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The Year of the Lemon
It was fabulous. It was life-altering!
If you are wondering what year that was, it was the year the Olympics were held in Los Angeles. Look it up.
It was the one year of my life that I actually lived in Los Angeles. Oddly, I never attended a single Olympic event that year while I was there. I wonder if it is a fear-based chemical reaction to having been at the Olympic Village in Munich back in 1972. I should probably have that checked out but I must also say that I have attended the Special Olympics — both in Heidelberg and in Colorado Springs — and for some reason that is so much more appealing to me.
Anyway, I was living in a second-floor apartment in a small apartment complex that was built back in the 1940s. It was very similar to any of the seemingly thousands of apartment complexes built there in the 1940s. (Think windows that you crank open and shit. Think courtyards sandwiched between a couple of two-story apartment buildings. Think balconies.)
Think balconies! I say this with emphasis because I’m a balcony freak. I think all rooms should have a balcony.
The balcony I had was special. Why? Because growing on the ground below the balcony was a lemon tree! It must have been an older lemon tree because it was big enough to reach up beyond my balcony. (I wonder if it had been…
