Grandma's egg business

My step-grandmother (Rhoda Porter) lived on Midvale Avenue in the rural Palms area of Los Angeles and she ran an egg business.  Every month she would have my step-father load us all into the car (1957 Ford Fairlane) and drive the family way out to Bloomington to visit our Smith cousins.  The road was long as the freeways were yet to be built east to San Bernardino.  We would travel to downtown on the surface streets and when finally to East Los Angeles we would find Valley Blvd. and follow it almost all the way to San Bernardino.  Driving past miles of vineyards, (now the city of Ontario), past signs promoting the new city of VinaVista that would be built soon (never happened), past the slag piles of the Kaiser Steel plant and Colton Cement mine, finally arriving in Bloomington to spend a hot day watching old man Smith who was always busy watching the jalopy races on the dirt track of Ascot Park (google it). Interestingly, Ascot Park Speedway was located between Long Beach and West Los Angeles near where our journey would begin.  The Smiths were very British and hailed from Alberta, Canada.  I recall their home being situated among some very tall eucalyptus trees surrounded by a lot of sandy dirt and as was mentioned, it was always hot there.  We would walk along their street for what seemed like miles surrounded by orange, lemon and grapefruit groves. My mother would tell us that they planted all the eucalyptus trees that lined the street with the thought of extracting the oil from the leaves, only to discover they had planted the wrong type of eucalyptus.  Never the less, the trees provided great wind breaks for all the citrus groves that would populate all of Southern California.  On the way back late each afternoon we would stop at the chicken ranches (now the city of Walnut and Cal Poly Pomona) to pick up tons of eggs that my grandmother would then sell to all of her neighbors friends and relatives. She supplemented her social security  with the egg money and actually saved enough money from such to buy property and finance a trip that cost $1000 (a lot of money back then) to her native England.  As her plane departed from the Airport, we all sat on our cars at the end of the runway to bid her goodbye.  We were close enough that we could see her and she could see us and wave at us from the sleek new 707 jet.  Funny lady, she would have a beer with her soft boiled eggs for breakfast.  She passed away suddenly in the early 1960’s while only in her 70’s.  It would never be the same afterwards in that the family would break apart on many fronts.   

1957 Ford Fairlane 500

As a young child I recall trips up and down the coast with my parents in their brand spanking new 1957 Ford Fairlane 500 Coupe. The sleek tail fin on the right side of the car provided a great arm and head rest out of my rolled down window to view the world. As the A.M. radio blared, “Hot Ziggidy Dog Ziggidy,” I could view the world. Very few freeways had been built and we rarely traveled inland as the Pacific Coast Highway was our main drag. For some reason our world stopped where the road turned inland just beyond the sand dunes where the new highway cut behind the big rock near Pt Magu and extended down the coast to San Diego where the ocean suddenly stopped and dried up (bottom of San Diego Bay) and the road turned inland again. It would be many years later after my step father had left the family that I would have the opportunity to travel inland, beyond the San Fernando Valley. The church father and sons outing was that opportunity. The newly completed San Diego Freeway north was the route we followed until it ended at the two lane road San Fernando Road at the north end of the valley and the to the Sierra Highway and out to the camp sites on a ranch in the foothills of the Santa Clara River Valley (Later Santa Clarita). Today that same site is now a park and ride lot at the end of Newhall Avenue and the Highway #14 freeway. In order to acquire more food supplies we needed to drive 5 miles farther up the road to a store on the corner of Soledad Canyon and Sierra Highway. Nothing else was there accept the store… Now the same corner (Solemint Jct) is the site is occupied by many stores and strip malls. Eventually church and boy scout trips would proceed farther north to Lake Hughes, and then the High Sierras. The Antelope Valley Freeway was completed by then, starting at Solemint Jct. and proceeding all the way to Palmdale before it again ended at Sierra Highway and proceeded north as a two lane road all the way to the Sierras. That was a long two lane road across the desert proceeding through small towns Ricardo, Littlelake (no longer existing), Lone Pine, Independence, Big Pine, & Bishop, Tom’s Place. Camping on Rock Creek in the Sierras was such a treat. Hiking around a serene long lake and up the valley to prominent point and sitting on a snow pack just to observe the view of the John Muir Wilderness. Some of my most memorable moments resulted from that trip. While traveling back we passed by Lancaster and I looked around and had a warm premonition feeling this would be a great place to live. Upon arrival home that night my mother let me know that she had met a man at the singles activity that was from Lancaster and she had a date with him the next week. As fate would have it they met in July and were married in October and we moved my senior year of high school to Lancaster. I thought I had died and gone to heaven with all the open space.. I could ride my bike miles out on the desert and see no one. One never know what paths life’s travels will take them…Growing up in the city I never knew the pleasures of country living but I have made sure that my children have had the experience and opportunities to enjoy both to make their own decisions.

1950's God Bless America

In the 1950’s when I began kindergarten at El Rincon Elementary, we all began by singing God bless America. The pledge of Allegiance to the flag with its new stanza “Under God,” was recited and then started our day of learning and play. Sometime around that time, I told the kids in the class that Lincoln was no longer the president and when ask who was? I told them, “I don’t know but he is some old guy without any hair.” (Eisenhower). As I walked home from the Pulio’s house (babysitter) in the dark I looked to the sky to see if I would be able to spot “Sputnik” as it rotated the earth with its beeping signal. Such was my life in that era. My family were Democrats, my mother a Republican. My father drove a black Ford Fairlane 500 and we spent most weekends living out of that car as he fished up and down the California coastline. Our family friends, Cherry Ross (Grand-daughter of Chief John Ross of the Cherokee nation), Wyoming Pete Cody (100 year old cowboy who rode with Reno Benteen into the Big Horn post Custer’s last stand) and his sidekick Jesse James, Jr. accompanied the family on these outings. I would sneak listening late into the night, stories of the old west and the bygone eras. I handled William Bonney’s (Billy the Kid) rifle at an early age and learned that I was born 100 years to the day after he was born. I was little Billy the Kid. As school years progressed we would begin each day singing, the National Anthem, America the Beautiful. Something has been lost today by children not enjoying music and patriotism practiced each day.