Monday, March 02, 2009

Growing Up A Marine Kid in Orange County

An anonymous OCThen reader submits some short bullet-point memories of growing in Orange County as a son of a Marine...

Living in Southern California was simply an adventure. This is coming from a born and raised North Carolina boy that was uprooted, because my stepfather was a Marine. Therefore, here are short bullets of my memories of the area:

1. Attended Santa Ana High School while our family waited for El Toro base housing.
2. Hit in the face at the bus stop, by a F-Troop gang member, because I would not give up my bus money.
3. Skateboarders everywhere.
4. Those wonderful orange groves.
5. El Toro Marine Corp Housing; I lived off of IWO Jima street.
6. An employee of the groceries/package store near the back gate.
7. Newport, and Laguna Beach parties.
8. Wrestling team at University High school.
9. Irvine High School (then only Freshmans and Sophmores) dance parties.
10. The California trend setters.
11. California surfers, loadies and jocks.
12. Disney Land with family and friends.
13. Knots Berry Farm
14. Mickey Mouse Club
15. My first car (1969 Opel Cadet)
16. Fred Delrio, Ken Dietre, and other friends.
17. Worked out at the Marine Corp gym all the time. The weight room was great, and so was the sauna room.
18. The base theatre with my friends. Saw Jaws there...

A lot of great memories...
He mentions F-Troop. I remember growing up in Santa Ana, attending Spurgeon Intermediate School, and seeing signs of F-Troop all over the place, and all the kids aspiring to become F-Troop members one day. And being a kid who moved up from San Diego, it took me awhile to figure out what F-Troop was; I kept thinking about the old sitcom show, and wondered why everyone was so obsessed with it.

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