After High School I Got a Job at The Valley Fair Shopping Center in the San Jose Art, Paint and Wallpaper Store as a Stockboy/Clerk... Unloading Trucks Delivering Paint and Waiting on Customers...

and I moved to Delmas Street near Downtown SJ off West San Carlos Street... Into a Bracero Apartment behind an Old Farm House. My Future Wife and I Used to Go Out on the Freeway Overpass that was under construction at night to Watch the Stars... The Apartment was so tiny that the bedroom only had room enough for a Bed and a Spinet Piano... I had to sit on the bed in order to play it. We Would Play Songs for Four Hands... The nearest Grocery Store was The Ozuna Brothers Tortilla Factory... and we could also buy Pan Dulce... The Ozuna Brothers owned a Volkswagon Beetle with the Body Replace with Spanish Style Iron Grillwork... The same shape as a VW Body but made out of 1/4 inch rebar in super swirly patterns...

I remember Buying a used Bicycle wheel at the San Jose Flea Market... MY Bicycle Wheel had been stole a week before and... IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN THE SAME WHEEL... They also sold Sugar Cane to chew on. It is a Plant that is Very similar to bamboo but KINDA SWEET... Not very sweet but you could tell the difference between Sugar Cane and Bamboo... That Flea Market Was LEGENDARY! Started in 1770 by the Spanish Missionaries... A Famous Artist used to Airbrush T-Shirts with a Painting of a Muscle Car there... I think it was Stanley Mouse but it Could Have Been Big Daddy Roth... That Flea Market was Mentioned in the book "The Kite Runner" because The Man and his Father Bought used stuff at Yard Sales and then sold the same stuff at a table in the Flea Market.

Read More at: https://gvan42.blogspot.com/2018/03/growing-up-in-los-gatos-california-in.html

My AutoBiography: Growing Up in Los Gatos, California in the 1960s by Gregory Vanderlaan - and Living in Chico, Washington DC and Eureka.

Born March 19th, 1954, We lived on Hedding Street Near the San Jose Airport until We moved to Los Gatos in 1960.  I lived there until graduation from Los Gatos High School in 1972... an Ideal Childhood... 

I remember dumpster diving in Chico, California... We grabbed a Mattress and I put it in the back of my Ford Windstar Cargo Van... Then I magically became a "TURTLE" because wherever I drove, I had my home on my back...

I was waiting for an AA Meeting to start and met a kid who said he could show me where to buy Marijuana. We went to the Dealer's Apartment, Bought a Bag of Weed and... Found a Dumpster with a LOT of free stuff... The College kids often abandon their possessions after the School closes for the Summer...

I remember parking in an Oak Forest near Red Bluff in a high wind and all night the Acorns fell on the roof of the Van...Scary, like a gunshot sound... another time I was driving home from Crater Lake, Oregon and I felt really tired so I pulled off at a Campground on Highway 101 just North of Eureka... It looked Just like the Movie Jurassic Park. That's because the Movie WAS filmed there...