Our Stuff
In the 70’s when my oldest sister married and they built a home in a new development off Sylvan Ave in Modesto, I saw my first three-car garages. They were very impressive and I was in awe because I had only known homes with one or two car garages. Our old family house at 1244 California Street and all the neighbors around there only had small or single garages that only a very small car would fit in. And often these tiny garages were at the end of a long, narrow driveway, common in the older neighborhoods around town. Some are reached via two strips of concrete with lawn in between them but modernized ones might be all paved. There are many charming examples of them on California Street, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison and I wonder how people get by with such a tiny garage.
The building explosion of homes that began in the eighties with Ranchwood Drive and led to the town boundaries growing outward in all points of the compass, also brought in updated architectural features, and finally Los Banos began to sport homes with three car garages, among other modern features. So when in 1991 we began to look for an upgrade to our modest house on Eagle Street as our family was growing, we eventually decided on a tri-level house that had… my very own three car garage.
Now some men and I am one, like to have a place to work, and for some years we owned Klassy Kleen the carpet cleaning company. Business was good, and that meant equipment, parts, and supplies needed to go somewhere, but I had a wife and three children that I wanted to be with as much as possible. A smarter man than me would have probably rented a shop facility somewhere, and I envied the guys with a decent shop building, but I made the choice to stay home to be close to family.
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