Off-Farm Income

Merry Christmas to all of you!  Thank you so much for making it possible for me to do this for the past three years (already)!  I have a favorite memory of my time growing up in Valley Home, California that happened 40 years ago on Christmas Eve.  I wanted to share this with you for my Christmas episode this year.

I could try and type out this story here for you to read, but I'm going to make you listen to it.  I grew up in a very special place; a town that was dying out.  We were there in what really were its last, best years and I've got a lot of fond memories from my childhood.  This story is just one of them.

Here are some photographs to help show you what I am talking about when I describe Valley Home and the alley where this took place.

This is what Wikipedia says about Valley Home today and the triangular shape of the town:

Here is a satellite image of Valley Home.  I lived in the bottom right of the triangle:

[caption id="attachment_4289" align="alignnone" width="510"] The purple pin is where the Valley Home Store is located.[/caption]

Here is a close up of where my house and the Rinna's are located:

[caption id="attachment_4290" align="alignnone" width="510"] Karen's house in the center and mine is the brown, "L" shaped roof. The "incident" took place in the alley between our houses.[/caption]

This is the front of my home, the window I was pressed against and the door that Santa left out of:

[caption id="attachment_4285" align="alignnone" width="508"] The kitchen door of the house I grew up in.[/caption]

Here is the fence that caused all the trouble:

[caption id="attachment_4287" align="alignnone" width="510"] The short fence that caused all the problems....the shop was not there then.[/caption]

A couple of photographs of the Valley Home Store:

[caption id="attachment_4281" align="alignnone" width="510"] The Valley Home Store today.[/caption][caption id="attachment_4282" align="alignnone" width="510"] The gas pumps are gone and the post office is not longer being used.[/caption]

Merry Christmas everyone!