Los Robles

Los Robles

Noel Laflin

11-24-22

I came across the little sheet of advertising I squirreled away on the day we first toured the new condos that had just gone up for sale some 39 years ago. As it turned out, we moved into said home 39 years ago Thanksgiving week. Something to be really grateful for, to be certain.

What's fun about the paper are all the hand scribbled notes on the back where I was calculating how I might finance the place. There was a bit of robbing Peter to pay Paul, but it all worked out in the end.

What's also funny is that the advertising guys dubbed our unit as Los Robles - The Oaks, even though there wasn't a single oak tree on the property, nor even in the entire complex, for that matter. One had to go across the street and to the hills around the old reservoir to find one. Actually, there are 17 lovely Live Oak trees surrounding the reservoir. Some appear to be quite old, too. Heck, they were old on the day I moved here, and that's obviously been a while.

Consequently, and quite unintentionally, it was from one of those very old oaks that I brought home a capful of acorns one day, by which to feed the backyard squirrels, and now have two tiny (but hardly) oak seedlings growing in the garden. One is already two feet tall. Some squirrel buried his excess loot one day, apparently, forgot about it, and wouldn't you know it, there's now oaks on the property!

I was never a fan of false advertising, like the name given to our humble unit.

But, it only took 39 years to rectify the situation.

The homes are worth a lot more than what I paid for at the time. But I have no intention of cashing in, as I have a couple of oak trees to tend to.

And I have the full support of all the squirrels around here too.