Stories from Horace Street

My niece Traci said that her boys had gotten interested in Family Search, but that they wanted "stories" and not just facts and info.  She she asked us to share stories.  I told her that I often tell family stories on my blog, and that I would start telling more - and maybe repeating some - I am my father's daughter after all!*

This is a shot of Alice, Joan, and I standing on Andasol actually - we lived on the corner of Horace and Andasol - and the house across the street was owned my the man who drove a Verner's ginger ale truck.  We didn't drink a lot of soda - it was definitely a treat - but we did drink root beer when we had root beer floats and we did drink ginger ale, because the neighbor used to give us a case now and then!

A sad note on this family - I think their name was Andreason - but the father in the family was killed in a car accident - at the hands of a drunk driver.  I was young, but I have never forgotten the sorrow and grief that this drunk driver caused our neighbor - and our neighborhood.

Anyway, the occasion was a trip to Pop's Willow Lake - a recreation area - it may have been a man-made lake - and our dad's company picnic was there.  (My dad used to work for Radioplane, before he started his own machine shop.)

Disneyland wasn't around yet, carnivals occasionally came to town, so a trip to a recreation area was a Treat with a capital T!

My bathing suit was electric blue - I can picture it still.  I think I'm maybe 7 or 8 in this photo - that's the early 50's.  Alice and I had gone down to Ruby's Department Store on Chatsworth to get new bathing suits.  New clothes of any sort mostly came at Easter and Christmas, so this was a Big Deal!!  And I think we look pretty happy.  I'm also wearing Salt Water Sandals - which are very much in vogue these days - and were actually the only kind of sandal you could get back in the day!

Outings were fun because they were rare and infrequent.  It's pretty simplistic to say that kids are indulged these days.  But then when I look back and compare my kids to my grandkids, I could say, well, kids are really indulged these days.  The fact is, fun is fun - and Pops Willow Lake was lots of fun!!

*anyone who ever spent any time with my dad knew that he pretty much told the same stories over and over.  But we all know them, so maybe he was doing it on purpose!!