When Tumbleweeds Drew City Boundaries

Anonymous talks about her memories of growing up in Orange County from the late 1960s to the late 1970s, and lists out a laundry list of items she recalls...

Hi, I've grown up in OC all my life. From the late 60's on...

I remember up until the late 70's you could drive down Beach Blvd. and head north and see where each town began and ended. There would be a few small buildings, then tumbleweeds, then more buildings, then tumbleweeds, and so on...

as a little girl, I had seen the "caller" the old man who would jump in the street and yell at you to go to the Pottery Shack in Laguna Beach (jumped out right in heavy traffic too); Farrell's and A&W on Beach Blvd.(with real glass frosty mugs, tray hung from your window as you ate in the car; Back Alley Pizza at Magnolia and Adams-the inside was all mirrored with a road and real curbs on the floor, great pizza; Japanese Village and Deer Farm in Buena Park; Movieland Wax Museum; The alligator farm; the old drive-in movies on Beach Blvd and on Brookhurst sts; when you could go to the beach and park across pch on the sand,there was nothing there just a street light to cross the street; Lion Country Safari (now wild rivers)Naugles in HB became Arby's on Brookhurst, when they started building "restaurant row" of fast foods there.

You used to see horses being ridden up and down Magnolia in HB (and the tumbleweeds)until the OC bus system went in... Leonards dept store; Toy City; Kmart across the street-when you enter the store, there was a greeter, and a counter where they sold sub sandwiches, butter toffee peanuts, etc. and a cafe at the back of the store where you could have taquitos, burgers etc. and get a dessert ice cream in a plastic football helmet-my brother collected a lot of those... Farrell's pig's trough-my brother got the ribbon...

Read More

Mission Viejo in the 1960s

An anonymous reader submitted the following memory of living in Mission Viejo in the 1960s, and makes mention of Laguna Beach...

Greetings, Steve!

I attended Chapman College in Orange, California in 1960-1961. Upon marrying my husband in 1962, we lived in Orange, California, until we moved to Mission Viejo.

We were the 1,000th customer to sign up for water, and, as a result won a 1,000 lb. steer which was butchered and housed in the butcher shop in the little Plaza in Mission Viejo.

We loved driving through the canyon to Laguna Beach, where we always stopped at "The Pottery Barn", made famous by "The Greeter", who later was paid by the city to welcome guests to their town.

Shortly before coming out onto the Coast Highway, there was a semi-bowl in the canyon where plays and orchestras were presented...great, and nice and cool in the summer.

We now live in Missouri, and those wonderful, halcyon days seem so long ago. We have returned to Mission Viejo in recent years and it is just not the same anymore...smog, building overkill, population explosion, have brought negative changes to the area.

However, we have those wonderful memories as those who first lived in Mission Viejo.

I imagine Mission Viejo in the 1960s was like how Menifee is today, where I now live. Menifee was all wheat farming, and then evolved into an equestrian community, which is now evolving into a master-planned community. It's still pretty spaced out, and still quiet enough to hear the coyotes sing.

I suppose 40 years from now, someone will start a "Menifee Memories" blog, and I'll be sending in my memories.

Read More

Memories of Gary Zaremba

Gary Zaremba, another OCThen.com visitor, shares his many memories of growing up in Orange County. Among them, the El Toro Marine Base, Cook's Corner, the Hells Angels, and the schools he went to...

Thanks for this web site, Steve! I wasn't born here but my family and I arrived in Orange County in the summer of 1958 when I was almost 7. There were orange groves and eucalyptus trees everywhere and most cities were "islands" between one orange grove or ranch to another. My dad was stationed at El Toro Marine base, becoming the Manager of the Staff NCO club. He used to book entertainment acts for Friday and Saturday nights. I remember my dad getting us a signed copy of a photo from Tex Ritter (John Ritter's dad) after he performed there one night.

We even lived in the military housing on base for a couple of years while I attended 4th and 5th grades. Stanley Cook, the son of the owner of "Cook's Corner" was the pitcher on our little league team. Another pitcher, Dan Peavey, was such a baseball fanatic (he had the best collection of baseball trading cards that I ever saw), that he impressed Joe Dimagio enough that he came to visit us at the El Toro Elementary School in 1962. Our team even took a photo with him that was blown up and mounted in our school cafeteria. I wish I knew what happened to it.

The smog was much worse and the traffic was about the same as it is today. I remember hardly being able to breathe from all of the "yellow" air that passed through our lungs all day while attending school. On summer weekends, we used to go to "Tin Can Beach" - where Bolsa Chica Beach is today. The beach got its name from all of the rusted tin cans that lined the road. We had to walk through thin, sandy lanes that were formed by foot traffic in order to get to the beach. Of course, this was in the days of pop tops, so you really had to watch out where you walked or you'd get one stuck in your feet.

We moved around a lot in those days, living in Orange (near the Circle), Tustin and then El Toro before finally moving to Santa Ana. I remember going to Hart Park a lot while I lived in Orange. There was a hobo used to ride the rails and who lived in the park in the winter months. He "borrowed" wood from a lumberyard that was nearby to fashion his makeshift shack. My friends and I would talk to him about his travels while he cooked his food out of tin cans. Sometimes he would feed the park squirrels and rabbits. I can't imagine my son doing something like that today.

When we moved to Santa Ana, I attended John Adams Elementary, McFadden Jr. High (first graduating class) and Santa Ana Valley High. In my Jr. year, they opened Saddleback High and about 1/2 of the students were transferred to that school becoming the first graduates.

While I was at Valley, Martin Luther King was killed and we had riots on Greenville with cars being burned right near our school.

Special places and people that I remember in Orange County in those days included the Pier at Newport Beach (where I spent many a time after cutting classes at school), Lars the "Greeter" in Laguna and the hippie shacks (where I stayed with friends) above the old bookstore, "Farenheit 451", crashing beach parties along the boardwalk in Newport on summer nights, the "Nutburger" restaurant on Fairview and Warner in Santa Ana, "The Zoo" drive in restaurant at the corner of MacArthur and PCH where the waitresses served you fast food on rollerskates, the long winding, country road from El Toro all the way to Cooks Corner, Lion Country Safari and "Bubbles" the hippopotamus who escaped and submerged in one of the ponds on Laguna Canyon Road.

How may people remember Victor Hugo's restaurant in Laguna before it became Las Brisas? How many people remember the "head shops" in Laguna where meditation and pot smoking were common events? How about the Hara Krishnas who used to dance and play tamborines on the main streets in Laguna? How about the annual events when the Hell's Angels would ride into Newport and park hundreds of their choppers effectively blocking off Newport and Balboa Blvds. near the pier? I remember the police securing many "paddy wagons" just for this occasion. Eventually, the Hell's Angels didn't return but it was exciting while they were there.

Does anyone remember the town that disappeared between Placentia and Anaheim along the railroad tracks - ATWOOD? My grandfather had a used furniture store there. How about the Tustin Marine LTA (lighter than air) base with the very large blimps that were housed in the blimp hangers before they were replaced by helicopters?

I attended several pop festivals and especially remember the Newport Pop Festival at the O.C. Fairgrounds where Country Joe & The Fish and Jefferson Airplane played. I also went to another 3 day festival at Devonshire Downs in San Fernando Valley (you name the 60's rock group, they were all there!) and one in Palm Springs during the summer of 1968 that became an all out riot with police helicopters dropping tear gas on the crowd. In fact, a curfew was established for several years after that where minors had to be accompanied by adults to enter into Palm Springs.

Well, that's about enough to cover for now. Maybe I'll add some other things when I remember them.

Thanks Gary!

Read More