Notice the street sign on the left! Kind of faded, seen better days, right?
My mother and I were in Orange in search of Lawson Way, and we found it, thanks to Gladys, the GPS navigator on my Samsung Blackjack. Little did we know that we were going to also be on the REAL Memory Lane. This was not just some random quest due to the name of the street. A long time ago, the powers-that-be in the city governments of Santa Ana and/or Orange chose to name Lawson Way after my grandfather, who was a real estate developer. One of his first projects upon leaving Los Angeles and coming to Orange County was the Town and Country shopping center, located at the OTHER end of Lawson Way. I do, in fact, have childhood memories of visiting my grandfather (who was not a nice man at all) in his office there, and stopping in at the Mouse House, a cute little store. Also in this shopping center was a very elegant restaurant, the Villa Fontana. I remember getting all dressed up to eat there.
Not having seen my grandfather since I was 15 years old, I have only bad memories of the grief he caused my father. But I do remember driving up to Santa Ana to shop at Bullock's, back in the day when there was no other shopping area in Orange County, and then going across Main Street to see my grandfather's shopping center. Bullock's is now Macy's and part of a huge shopping mall, the Town and Country shopping center is ugly and half empty now, and the only thing that remains is MY street! Named after ME! My mother and I went from one end of the street to the other. We contemplated how much life changes and laughed about the irony of Memory Lane.
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