Away too long, and coming back is an important part of my returning to life.

Burrito Express hasn’t been there forever, but it seems like it.

We used to go there all the time. We knew the people. We liked the food. It was always dependable. You knew what you were getting.

We had our favorites, Carnitas with green sauce. The enchilada plate with rice and beans.

I liked their re-fried beans. They were smooth but with character. They released flavor with quality, so much better than the token offering of the place down the street.

My Mother-in-law, Yaya to my daughter, particularly liked the re-fried beans so much that sometimes that’s all she ordered. At first I thought she was trying to save money, but then I decided she just really liked the beans.

So many places cost an arm and a leg. Here you see people leaving with both arms intact, walking on two legs to the car.

Burrito Express is neighborhood. People come to take out, order by phone or at the counter, they talk, share their lives, comfortably belong.

There are booths where you can sit and eat in person, and we did, often.

Burrito Express doesn’t resist cliché. “I like what you’ve done with the place,” the re-purposing of what must have been an arched drive-thru, now with tables for eating outside. There’s a side window where you can see into the kitchen and watch the burrito process, spreading out the tortilla, filling with the chosen ingredients, folding, rolling, wrapping. You can wave and give a thumbs up which triggers a returning smile and nod.

We loved the use of the little windowed extension fitted out to make and sell fruit drinks during the summer months when the extra business would justify an additional employee. The drinks were wonderful, an inspiration. I hope time and the tides of events and the economy will re-open the juice bar.

I thank Burrito Express for provoking memories. Like the time we went to visit Dee Dee in Palm Springs. She grew up around here, everybody from greater L. A. is from “around here,” extended clientele. So we ordered a transportable tray of enchiladas, I think 24, enough for six each, which resulted in left overs for the next day. So we were local heroes, bringing Pasadena to the desert.

Burrito Express has two parking slots at the side, and street parking both ways because it’s on the corner. Sometimes, if we were taking our food home, we’d drive up the street past the incredible garden house on the right with modern sculptures everywhere. The street is one block long and ends at the campus of the religious university with the impressive entrance.

So that was part of our Burrito Express experience too. On the left side of the campus there was a building that had been sub-let for a bookstore that provided textbooks for the students but was also a general bookstore that sold to the public. You know me and books. I went there several times to browse and buy, to chat with the owner as a fellow bookseller who had a store, when I was still looking for a location. Alas, he lasted just a few years, selling to the students wasn’t enough to keep him in business, the general public didn’t know he was there, the college went through changes, and the store is long gone.

And, as you know, I never found a location for my own store, so I never had a store.

But the college campus is small and lovely, with its own memories for me. For years Shirley and I were on the pow wow circuit. We joined the celebrations, watched the dances, ate Navajo tacos and bought too much jewelry. The central area, tree-lined grass for the dancing, the tribal elders overseeing the drumming, the young bucks controlling the microphone, room for the surrounding booths with the intimate feeling of community much like the pow wows further up in the San Fernando Valley. We were always happy to see our trader friend, Marilyn Cosentino, and bought, as I said, too much jewelry.

But getting back to Burrito Express, and the clever menu offerings which betray the time of inception, the Ito Burrito in honor of His Honor Judge Ito, that local celebrity made famous by the O. J. Simpson trial. He was known as a runner burning carbs. The Ito Burrito – extra rice, little beans, sour cream, guacamole and cheese. Every time we saw Jay Leno’s Dancing Ito’s on The Tonight Show, we thought of Burrito Express.

And every time we thought of the O. J. Simpson trial, made famous by Vincent Bugliosi in his book, we thought of the local bookstore owners like Hunter’s Books who complained that Bugliosi just dropped by to check on the sale of his book but never bought anything. And our neighbor on Holliston in the house whose property backed ours, was the Bugliosi brother whose famous author sibling hardly ever came to visit.

You don’t need six degrees of separation to get to Burrito Express.

Then there’s the JVC Burrito, rice, beans, cheese, sour cream, guacamole, lettuce, tomato, double wrapped.

And, another sign of the times, the Ross Perot Burrito. I think that’s the one which said “You never know what you’re going to get.” But it’s highly recommended to get your money’s worth, with beef, pork AND chicken, beans, rice, cheese, sour cream and guacamole. My mouth is watering.

Burrito Express is a business with a sense of humor and a political awareness, still able to adjust to your individual needs and wants. What a treasure!

And this time, the same cheerful woman behind the counter, delightfully shorter than I am, recognizing each other as we went through the ritual of me, “I’m happy to see you!” and her expected reply, “I’m happy to be seen.”

We talked about the neighborhood and the fires, traded stories, we let her take other orders from other customers, and then continued our conversation, close to tears.

When we picked up our order, she threw in a couple of extra sauce packets just in case we changed our minds, and asked, because Rubio Canyon had not yet certified our water for drinking, “Do you need water?”

She took us out back where packs of water were stacked for distribution, insisted we take some to our car, with many gallon jugs as well.

We gave the parting hug that real people share, and we’ll come back soon.