A Taste of Yellow

Here's a little something for those of you who have emailed me asking for more pictures of Victorian era South Pasadena homes. The neighborhoods around the library and all over the Mission West District are loaded with wonderful little cottages like this. They're often overshadowed by those famous Craftsman scene stealers, but they're every bit as beautiful.

Houses like this represent a kind of homespun turn-of-the-last-century American gestalt. (Note: there's not only a rocker but also a porch swing! Bring on the lemonade and apple pie...) When we see this cheery yellow house, it's hard not to reminisce about the past, about childhood, or maybe just imagine the way we wish things once were. I'll let poet Raymond A. Foss sum it up:

Forsythia blooms
plucked from the bush
a sudden jolt
back to when I was six
walking to kindergarten
petals curl on my tongue
a taste of yellow
like the first time
forty years ago