Huntington Drive
My first exposure to a fraternity party came in 1968 when Jerry Wilson asked me to help him with bartender duties. The party was held at Doug O'Keefe's parent's house in San Marino. Late Saturday afternoon, I helped Jerry load his car and we headed east a little over 7 miles from the fraternity to the house. We found the place, followed the driveway to the back of the house and began to set up the bar.
O'Keefe was the O'Keefe of O'Keefe & Merritt, a well known appliance brand offering mainly kitchen stoves at the time. The house was adjacent to Huntington Drive on a small side street lined with huge oak trees that formed a canopy over the road. Although it was not as immense as some of the San Marino properties it was still quite impressive. This was not the first party held at the house so Jerry knew where to put everything.
Once we had things laid out I wandered off in search of the kitchen. I was curious to see what they had for a stove. They did in fact have an O'Keefe & Merritt stove – the Aristocrat model with 2 ovens and 6 burners. O'Keefe and Merritt got their start working for Boyle Manufacturing in Los Angeles. O'Keefe was in sales and Merritt was in production. After 7 years with Boyle they went out on their own and the O'Keefe & Merritt brand became a household name. The company was acquired by Tappan in 1950.
I was 18 at the time and had never before had even a sip of a mixed drink. I liked the taste of beer but hadn't had much of that either. I hadn't bothered to mention this to Jerry until we had finished setting up. Jerry was always easy going and wasn't the least bit bothered by this. I wasn't going to be much help unless I could learn some basics before the party started so we sat down and he did his best to cover the fundamentals of mixology. I took notes on cocktail napkins, putting down the ingredients for simple drinks such as screwdriver, 7 & 7, Cuba Libre, Bloody Mary, Gin and tonic, etc. Jerry's strategy was for me to handle the orders for the drinks he had trained me on, while he took on the rest.
In addition to mixing and serving the drinks we were required to record the number of drinks ordered by members for themselves and their dates. There was a typed list of member names with space for putting down a hash mark for each drink. As Treasurer, Jerry was responsible for compiling the totals and adding a bar tab to each member's monthly bill. The exception to this procedure was that the bartenders were not charged for their drinks. This meant little to me as I had no plans to drink anything. Jerry on the other hand had a head start on everybody having insisted that he needed to sample the drinks I made during the training session.
At first when people began arriving things went smoothly. There was a built-in bar with a chest-high counter top that Jerry and I stood behind. I had my napkin recipes set out across a narrow shelf that was below the counter top and out of view by anyone ordering a drink. I could check my recipe, grab the necessary bottles and make the drinks without anyone knowing that I was using notes.
About 90 minutes after the start of the party, both the size of the crowd and their thirst seemed to double. Things became very hectic. We had to pick up the pace and this led to mistakes on my part. Instead of Rum and Coca Cola, I poured Rum and Bourbon; instead of Gin & tonic, I made Gin & Vodka. Most of the time the error was caught in mid-pour. I took each of my mistakes and placed them on the shelf where the napkins were. Soon the napkins were no longer legible and either the person ordering the drink would tell me how to make it or I would just fake it.
Later that evening, Jerry saw the growing line of glasses on the shelf and asked, "What gives?"
I said, "Those are my screw ups."
Jerry said, "We might need those glasses later on."
As the evening wore on, I began drinking some of the mistakes to free up the glassware. I dumped some of the mistakes down the sink but not the majority of them. I'm sure it had something to do with finding out what it is like to be the only sober person in a house full of shit-faced raging lunatics. I was also too ignorant to know the disadvantages of mixing different types of alcohol.
The next clear memory I have of that evening is riding west on Huntington Drive as Jerry attempted to get us back to the fraternity house. Huntington Drive is named after Henry Huntington who established the Huntington Library on 207 acres in South Pasadena. Henry got his start running the Newport News Ship Yard for his uncle Collis who was a railway baron. Then Henry married the niece of uncle Collis. When uncle Collis died in 1900 his substantial fortune went to Henry. After Henry's first wife died he married his uncle's widow in Paris in1912. And yes, his uncle's widow, Arabella, was also Henry's aunt.
Henry Huntington ran the Pacific Electric Railway with 1,300 miles of track and 1,250 street cars. The transportation service ran 24/7 and helped enable the growth of Los Angeles in the early 1900s. The service made it possible for people working in the city to live in the outlying areas. Much of the outlying areas had been purchased by Henry with his uncle's fortune and his railway enabled the population to spread and his investments to skyrocket.
Huntington Drive was the main street car trunk line to the San Gabriel Valley. When the last of the tracks were removed in the 1940s, the 20-yard wide median that runs down the center of Huntington Drive was filled in and covered with grass.
The grassy median turned out to be Jerry's chosen route that evening. We were making an awful noise with the engine revving, the tires spinning and gouging as Jerry maneuvered around and between the large trees planted in the center of the median. He carved out complete circles around a few of the trees spewing soil and turf in all directions.
At each cross street the car would drop off of the median onto the pavement with bottles and glasses clanging away. Once we crossed the intersection, Jerry would gun it to get his old heap up over the curb and back onto the median. Added to this was the two of us laughing and hooting away. We passed right below the Huntington Library where Henry and Arabella were at rest in their mausoleum.