Growing up in the OC (Orange County), Tustin in particular, before the advent of computers, Butchwax, Blackjack gum, S&H Green Stamps, coffee shop diners with tabletop juke boxes, dial telephones, newsreels before the movie, 45 rpm records and ice-cold popsicles delivered curbside by the Good Humor Man… I can hear it comin’ around the bend, now – Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding – was a dream come true, especially when you got a free stick, allowing you to…what else could it be? That’s right, another popsicle.
Let me take you back to those halcyon days of yesteryear…Hey, when’s the last time you heard someone use the word “halcyon” and what the heck is a halcyon? Go ahead, look it up in your Funk and Wagnalls.
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 birthdays take me back to a world gone away, memories seem like yesterday. (Old Days – Chicago – 1975)
My summertime fun included skateboarding on a homemade skateboard, consisting of a wooden plank bolted to a steel skate. I also rode my bike, with friends, up to Lemon Heights and beyond to Blackstar Canyon, past Irvine Park, where we splashed around in a pond at the base of a waterfall below Saddleback Mountain.
Since bicycling was my main mode of transport, back in the day, I used to bike down to the Orange County Fair with two of my nephews, who lived in Costa Mesa. Sometimes, they would ride their bikes up to my home in North Tustin and we would ride them through the orange groves, down Red Hill Avenue and Irvine Blvd. to Corona del Mar. On our way, we would stop at a fence next to El Toro Marine Corps Air Station to watch the Vietnam era F-4 jets take off and land. It was very exciting, and loud.
My next-door neighbor and best friend while growing up in the OC was Jimmy Utt, whose grandpa, James B. Utt, was Orange County’s congressman for 30 years. Congressman Utt would visit his family several times a year when he was campaigning for re-election. This worked out nicely for Jim and me, since he had a free pass to visit Disneyland anytime he wanted to. We took advantage of this on several occasions, including one time when Jim was introduced to Walt Disney and went for a ride, by himself, with Walt on the monorail.
One summer I spent four weeks at Mill Creek Boys Ranch in the hills east of Big Bear. There were also hikes to San Gorgonio Peak and vacationing in the High Sierras with Mom and Dad and my older brother at Glacier Lodge, up the road from the town of Big Pine, where Dad went fly fishing for trout in Big Pine Creek. When Dad was finished fishing, I went horseback riding with him on a winding trail, toward the Palisades Glecier, reputedly the southernmost glacier in North America.
I have to admit that growing up in an area surrounded by orange and avocado groves and eucalyptus trees is quite different from an area surrounded by pines, cedars and oaks. I am quite fortunate and grateful to have experienced all that I have. It seems like yesterday…I must be getting old.
Oh, 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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