Halloween and Family History

This is a story about family Halloween photos...

 In June of 1984 Edna and I sold our home and embarked on a big trip to find a new one. We traveled in a 1974 Chevy van that had once been John Lee Hooker's band bus. I bought it from his son's girlfriend, who acquired it as a gift after it had been in a wreck while on a tour in Idaho and somehow managed to limp home to Gilroy. I fixed up the van and added a big bed that filled the back of the van (for Nick, Edna, and me). It was built about a foot and a half above the floor so we could store clothes, food, and cooking gear underneath. At window level I added a small bed behind the driver's seat for Gabe and another across the back for Aischa. Thus we traveled for months and months. October's end and Halloween found us in Texas, having fled West from the ravenous mosquitoes of Louisiana's coast. Towards dusk, in a small town whose name I no longer remember, we located a park with picnic tables where we could fix dinner. Edna brought out a pumpkin we had bought along the way and we encouraged the kids to have a go at opening it up and carving the face. When it was done, I got the urge to capture the moment on our Polaroid camera. I opted to pose them as three human heads and one pumpkin head (turned out to be a Halloween tradition we subsequently followed for several years). I always wondered where the inspiration for that shot came from.

Fast forward 30 years. A marriage to Melina and a move to Mariposa brought to the surface an anonymous cardboard box that turned out to be holding old photos my Dad had collected for me. Some were from the days of my earliest memories, that is, the late 1940s. There were photos of my brother Mickey and me with cowboy hats and six-guns, posing behind a tumbleweed, and others of us hanging out in the front yard. Amongst those was this shot. That is me behind the stone wall lining our circular driveway. And that's Main Street in El Cajon behind me, along with the back of the signboards advertising the Bella Rosa Trailer Park and a big open field. My Dad (and Al Johnston) owned the Bella Rosa and he named it in honor of his wife/my mother Rosalie, and he managed it from our home in the front. In those days, we were surrounded by small farms and open land, all the way to those mountains in the background (need I add that Main Street in El Cajon is no longer quite so bucolic).

There is no information on the print, but I'd guess it was Halloween, 1948. And that's me, one human head, with three pumpkin heads, and the likely inspiration for my 1984 Polaroid. Only took 66 years for me to work all this out. Weird, huh?

 Closer...

Oh, I mentioned that Main Street, El Cajon wasn't so bucolic anymore. Here's the view from our front yard now. 

 And here's what our front yard looks like now:

Actually, down a little side road to the right of this center, about a block back, there appears to be the remnant of a small trailer park, essentially just a strip of asphalt, some concrete: pads, and the occasional RV.

 ... and Google has this curious listing:

BELLA ROSA TRAILER PARK 619-442-7709 El Cajon CA ...

www.sbn.com/California/El-Cajon/.../BELLA-ROSA-TRAILER-PARK

Have you done business with BELLA ROSA TRAILER PARK in El Cajon, CA? If so, please provide a brief commentary or review to share your experience with ...

I still haven't worked up the nerve to give that phone number a call...