burtlo

I came to live in the San Fernando Valley in August, shortly before my fourteenth birthday. I stayed until August, shortly before my nineteenth birthday. In the near five years of living within San Fernando Valley, I came to know it as far south as the Hyatt hotel in downtown, west to Packard Bell in Calabasas, east to the Gamezone in Pasadena, and north to Francis Snyder's home. In retrospect, I knew very little of Los Angeles.

A recent conversation with a friend concluded with this shameful response, feeling at that moment that I had wasted a vast portion of Los Angeles. I continued to hold this to be true until I spent a day driving all the places I had formerly known.

I would like to recant.

In the five years that I found myself within the San Fernando Valley I have strewn an amazing amount of emotional material all through the streets, houses, and stores. However, these physical locations are constantly in flux and more than 10 years later some of these locations are no longer the ones that I remembered. Some places, I cannot remember how to ever return. Some events are forever forgotten.

On my recent trip I did my best to attempt to capture some of these places that I remember and hope that in the coming future I can relate theses stories for my own record. I race now before the ends of the day, before the sun sets on these events forever.

The night is still young on day 29.