Lee Fredrickson remembers the Helms Bakery Trucks rolling through his neighborhood, and the smells of fresh baked bread...
One of my favorite memories of growing up in Orange County was the Helms Bakery truck coming through the neighborhood during the weekdays.
I was talking with a high school friend today about that, and things I remember was the driver always blew the horn twice while going up and down the streets to draw the customers outside. As kids, we didn't get to see the bakery truck very often because we would usually be in school when the driver made his rounds, but when we were home, and we heard that horn, we would immediately start pestering our mother to get something from the "bakery truck".
It was always a treat to be there when the driver would open the double doors at the back of the truck and to smell all those wonderful treats - some of them still warm from being baked that day. My mom would tell the driver what she wanted to purchase that day, and he would start opening up those long wooden drawers which were used to store the baked goods. One drawer would have doughnuts, the next one would have cakes, another held pies, and it would go on and on while we just watched and enjoyed the show.
The drivers were always very friendly and knew our Mom by name. Mom didn't always have the money that day to pay for the stuff she wanted, so the drivers would extend her credit until the next time they came around. I remember they would have a little notebook with the customer's name on it and a column of numbers showing purchases and payments.
Unfortunately, Helms Bakery went out of business in 1969, but it is a memory I still cherish to this day.
Aside from the ice cream trucks that cruised our neighborhood, the only other food trucks I remember were the ones in Yokohama, Japan when I lived there from 1970-71. They sold just about everything, and if they didn't have it, they'd have it for you on the next stop. My mom would buy stuff from them.
In Santa Ana, I'd often see trucks going up and down the neighborhoods selling produce and clothes, but our family never paid any mind to them.
Today, we have the Schwan's trucks making deliveries in the neighborhood out here in the IE.