunately, after what seemed like hours, a teenaged samaritan heard my cries for help and pulled me out of the sticky situation. I waddled home in my mud-soaked socks, leaving my boots behind, never to be seen again.
The Paloma Court Apartments were home to a diverse population of residents. One of my favorite people to visit in the apartment complex was an old woman that my friend and I called The Cookie Lady. She lived on the bottom floor of the building near my friend Ryan's apartment and gained her nickname because she always had delicious homemade cookies on-hand that she would share with anyone who knocked on her door. Ryan and I visited her house often. She lived alone and would chat with us for a couple minutes while we enjoyed our cookies. I learned that her grown-up daughter had invented something really neat. It was a liquid-motion toy resembling a glass tube containing water, glitter and lots of stars and moons that sparked as you turned the tube from side to side. One year, the Cookie Lady gave both Ryan and I one of the star tubes as a gift; it was one of my most favorite and valued possessions for a long time.
Other residents of the apartment complex consisted of a mixture of retirees (many of whom were original owners) and plenty of working class people – nurses, donut makers, waiters, hair stylists, and the like who were living on limited incomes. Most renters didn't stay more than a couple of years at a time.
Although there were teens around, there were not very many children my age living in the apartments. My best friend Ryan was one year younger than me. He came from a broken home and lived in the Paloma Court apartments with his grandmother, Dee. She was an intelligent and kind-hearted retired nurse doing her best to keep up with this perpetually-hyper little boy. Ryan was constantly in trouble at school and at home for his outlandish behavior. I will never forget the devilish grin he had on his face every time he broke the rules. Looking back, I probably contributed to his misbehavior because I thought everything he did was hilarious. Ryan and I were inseparable; I think we explored every inch of the Paloma Court Apartments together at some point. He and I started a secret club that held meetings in the unused storage units around the apartment complex.
When I was 12 years old, my mom remarried and we moved into a house on a hill. It was a nice change to be able to walk to school, but I still missed what we left behind. The Paloma Court apartments will always hold a special place in my heart. I spent half of my childhood roaming her tunnels, trekking her footbridges, and rolling down her grassy hills. Houses are nice, but they are not the same.
My family may have lived in the apartments because we were poor, but my childhood is rich with experiences from that quirky place. Last summer I drove by the apartments and noticed they finally added a street sign.
Written for EDRL 425, December 2015.