I'll be in north Berkeley every afternoon this week, so I've decided to visit Phil's houses in the area in chronological order.
Yesterday's spot was 560 Colusa. Phil and his mother Dorothy moved into this bungalow in December of 1938, after relocating to the Bay Area after a three-year stint in Washington DC. My pictures aren't great, because I don't want to seem like a creepy weirdo taking pictures of people's houses. I'd rather be the creepy weirdo who pulls up in his car, snaps a couple shots, and drives off, at least for now.
It looks like the house was more than two and a half miles from Hillside Elementary, where Phil (who was using the name "Jim" at the time) was a fourth grader. The house is deceptively large, or has been added on to, clocking in at 1600 square feet with three bedrooms and two baths. Dorothy had enough money saved to put a down payment on a house out in Concord (a dusty suburb about a half hour into the foothills from Berkeley), but Phil "threw a fit" and refused.
For orientation, this house is just about a mile north of the tiny little guitar school where Joe Satriani gave Kirk Hammett guitar lessons.
Dorothy arranged a job for herself at the US Forestry Service, a job she would keep until she retired. My guess is that Phil was glad to be back in Berkeley. He complains in his 1968 "Self Portrait" of the terrible weather in DC. But also, he was reunited with his maternal grandmother, Meemaw, and her sister, his aunt Marion.
It's even possible that young Phil, an avid cowboy enthusiast (at least at age 4) would have had the opportunity to meet "Tex" Conley, a "bullwhip expert" who toured Europe with the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show. "Tex" married aunt Marion in January of 1937. But Phil would have to be quick, by 1940 "Tex" was back in Texas, and by 1941 Marion had met and married fellow artist at the San Francisco Artist's Cooperative, Joe Hudner.
Phil presumably lived here until the summer of 1940, when he was twelve years old and moved to 1212 Walnut, which I'll visit today.
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