Orange Fights in the Orange Groves

OCThen reader Philip Slocum shares his memories of when the Santa Ana Winds blew.  He and his childhood buddies would wander into the orange groves and throw fallen oranges at each other...

There was a tin weather strip across the bottom of the door to the patio. When the hot winds would start to blow, late at night, the strip would vibrate and make a noise that sounded like all the lost souls in the world were in the back yard. I wasn’t afraid. To me that sound meant that oranges were falling in the groves.  

Spring training would start the next day. No, not baseball. I’m talking Orange Fighting here.  

The Santa Ana’s were the precursor to all things good in my life. They signified the beginning of the Christmas season. For as soon as the City would put up the Christmas lights along the streets of Santa Ana. The Santa Ana winds would blow them down. We would ride our bicycles, like avenging demon’s, south along Flower Street. Blown by the roaring winds. Only to struggle interminably against those same winds on the way back. The temperature would soar and the sun would shine and the winds would blow and the surf was Off-Shore. This was at Christmas mind you.  

I firmly believe that half the people in Southern California are there because of watching the Rose Bowl with girls in Bikinis in the crowd while they were stuck in their back East houses, besieged by snow. (they all moved the next day.)   

And the fragrant groves called to us. The groves were a place where parents didn’t stand a chance in hell of finding you. A place where you could spot a Navel Orange tree at 100 yards. (Why do they taste so much better right off the tree?) The groves were the place we ran to.  

We were a ragtag bunch of would be surfers, ball players, astronauts, firemen and race car drivers. There wasn’t a President, School teacher, Lawyer or Accountant in the bunch. Birds fled at the sight of us. For projectiles flew from our hands with thoughtless accuracy. If it moved or stood still for that matter, it was a target. We wore hand down camies from our Marine Corps fathers. Shoes? Our bare feet were tougher than leather. As uncaring as Kevlar. And the Oranges streaked from our hands. On hot afternoons, in the early twilight or in the light of the full moon, we ran down the green passages and played our games of war. I remember my mother being shocked by the perfectly circular bruises on my body. (an unripe orange can hurt, ouch). Oh, how I miss those carefree days.

The Orange Growers hated us. We probably deserved their hate. After all, we were playing with their crops and livelihood. They carried cameras into the groves and placed photos of blurred faces on the bulletin board at the local grocery store. We would steal the photos off the board before our parents could see them. And these same growers would give us jobs tending the Smudge Pots later in the season when the temperatures dropped below the freezing point. Cash was hard to come by in those days. Yet our needs were simple. Indeed, life seemed somehow simpler then. Have I changed? Or has everything changed.

Sometimes I stop at an Orange Grove somewhere off the beaten track and just walk those green hallways. I smell that glorious smell and think of the friends I had then. Glen died of a Brain tumor. Ken passed with Cancer. Doug has become a famous surf board builder. Larry is a Corporate type in California. Steve builds freeway walls. And me, I run a very exciting book store in Vietnam. There are no Orange groves in Santa Ana any more. I wish that there were. I wish that the kids of today could have a little of the freedom that we had running through the groves in the hot Santa Ana winds. 

Philip R Slocum,
Known to the gang as Randy.

P.S. My apologies to the Orange Growers of Southern California

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Growing up in Anaheim in the 1950s

Anonymous writes about memories of growing up in Anaheim during the 1950s, making mention of orange blossoms...

The best memories are the ones of growing up. Or if not, they should be. I have so many fond memories of growing up in Anaheim. I left in 1994 and when I went back down for a visit, it just wasn't the same. Everything I remember as a kid, is gone. Even my old house where I grew up, is so different. When my parents first moved there in the 50s it was overgrown with orange trees. We had 2 in our backyard and I can remember as a child smelling orange blossoms wafting through the window on a warm summer night. Now when I smell my own orange tree during the summer, lots of memories come flooding back. It was nothing for us as kids to hop on our bikes and peddle down to TG&Y for candy and pop. Coming back proved more challenging as we struggled to stay on our bikes while eating candy at the same time! Nowdays kids don't seem to have the freedom to go off on their own, as we did. Times have changed, not all for the better. I long for a simpler time. Like it was back as a kid growing up in the OC. Playing ding dong ditch-it, roller skating continously around the block, waiting for the ice cream truck during the summer, eating at A & W burger and having mom take us to Knotts Berry Farm to go on the burro rides. Ahh, the memories. I miss them and I miss Anaheim like it used to be.

The last house we lived at in San Diego, along with another house we lived at in Santa Ana, had orange trees, and yes I loved the scent of the orange blossoms. Today, when I ride my motorcycle through the orange groves of Temecula, or through the groves in Pauma Valley, the smell is so intoxicating. I'm not sure someone driving in a car with the windows rolled up would even notice.

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Sweet Memories....

When March and April roll around, it reminds me of the strawberry fields in Tustin, on the Irvine Ranch...to me, strawberries always meant Valentines Day, and the asparagus meant that Easter was coming. It is still so weird to me, even after twenty years of living in northeast Kansas, to not have things greening up in February and March. Out here, the fields and trees are just as bleak and depressing as ever, but by now, OC hills and fields are covered in blankets of bright green, trees are budding up, and the air was at its best in the spring, alive with the scents of fresh new growth. As you would drive through the Irvine lands, the strawberry fields would be a beautiful pthalo green, with splashes of deep red where boxes of picked strawberries sat in the rows, and through the windows would come the scent of the orange blossoms from the groves on the other side of the fields. Even better would be the taste/scent of the wind after a spring rain, with the tang of the eucalyptus trees added to the perfume....

When I grew up in southern California, most folk had trees in their yards left over from the orchards that were there. And avocados were so ubiquitus that people had trouble getting rid of them...it was common to see a tv tray table out on a curb with a sign taped to it, '25 cents a bag', loaded and surrounded with paper shopping bags full of 'cados. And kid got in trouble for using them for bombs on each other....not for wasting food, but because you could hurt someone with them or wreck their clothes! ( too hard, it could be like a throwing a rock, too mushy was a double whammy of mushy 'cado all over you plus the hard seed inside. Moms did not dig having to get oily 'cado off kids clothes.)

But it could always be worse...one time I was at the mission San Juan Capistrano, early one morning before the front gate was open, and two friends and I were picking pomegranates for the pastor. So we had Miguel up on top of a pillar that had a tree leaning on it, Ursala there to catch them as he dropped them to her, and me to pack into bags. We were doing just fine, til

'Hey, what do you kids think you are doing!?!'

SPLAT! There went two huge poms, all over the adobe tiles, as we all started, and found one of the Sisters staring at us in her best Disapproving Rabbit style. She didn't know we had permission, and it seems that Miguel had a history of raiding the trees anyway, so she didn't buy our telling her that Msgr. Russell had asked us for this. Or that we hadn't made the mess of splattered poms just because it was a spectacular sight (much like punkin splashing, but more vivid, with the gelatinous red and seeds). So it kind of put a damper on our fun...we cleaned up the mess of course, and rolled up the bags to take to the rectory, then went to Mass.

...but that splashed pom *did* look so cool, didn't it!

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Intoxicating Smell of Orange Blossoms

Nancy submits her memories of growing up in Orange, Santa Ana, and Garden Grove in the 1950s, and mentions how each spring, the orange groves went into bloom, and that she never wanted exhale...

I arrived in OC in 1950. My grandfather owned the Florist Shop on Glassel in Orange. There was a house attached where we all lived until mom and dad bought their own house, in then unincorporated Santa Ana, near Harbor and 17th Streets.

I remember the two markets (one open air) on that corner.

I loved shopping Friday nights. The only place to go was downtown Santa Ana to Wards, Penny's, Sears, and that store on a corner to get my Girl Scout uniform. The name is on the tip of my tougue. No malls then!

We played in the Santa Ana River bed when mom was not looking.

My first school was New Hope Elementary. Someone here mentioned that school. We lived there for five years. Then in Garden Grove near Chapman and Brookhurst, I went to Nelson, Faye Lane, Lampson Intermediate, GGHS and Santa Ana Jr College. We lived near the Pink Spot. I loved that place. Maybe that contributed to high colesterol but it was worth it. Ignorance was bliss then.

I went to the Garden Grove First Methodist Church at Main and Stanford. It was a wonderful building then. I loved it. They replaced it with a BIG concrete stucture. I loved the market next to it.

We did most of our grocery shopping at the Safeway on Main street. I would save my money til I could get a book at the toy store near there. Thank goodness Historic Main Street still has some of the same charm.

Also the Orange Circle area. I remember playing at Hart Park, and on hot days in the little wading pool with the pretty fountain little ones could crawl into. We went to the Methodist Church in Orange and I had Sunday School in the little red brick building that is still there. When I Googled "Images" I found pictures of many of these great historical places.

The Garden Grove Plaza was not there yet. Just orange groves. I could almost pick the oranges from my bedroom window. The smell in the spring was intoxicating. You never wanted to exhale. Do you remember when Jan and Dean, the popular men's duo, performed at The Plaza? The screaming girls? It was probably about 1958 or 59. I lived there until marriage and we moved back to Santa Ana near Bristol and 17th. Then back to Orange near Main and Chapman and Garden Grove near G. G. Blvd and Brookhurst. Lots of Strawberry Festivals and parades.

One of my husbands favorite pizzas came from Teddy's Pizza next to the bowling alley when he was about 13. He has never found a place he likes just as well. He liked to ride with his friends on their bikes to Irvine park. I loved to hike in the hiils there. How about Chis and Pitts BQ on Garden Grove Blvd. and Pricilla Bakery? They are both gone now. We would celebrate special occations with a cake that had custard filling and smooth chocolate icing on a yellow cake. Yum!!

My husband and I also danced at Harmony Park in Anaheim and The Rendevous in high school.

I could go on and on. Knotts Berry Farm when there was no entrance fee. Also Disneyland, Haven Pond in Garden Grove and the Bison Ranch in the hills on the way to the beach. I miss many of the friends we have lost contact with. Memories are good though.

Yup, that's why OCThen continues on, because of the memories...

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Avocado and Orange Groves of old Villa Park

Here are some recollections from a fourth-generation Orange County native about living the rural life in Villa Park as the tract homes starting coming in...

I was born in Anaheim in 1961 and was taken home to our tiny 3 bedroom tract house on Clinton Ave. in Orange. My big sister and I are fourth generation OC, and a lot of our family's lemon, orange, and avocado orchards uliimately became groves of homes. Santiago Middle School was built on one of my grandmother's last citrus holdings. My grandfather's last 13 acres of oranges in Villa Park, which were woefully damaged in one of the many canyon fires of the 1950's and 1960's, was sold and subdivided in 1975. Both sets of grandparents lived in rural Villa Park, "across" the street from each other on Mesa Drive. My mother used to ride her horse down from the Villa Park ranch to our elementary school, Handy, for an annual show and tell.

We were quite the popular kids as we lived a city life, yet we had a lot of country living still available to us. When I was three we moved, using our little blue wagon as packing box and furniture transport, up the street to the stately old ranch house next door to Handy Elementary School. The tract houses in the Handy Elem area were once part of the ranch that Big House, as we called it, oversaw.

We kept dozens of rabbits on our one acre of suburbia, as well as an angus calf that we raised from a bottle. The kids next door at school thought the calf was a big dog. We gave tours of our "dog" to many a neighbor kid. We also went door to door selling avocados, from original trees from the ranch, for 5 cents apiece. Last time I went past Big House I noticed at least one of the ancient avocado trees were still alive and producing. It must be nearing 100 years old.

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Osterkamp Family of Santa Ana

Dorothy Uranich, formerly Dorothy Osterkamp, writes about her memories of growing up in Santa Ana, going as far back as the 1920's.

She writes this after having read Mark's memories of Santa Ana and Garden Grove...

Dear Steve,

I don't have to go far to conger up old memories for I am alive and well and still living in Orange county. I was born on July 6, 1925 in Valley Hospital (Community Hospital), Santa Ana, California the 4th child of 10 to Anna and Tony Osterkamp. My parents were Dutch immigrants who owned and operated their dairy for 40 years on Harbor and Heil in what is now Fountain Valley. In 1961 they were advised, due to urban pressure, to relocate the dairy to Corona, CA.

While my husband was in the Air Force, I lived in many states and as many countries, but I always knew that Orange County was home and that was where I would eventually live again. The death of my husband in 1957 did bring me back and five of my six children and most of my siblings still reside here.

I loved the comments that you made about the names of the different streets. I remember them well, mainly because those were the streets we traveled on in my childhood. I learned to drive by steering the truck in the alfalfa fields, and my brothers and I got our driver's license's at age 14.( This was possible if you lived out in the country. Don't forget, we're talking about 1925 and beyond) Every Saturday, my mother and dad would make the trip into "town" and do their substantial grocery shopping at Joe's Market on First and Broadway in Santa Ana and if we ran out of something during the week,we could replenish the item at Red's Market on the corner of First and Harbor. Remember the noisy turkey farm on Smeltzer and Harbor? In order to cross the river on Edinger we drove through the "dip". There no bridge yet.

I started school at the Balsa Elementary School, and started second grade at St Joseph School in Santa Ana. Newhope School had not been built yet. The Martin's, Eddie and Johnny (of Orange County Airport fame) were our Neighbors on Heil Ave. and their parents lived on Newhope where they owned an orange grove. Oh yes, there were many orange groves in Orange county then! I remember especially how they used smudge pots which emanated foul warm air to save the orange trees during the frosty days in winter. My brothers and sisters and a few cousins rode our bikes to St Joseph School every morning and on those frosty mornings we would come to school with gray smudge all around our nostrils. We were called, " The Osterkamp Brigade."

The Drive-in Theater on Harbor Blvd. came and went to make room for a strip mall. The old West Coast and the Broadway in Santa Ana were the only theaters in the area in the Forties and Fifties and the drive-in restaurants were a favorite "hangout" for teens.

We had a devastating earthquake in 1933. It came with a jolt and knocked my sister, Mary, and I to the ground. Our house, except for the chimney, was not damaged, but we slept outside around a fire for three days because the after shocks were rather unnerving. I had never experienced an earthquake before and it was very frightening for an eight year old.

After my husband, Maj. Leonard Conkle's death in 1957, I remarried and lived the civilian life in Fountain Valley for 43 years right next to the 9 hole golf course that Mark mentioned. He mentioned Don Wash. My husband, Ed Uranich, taught at Garden Grove High when Don was superintendent. Don died in a dune buggy accident in the desert while he was still in office.

I am now widow again living in Costa Mesa, CA and would not live anywhere else. I travel to Orlando, several times a year to visit friends so we have a common bond, Steve.

Thank you for writing about our little corner of the world.

Sincerely,

Dorothy Uranich

If you'd like to get your memories published on OCThen, type them out in an e-mail, attach a photo or two if you'd like, and send it to us. Visit our Contact Page for our e-mail address.

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