Pasadena, CA

I joined up with Educational Services International, which had its training center on this university campus smack in the middle of Pasadena, California.

Andy Ralph and I were the only trainees from Alabama. At the conclusion of our training, my dad and step-mom paid a visit to the "City of Angels" in order to see me off.

Pasadena Stories

During the summer of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, Andy Ralph and I landed in Los Angeles, CA for a six week training period in preparation for our missions stint in Uzbekistan. During our time in LA, we linked up with an old Samford classmate and buddy who was then living in the greater Los Angeles area. This friend, Jason Trummell, picked us up one day and gave us a tour of the city. We hit Long Beach, Huntington Beach, Bel Air and other notable places. One of the hot spots that was on our list was Brentwood, a tony community that had made national news as the "bedroom community" where this infamous crime took place. Needless to say, Andy, Jason and I were determined to find the condo. As we rode around, wondering aloud where the condo could actually be, one of us remembered the infamous 9-11 call where Nicole asked police to come to Bundy Drive. With just the street name and a fancy map, we found it. Potted plants and trees were carefully placed on the walkway leading into the courtyard to discourage the curious from gawking at the crime scene. There was also a cop positioned on the lawn motioning traffic and walkers-by to keep on moving. Keep in mind this was only a couple of months after the murders. After we checked the Bundy Drive condo off our list, we then made our way to downtown Brentwood and took notice of two venues that also had become enmeshed in the crime of the century: the Haagan Dazs store and the Mezzaluna restaurant. The latter was where Ron Goldman waited tables and where Nicole's mother had left a pair of glasses that Ron was returning to Nicole's condo that horrible night. The photos I took of the ice cream parlor and the Mezzaluna are shown above. I have read two books pertaining to these murders: a biography of Ron Goldman and the recent controversial book by O.J. Simpson, If I Did It.