Now that summer is nearly over and the kiddos are back in school – instead of riding around the neighborhood on those noisy and annoying mini-motorcycles – it should be a lot quieter around these parts. That reminds me that autumn is one of my favorite times of the year.
Growing up in the OC, before the advent of computers and cell phones, it was Butch Wax, Blackjack gum, S&H Green Stamps, coffee shop diners with tabletop juke boxes, dial telephones, newsreels before the movie, 45 RPM records, black and white television with a test pattern featuring the image of an Indian that came on after the TV station signed off at midnight…Excuse me, I should have said Native American, because it’s more politically correct.
Then there were ice-cold popsicles delivered curbside by the Good Humor Man…I can hear him coming around the corner now…. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding… OK, so that’s also annoying.
Old days, good times I remember, fun days filled with simple pleasures, drive-in movies, comic books and blue jeans, Howdy Doody, baseball cards and birthday cards take me back to a world gone away, memories seem like yesterday. (“Old Days” – Chicago – 1975)
A while back, Mick Hill told me he enjoyed riding horses in these mountains. My summertime fun seems to have paralleled Mick’s. I, too, enjoyed horseback riding in these mountains, where I spent four weeks in the summer of ’59 at Mill Creek Boys Ranch in the hills east of Big Bear. Even before that, I went horseback riding in the High Sierras, clinging to my pappy as we rode into the wilderness above Glacier Lodge alongside Big Pine Creek. As a teen, Mick said he rode his bike to Lake Gregory to go swimming. Here I go paralleling again. As a teen, I rode my bike from Tustin, down to Corona Del Mar to body surf and mingle with the bathing beauties.
I have to admit that growing up surrounded by orange trees and eucalyptus trees is quite different from an area surrounded by pines, cedars and oaks. It enabled me to build a bamboo fort and conduct orange fights with kids in the neighborhood. Such a violent upbringing for this old peacenik. It seems just like yesterday…I must be getting old.
Old days, good times I remember, gold days I’ll always treasure. Funny faces full of love and laughter, funny places, summer nights and streetcars take me back to a world gone away. Boyhood memories seem like yesterday.
Keep it flyin’,
Uncle Mott
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