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Memories:
Growing Up in Huntington Beach
By: Bryce Allemann, 25 Mar. 2002
The memories I have of Orange County are so plentiful that I won't
attempt to list them all here. I become very melancholy when thinking
of the history of Orange County, and some of the fond memories I have
from my childhood. I was born in 1970 in Anaheim General Hospital and
grew up in the same track house in northern Huntington Beach (near the
Westminster boarder) until I was 18. First and foremost I remember the
strawberry fields, prevalent in those days, almost all of them gone
now. Secondly, the incredible view. In the early 1970's you could see
Mt. Baldy (and the surrounding mountains) anytime you looked in that
direction. Nowadays it seems that it is only visible when you're on
a freeway overpass and the Santa Ana winds are in town. There used to
be horses, sheep, goats and chickens at an old farm house in front of
Clara O. Cook Elementary School. We'd pet them through the fence when
we left school. Our Kindergarten teacher in 1975 was Mrs. Treadway,
and was considered "a character" since she drove a VW bug with giraffe
heads hand painted on the doors and wore very large hoop ear rings.
I wish I knew what happened to her. The school closed in 1976 due to
lack of district funding, and was bought by the Hebrew Academy and is
still used by them to this day. The farmhouse is still there, but all
of its surrounding acres have been sold and built on. I still remember
when Westminster Mall (built in '75 or '76) had been a huge field with
a single store in the center of it; a coy fish farm... I think the store
still exists, it relocated when the mall was built (somewhere on Edwards
I believe, near Westminster Ave.). The area where Huntington Central
Park and the main library are, was considered a swamp. It was ! joked
that the library would sink into it an inch or two a year. They were
also built around '75 or '76. A journey to the beach was a splendorous
ride, even just from Northern Huntington Beach. The hills above the
beach allowed a great view towards "Tin Can Beach" (Sunset Beach) and
were covered with oil pumps, reminiscent of the many, many that had
been there throughout the first half of the 1900's. If I'm not mistaken,
there are still a few of those pumps left, perhaps in the backyards
of the condos that have been built up there. Most all of Irvine was
still orchards and ranches, and by the time I was old enough and adventurous
enough to ride great distances on my bicycle every weekend, the landscape
was already changing rapidly. No more oranges, no more strawberries,
no more clean air. Everyone in O.C. drives (since the architecture and
layout of O.C. was designed around the automobile), I notice very little
sense of community in O.C., and any sort of major cultural influence
(besides television) is difficult, if not impossible, to find. I now
live in Northern California (San Francisco) which has its own set of
challenges, but I have learned that you can not return to the place
of your childhood.
- Bryce Allemann
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