By Daniel Tonnesen

I have finally come home. After a quarter century of filling my years experimenting with different lifestyles, cultures and plumbing situations, I have returned to claim the suburban birthright for which my Los Altos childhood groomed me. That’s just what happens. Sooner or later, we become our moms and dads, often marrying them, and then we end up living within some version of what we grew up with. I haven’t “ended up” yet, but here I sit at the end of a cul-de-sac.

I’ve lived in Berkeley, Santa Cruz and San Francisco in search of groovesters and a homegrown urban pulse. I have lived in Japan, Sri Lanka and Burma and had bald-headed monks as a part of my daily commute. All the while I have been searching for my tribe. Finally, as I sit next to my pool skimmer at the end of a cul-de-sac with the address painted on the curb, I’ve got to admit. I have arrived home. But it’s not Los Altos.

My cul-de-sac is in Johannesburg. South Africa.

It’s not close to California, but it does have some redolence of my youth. Even the weather is similar. There is golf. Living in the land of Player, Els and Goosen, I am being drawn into the great game. The idea of doing it sounds enticing. I get to teach my little girl to ride a bicycle in the calm of the street, even if there are electric fences between it and our front door. The neighbors are nice. I play croquet. I commute in traffic past chain-store malls where I can get anything I need in one stop.

What about the town I grew up in? We didn’t have kids with “Our Gang” names like Lefty, Buzz or Porky, but I did hang with a cadre of miscreants that included The Juice, Banyo and Ugly. We could ride our bikes around the tree at the top of Main Street that you could recognize from old photos at the pre-expanded library. We made the Police Blotter in the Crier with wee bits of anonymous adolescent mischief like changing the sign at Mac’s Tea Room. “Bust Dan Tonnesen,” they once managed to spell correctly with the available letters. I made the sports section with a Little League exploit in which I “brought the spectators to their feet.” That yellowed clipping is with the photos and legal papers in my emergency evacuation file. That’s the Los Altos that I remember. Nice. Nice people. Good neighbors. In an article published by the Crier about my international life, an intern wrote, “Despite the oppressiveness of the current regime, Tonnesen prefers his life in Burma to his time in Los Altos.” One cannot doubt the journalistic interpretations of the Crier, but my Los Altos childhood gives me a high mark to shoot for in raising my kids. I don’t know if the Jo’Burg version is hitting it.

Growing up in Los Altos, the remnants of those apricot orchards became our backyard and a great goopy source for implanted firecrackers to explode on the Fourth. Now those same yards are maxed with new houses that look like a well-fed Zulu princess in a halter-top from Marion Jackston’s. Bustin’ out all over.

It’s still nice. It’s just different. It’s not 1968 nice. The kids who are growing up now will have great Los Altos memories, too. It’s a short drive to several country clubs and they can get their Frappuccinos at a selection of large coffee chains. I go to those places all the time when I’m “home.” But where is Dick Felt? Where are Mr. Maehl and his Smoke and Bottle Shop where The Juice conducted extensive surveys of female anatomy in the magazine section? Where is Sammy Kahn?

I played third base for Kahn’s Corner Pharmacy and expected recognition, or maybe some special deal from Sammy when I went in to buy some Starbursts. My team picture was on the wall. Sammy told me to stay where he could see me. I got on my bike with no helmet and pedaled past the Melody Inn listening to see if they’d cranked up the giant pipe organ yet. They were not all glorious characters, but they were characters. Home-grown.

I don’t suppose that 1968 Los Altos really exists anymore. Anywhere. I feel like an old codger who starts every sentence with a wheezy, “I remember when…” But I do remember when, and I can’t help but break out in a little smile.

Tonnesen currently teaches language arts and social studies at The American International School of Johannesburg. He lives with his wife and two daughters.