Day 5 - Blogabond

While driving from Sata Cruz to San Jose I felt all the previous journeys across the same strech of road like clouds of ghosts. That family trip when my sister was just an annoying preteen, that school trip at the end of the year, that 3am slow drive, and so many more. The road twists and turns, ups and downs in a very pleasing manner. That is driving pleasure.

Before I made it to my grandparents' house I drove through old haunts, down familar streets. Los Gatos, Campell, old town areas, tree lines suburbs, strip malls. I drove up to the old scenic view by a water sanitation plant. That spot where I we were caught by the police and questioned seperately about the goings ons. Luckily my dumb pleasure of having a drivers licence to show them overrode any kind of reasonable fear I should have had. The windows were steamy, so, I can see why they shined in their overcompensatingly large maglights to see what was going on. This night it was only me and my memories and my tears.

Rolled into my grandparent's house around 9:30. They've been there for more than 50 years. This is the house where my mom, aunt, and uncle grew up. There's art on the wall I recall from my presentience youth, abstracts, landscapes, and abstracts.

My grandfather is a master locksmith. It was his hobby and now there's a glorious glass case in the foyer filled with padlocks and combination locks of all shapes and sizes. Some are clean and brassy, some are grey and pitted, some are bizarre mutations of what you thought was a lock. And that's just in the front room. Out in the garage are metal filing cabinates filled with sorted locks and near endless key blanks. He thought me how to copy a key when I was 12. I remember a christmas when he handed out lock picking tools to the young'ns and had us all practice on a plain vanilla 6 pin tumbler Master padlock. It usually took us a couple minutes to pop the thing open with the right jimmying and twisting.

It may sound odd, but I got my first professional haircut in 16 years. It was at this place with a spinning red white and blue barber pole. It was at this place where my grandfather and cousin have been getting their hair cut for decades. There was baseball memorabelia on the walls, baseballs, bats, and dozens of signed pictures. The guys behind the chairs were a gas. They tossed the one liners back and forth, kept the vibe light and friendly. When my guy was cleaning up the edges at my neck and ears he joked
"Oh, so, yeah this is the first time I've used this thing a 6 months."
one of the other guys piped in "Is that the rusty blade?" "Yes," he said "There was all sorts of bleeding last time." and on like that, you get the idea.

Dinner was with a good portion of my family sitting down at Chilis. Not exactly like the dinners out of yor, but damn close. Everyone's doing well. There's new pets, book deals, business meetings, and I was so damn happy to see more of my fam.

After dinner we headed our seperate ways. To Berkeley for me, and beyond.

written by

kleer001 on November 22, 2008 from San Jose, United States

from the travel blog: Tijuana to Vancouver

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