Nothing remains quite the same

I left earlier today (Saturday, January 5th) to try to attend an Asian Lunar New Year's event, but ended up taking a detour which left me in a wistful mood.

After having driven west on what turned out to be a beautiful day with moderate traffic, I reached a city in which I used to work when I first graduated from college. It seems like so long ago, and yet I preserve many memories of that first experience. I wasn't happy, and felt as if I was destined for something else, but nonetheless I spent several years there.

That company, a defense contractor, used to have a sizeable complex. It took up an entire block, and abutted a comunity airport. It was a hub of activity, one in which I occupied a very minor niche for a short period.

Now, as you exit the nearby freeway, the airport is still there. It seems to be rather more placid than I remember it back then.

This used to be a mammoth parking lot. As a junior employee, I was assigned here, and I remember the trudge as I was forced to navigate my way to the front. It was a mini-expedition in which I would enter several buildings on my quest to locate my office. The parking permit that I coveted eluded me during my soujourn. Now, the space has been transformed as it has been vacated by the company and given over to giant retail establishments. It is bewildering to see this.

For a short while I used to spend part of my time at a lab facility that was located here. It was a two story building with a basement in which several tests were carried out. There was also a small tower in which we tested out equipment. We had to be lifted on a forklift in order to replace different gear. Yes, I was lifted up in that forklift, and almost fell off. Now, the lab has been razed and all I see is this small pile of dirt where I used to work.

In a way, this empty field looks beautiful, as if a part of the pristine wilderness that characterized this area hundreds of years ago had been resuscitated. It won't last, however. I have no doubt that it will be developed and turned in to yet another strip mall or Walgreens within a year.

Part of the industrial complex used to be located here. My group was transferred here, and it used to be a large building with accompanying parking lot and gates to check security clearances. Now, it has been developed into housing that seems rather more prosperous than befits this area which can be characterized as somewhat gritty. I always used to think so, although I may have been projecting my unhappiness on the surroundings.

One of the highlights involved driving to this take-out place for lunch. It is still one of my favorites, but it is always very, very crowded. It was first suggested to me a few weeks after having started at this company, by a short and very confrontational colleague, Allan, who always seemed to have a chip on his shoulders. I did my best to avoid him, but appreciate the recommendation.

It is still very crowded inside. I take this as an affirmation that the food is very good, but it does take a while to receive it. The lines are always very, very long, and we have to snake through these barriers.

Here are the food preparers at work. It is a bustling place, and the women (all the food preparers are Latino immigrant women) are busy calling out numbers for customers to pick up their food.

I feel a little guilty about this photo. I fear I may have made them uncomfortable when they saw that I was photographing them. I tried to be discreet, but I think they still noticed.

There is something about this food. It has a special allure that is all wrapped up in the spices, in the textures, in the experience of having to wait to have it prepared, and in the communal experience of gathering with other devotees. I think that everyone has their equivalent of a comfort food and a special place where it is served. For my cousin Tony, who lives further south, it is a restaurant chain called Alberto's. I kid him about it, and he laughs, but he admits it, and he used to bemoan the fact that he was so far away from this chain when he was living up in the Bay Area.

And this is the front of the building that used to belong to the defence contractor during this first job that I held twenty years ago. It is a lifetime ago. The buildings have been transformed, and now is a quite different place filled with other businesses. I was never senior enough to merit a window office, but I remember arriving here each morning and thinking that I hated the prospect of another day spent here, stuck in an an anonymous cubile and metaphorically chained to a computer as I wrote programs and wished for the magic hour of 4:43 to arrive. Measuring my life out in teaspoons or, better yet, pathetic clicks of a keyboard.

The defence contractor has long since left the area. They were in the process of leaving in the mid 90s, and about ten years ago I started noticing the changes. I was moving about myself, working in different parts of the country, but always made it a point to come back and visit this area at least once during my vacations. The company, which is still quite vigorous and which has merged with other contractors, is still involved in supplying products. They now have chosen to relocate to a place closer to where the contracts are awarded, which in this case, is the capital.

Nature abhors a vaccuum, and what once stood there has been either razed or replaced and transformed. The streets and surrounding communities look much the same, but this whole massive industrial block has been scaled back and broken up into smaller units. Many people dedicated their lives to this company, and spent their professional working life within the confines of that neighborhood block. Perhaps they still inhabit the location in some form or other. They are all transformed into memories, and I will carry those memories for the short time that is alloted to me.

 

In the end, while it may seem trite to say so, life is as ever a pageant of impermanence.