Tenant Spotlight: Meet James Twigg

Meet James Twigg: Mountain Man, Adventurer & El Segundo History Buff

We love our senior tenants from the Park Vista Apartments  in El Segundo, California.  It’s our great pleasure to take the opportunity to dig a little deeper into their rich histories.  We always learn something new, and James Twigg’s story is no exception.

James Twigg was born on April 20th, 1937 in Columbus, Ohio, where he spent his formative years.  It was in January of 1958, at the age of 20, that James made the big move to California.

James was working for the Cleveland Record Company for $1.25 per hour, which was minimum wage at the time.  He was offered a job at Texaco in Alameda if he would move there, and it was for twice the pay.  He jumped at the chance.  Then three weeks later he was told that the job was ending.  They moved him to the Standard Oil Company, which was located in a little town called El Segundo.  The year was 1960.  A lot has changed in El Segundo since that time, and James has seen history shape.  James worked at Chevron for the rest of his career, and he has lived in each of the three hotels in town at one time or another:  The Grand, the Concord Hotel and the Showboat.  In 1978, he moved to an apartment at 722 East Imperial Avenue where he lived for the next 30 years.  In 2007, they sold the building and raised the rent, so in May of 2008, James moved in to Park Vista.

Now retired, James loves living in Park Vista. He enjoys talking with his neighbors and he’ll never miss a party. He’s very active with the El Segundo Seniors Club, where he is the club’s historian and photographer, attending their monthly potlucks and taking pictures of special birthday celebrations.

But his real passion has always been in the mountains, camping and fishing and cycling. For years, James would make regular trips to Bishop, Lavinie and Bridgeport to go camping and fishing. In 1979, he bought a Ford cargo van that he fixed up with a bed and a chest of drawers and a Coleman stove and hit the road every chance he got. He’d go on three trips each summer and would hit Lake Isabella in November for fishing, frying up his catch on the Coleman stove for dinner. His favorite show on TV is still Mountain Men on the History Channel.

He also loved to travel the world both here in the United States and abroad. From 1999 to 2012, James was a part of the Chuck D. Doritter Travel Group, which took parties of 20-30 people on a tour bus for various adventures. One year, they did a 20-park trip in three weeks, hitting up National Parks in California, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico. He loved seeing Old Faithful in Yellowstone, visiting San Francisco, he saw both sides of Canada and his trips to Australia and Switzerland were especially memorable.

James keeps in regular touch with his childhood friend Tom Woodbridge who still lives in Columbus, as well as his sister Bonnie who lives just outside of Columbus.  She visited him last Christmas and it was fun catching up with her.

James is a 47-year member of El Segundo’s Moose Lodge #1780.  He always enjoyed going to their Friday night dinners.  While they aren’t doing the dinners each Friday any more, James will still go over for special events, particularly if there’s food involved!