My first memory is Mommy finding a dime. It was 1952 and I know now we were on a bone soup budget. A dime was big money. To spend it at the store, we walked past a gas station that sold Lucky Lager beer and Rainier ale. Four-year-old me thought those names were as enchanted as an Arabian Nights tale.

Half-a-century later, I went back on a business trip. It was hard to reconcile the small, friendly Walnut Creek I remembered, some streets still unpaved, with the tall, sophisticated city I felt lost in. In my day, the business district was two blocks long, North Main and Locust, connected by Bonanza Street. A few residence streets, in a perpetually dusty state of summer somnolence, ambled around them.

Our world was anchored by the hardware store where my father later worked at one corner of Locust. At the end of the block was the Shell gas station run by George. He’d fought in World War II, been wounded and had a plate in his head. As he filled up the car (25 cents a gallon), washed the windshield and checked the oil, I stood behind him, looking for the edge of the china plate which, I thought, surely must show below the bottom of his brown service station cap, through his grey-brown half-inch crewcut. What happened, I was certain, was that after the operation to fix his brain, the plate was put in and the top of his head replaced. I didn’t know why the plate was there but thought it glamorous and exotic.

Across the street was the Kitty Bar. It had a stool so children could climb up and choose their flavor. My favorite color was green: when my parents had an extra nickel, I got lime sherbet.

My first sensory memories come from Los Angeles. When Daddy was away in the army, his pay went fubar several times. Mommy stored our furniture and we took the train south, tickets paid for by money wired by my father’s parents. The only grandchild, I was indulged, corn flakes with sugar and cream; chocolate-covered doughnuts from the bread truck; green glass bottles of 7-Up from the case in the back porch; Tutti Frutti Chiclets and Wrigley’s Doublemint chewing gum kept in the top drawer next to the sink.

Grandma and Grandpa thought L.A. water was undrinkable and kept a Sparkletts water cooler in the back hall. I pushed a button and clearly special, Grade A water not only gushed into my glass, air bubbles glooped their way to the surface behind the aquamarine glass.

In the mild weather, the back door was always open and closed but not locked at night. Outside was a latticed porch with peeling white paint. Grandma and I sat on the steps in the pale brown sunlight, chewing the spearmint leaves that poked under the foundation. We sniffed her roses and clove-scented red carnations, taking long, deep breaths of the perfume. And we hung out laundry. I couldn’t reach the clothesline but handed up pins from the clothespin bag with the hanger on top and a hole in the side. When the sheets were on the lines, I ran between them, smelling that wet fabric scent, the soft dampness of the cotton brushing my face and arms.

And at night, there was that exciting new thing, television. My grandparents watched Lawrence Welk and I fell asleep in Grandpa’s strong arms, held against his sawdust-smelling brown twill shirt as he hummed along or, if the television was off, crooned German lullabies.

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