I didn't attend this wedding. In fact, until years later, I didn't even know Delma existed. And she lived right across the street from me!
Based on this slide's date imprint, this wedding likely occurred in May of 1967, so, I would have been 11½.
Delma Estrada was the eldest child of Freddie and Bertha Estrada who lived in a house across the street from us when I was growing up. Freddie had two brothers who also moved into the neighbourhood at about the same time (one next door to him and the other two doors down the other direction) and many of the children growing up in their households were the same age as my brothers and I, as well as every other kid on the block, so many of us — to use a term from those days — ran around together.
It's very possible that Delma was already living on her own when the Estrada families moved onto Utah Street, which is why I wasn't aware of her at the time. I think she was my brother Bob's age (who is ten years older than I am), and he wasn't living at home in 1967, so it's very possible that she simply wasn't around. Or... being eleven years old and all, I might have been too busy playing baseball or round-up (a more grown-up version of hide-and-seek) to have noticed her.
But as regards this photograph, Delma isn't really the story. The story is her sister Olga.
Olga was a year older than I. I did know her, and would occasionally "play" with her around the 'hood. She was just another kid on the block, really, and since she was a girl, she didn't take up much of my attention. And although she was Catholic, she attended public schools, so as we grew up, we saw less and less of each other on a daily basis.
Fast-forwarding to the summer of 1975 (I think)... while washing my bug on the street, I heard a voice (the sound of which I can still hear in my head... very Debra Winger-esque) calling out to me and I turned to see Olga sitting on her porch swing, laughing at whatever it was she had just said.
I finished what I was doing and walked over to join her.
Quickly, we became the best of friends. We spent a lot of time together that summer, often just sitting on her porch swing talking and laughing. I shared my Martin Mull and Jackson Browne records with her and she tried unsuccessfully to turn me on to Uriah Heep. (Ugh!)
She worked at a Catholic orphanage on the other side of town, and I was working at Commercial Aluminum Cookware (now Calphalon) when it was located in the heart of downtown Toledo. We each were making our ways in the world while still living under our respective parents' roofs.
Indeed our friendship became very intense in the first couple of weeks as she intimated to me that she thought she might be pregnant. Until that point, I had no clue that she was seeing someone (a friend of her older sister Mena's boyfriend), so I was rather crushed. It had been feeling like more than a friendship to me. I was seriously free-falling into love only to be provided an ACME anvil to cushion my landing.
She soon found out she wasn't pregnant, and we went about business as usual on the friendship front. Unfortunately (for me), her relationship seemed to be developing. It was especially disconcerting since I often sat on my porch playing guitar, whence I could see when Steve or Dave or Thomas — or whatever the hell his name was* — came 'round to pick her up. What further made things difficult for me were the stories she told about him... stories that painted the picture of a not-so-very-wonderful guy. It was killing me.
I don't recall where in the chain of events it occurred, but we finally went out on what I believed was a date. I don't know now where we went for the first part of the date, but we ended up at Inky's on the north side of Toledo. Inky's is a family-run Italian restaurant near where my father worked. As a family, we had pizza there once a month or so since my dad did work for, was friends with, and golfed regularly with the owner, Frank Incorvaia. Great people. Great food.
It was a nice night. We had fun. We went home. We kissed on her steps.
I don't know why, but we never went out again. I suppose that she sensed my inexperience. It might have been the third time in my life I'd kissed a girl, so no doubt there was no comparison between what transpired for her that night and, well, what gets one pregnant.
Still, I remained in pursuit, while at the same time being able to read the writing on the wall.
At the time, Commercial Aluminum Cookware shared a building with a few other businesses, one of them being National Super Service, a manufacturer of industrial vacuum cleaners. At some point, I'd heard that they were hiring and I suggested to Olga that she apply. She hadn't been too happy at the orphanage and, I thought, wouldn't it be great to work in the same building! She applied and was hired. And much to my chagrin, our relationship — whatever it was — began its decline (read: came to a screeching halt).
Not long after starting at NSS, she began seeing Jeff, a very quiet, likable guy. Sometime in 1977 or 1978, they married. I had begun college by then and attended the wedding with my girlfriend Lisa, who I'd met at school. I went to visit Olga and Jeff once after they'd been married and I think that was the last I saw her. She eventually took a job with Jobst Institute (whose claim to fame was having manufactured space suits for NASA), in whose parking lot she died. Or so I was told. My mother mentioned it in passing to me over the phone while I was at school, so I never heard anything about what had happened. I've never had the opportunity to ask her sisters or cousins. She had injured her head in her high school swimming pool and I was led to believe that her death had been somehow related to that.
I still have a piece of fabric that she gave me. It's the only tactile reminder I have of her. A picture she had given to me wore out years ago from being in my wallet. Just as I am able to hear her voice, I am still able to see that picture of her beautifully big-toothed smiling face. It is a face and a picture that I have forever tied to Jackson Browne's "Fountain Of Sorrow"... from his all-too-hitting-close-to-home Late For The Sky record.
I think of Olga every November 13th, her birthday. Until I found the above photo, if I wanted to see her face, I would look at this photo of a friend who (in this shot anyway) bears a remarkable resemblance to Olga.**
A few years after she died, I had a dream in which she spoke to me. "Don't worry," she said, "everything is just fine."
Now the things that I remember seem so distant, so small
Though it hasn't really been that long a time
What I was seeing wasn't what was happening at all
Although for a while, our path did seem to climb
But when you see through love's illusions, there lies the danger
And your perfect lover just looks like a perfect fool
So you go running off in search of a perfect stranger
While the loneliness seems to spring from your life
Like a fountain from a pool
— Jackson Browne (Fountain Of Sorrow)
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*Thinking now about this, I'm pretty sure it was George. (ptp, 2013)
**Or so I thought until I was recently able to compare Olga's graduation picture to this one. Something, however, reminded me instantly of Olga when I saw it for the first time.
