GARGOZO MANUSCRIPT

Yesterday I walked on the abandoned soap box derby track that I rode down 58 years ago.  The course is located in Ernest Debs Park, and sits on a hill above the Arroyo Seco, a stone's throw from the Pasadena Freeway.  It seems unlikely that this barren knoll was where thousands of spectators once came every summer to watch kids trying to qualify for the Nationals.  The winner of the western competition moved on to the U. S. National Championships held in Akron, Ohio.  There is nothing that remains of the grandstands that were once set against the Montecito Heights hillside but some of the racing surface is still in place.  The soap box derby took place at the end of the summer and competitors were aged 11 to 15.  The cars were powered by gravity alone and moved their way down a straight sloped track when released from the starting line.  The various local courses across the USA were all different in length and slope.  Some cou...

Lion Country Safari had plenty of bad press but the incident with Carey and the lions was never made public.  The place opened in 1970 in Irvine with its 140 acres snug up against the side of the 405 freeway.  Visitors paid an entrance fee to drive their own cars on a 4 mile road that wound through a collection of animals that all appeared to roam free.  The lions and the creatures they normally feasted on were separated by barriers that were positioned in gullies and thus unseen from the road.  You moved along at your own rate and could stop as often and for as long as you wanted.  You were instructed to keep all doors and windows closed at all times. Unlike in the wild, all of these animals were well fed by the caretakers.  As for the lions, with no need to hunt down prey, the big cats slept all day in the hot weather and rarely even lifted their heads when cars drove up and stopped.  Carey liked the idea of checking out lions cl...

I need to set the record straight.  None of the internet comments from customers and former owners about the burger joint on Eagle Rock Boulevard have the complete story.  The internet accounts identify correctly the progression of the recent names for the place from "The Bucket", to "Dee Dee's Dive" and as of today, "Patio Burgers and Beer."  What's missing from this is that prior to 1965 the place was called "Don's Bucket." Don was a former owner who was long gone by the time I first went there in the 1950's with my dad.  The place was then owned and run by a scruffy old Greek named Nick who took your order, cooked your food and collected your money.  The current fenced-in area with the covered patio, table, chairs and TV all came 30 years later.  The original Don's Bucket was strictly a dumpy little stub of a building, painted shit brown, and shaped like a giant thimble with rounded corners and...

During the latter part of the 1960s, Carey owned Mt. Washington.  Each weekday he visited people's homes on every street on the hill for conversation, a cup of coffee or to play with the family dog.  Carey drove a route for Sparklettes when the 5-gallon, 40-pound bottles were still made of glass.  He drove one of those ugly green company trucks up and down the impractical network of steep, narrow and winding lanes that cover the mountain.  At every stop, he took 2 bottles off the truck and carted them into customer's homes.  He grasped each bottle by the neck, holding the first down by his side and the second perched on his shoulder.  Carey was the only Sparklettes' employee to regularly carry more than one full bottle at a time.  In addition, company policy forbade resting a bottle on your shoulder lest the glass shatter and decapitate the driver.  Mt. Washington has very little level ground.  From the street to the fr...

My dad's parents came from Italy in 1910 and before long settled down to raise a family at the foot of Mt. Washington in Southern California.  Their first house still sits on the corner of Maceo and Aragon in an area known as Cypress Park.  The house is a cheap version of the craftsman style but looks to be in decent shape given its age. Cypress Park is in the Elysian Valley and on the north bank of the Los Angeles River at the base of Mt. Washington.  It was first settled by a Shoshone tribe.  In 1769, Gaspar de Portola led the first European exploration of the area and described the area as a "very lush green valley".  The land was later subdivided and established as a community in 1882.  Jim Jeffries who became the World Heavyweight Champion in 1899, grew up in a house in Cypress Park where Florence Nightingale Middle School is now located. East of Cypress Park is Boyle Heights where Alfonzo Cordoba, my mother's Basque fat...

There are several hill-top neighborhoods that stretch northward from downtown Los Angeles.  The first of which was called Chavez Ravine before the neighborhood was replaced by Dodger stadium.  North of the stadium is an area called Elysian Park consisting of a neighborhood and a sprawling public park that covers 575 acres.  The park was founded in 1886 and was the site for the pentathlon shooting competition during the 1932 Olympics. Located in the park is an historic marker indicating a 1769 campsite used by the first recorded European exploration of California.  Gaspar de Portola led a Spanish exploration of what was then referred to as Baja and Alta California.  He was accompanied by Junipero Serra, the head of Franciscan Missionaries who helped establish the 21 missions that survive to this day.  The northern rim of the park looks 600 feet down to the Los Angeles River which was so named by the Portola Expedition. The Los Ang...

Panoramic view of the community of Chavez Ravine, circa 1952. Photo by Leonard Nadel Chavez Ravine was once known as the "poor man's Shangri La".  Since the early 1900's, a community of mostly Mexican-American families enjoyed an idyllic small town life in the center of Los Angeles. Chavez Ravine, 1949; photo by Don Normack The ravine is a shallow valley that sits atop a hill less than a mile from city hall.  Set in the base of the valley, the community was surrounded by open hills that shielded from view the city sprawl far below.  Residents who found work in the city would climb the hill at day's end to find a country setting like the Mexican villages that had once been their home.  Chavez Ravine was a self-contained village in many ways.  Many families grew their own food and the schools and churches were operated by the locals.  Evenings were spent with friends and neighbors gathered by campfires to talk, laugh and...

Louis Leakey is best known for his paleoanthropology work in Africa and for being a dirty old man.  I was unaware of the latter until yesterday, when for the first time, I bothered to read the back of my anthropology trading cards.  When I purchased them years ago as an investment, I put them away for safe keeping without giving them more than a quick glance. The cards came in a small set with a good share of them representing members of the Leakey family.  Most of the cards depict individuals whose life's work made major contributions to various fields including anthropology, archaeology and primatology.  The individual is pictured on the front of the card and career highlights are detailed on the back.  Unlike baseball cards which are mass produced by large companies, the anthropology cards were created in a single limited edition by a reclusive hobbyist named Leon Mankiewicz.  Soon after retiring from 34 years in the printing busine...

I enjoyed thinking that I was the only person to spot the Occidental magazine's horrific screw up, but regretted the grief it must have caused Mrs. Sysmanski.  Camille, who worked in the Alumni Office, had seen to it that my request was honored and I no longer received any mail from the college, including the magazine.  However, Munson remained an alumnus in good standing and continued receiving the magazine year after year.  Every so often I spent a weekend in San Francisco at his place and could never resist checking out my favorite parts of the magazine.   Years ago when I first began receiving the magazine, I discovered a small section at the very back called "Milestones".  Here along with births were listed the Occidental alums who had passed away since the prior issue.  The details were sparse but always included the deceased's name (including maiden name), and their graduating class year.  The college began soon after the turn of the previous ...

Some 20 years after graduating, I spoke on the phone with a pleasant sounding young lady from Occidental and proposed an end to our association.  The school and I had never been on good terms.  I had been counseled for misbehaving as a freshman and had been given a well-deserved label of asshole.  So in many ways it could be said that I was to blame for us getting off on the wrong foot.  However, over time I developed a deep hatred as my interactions with the administration and faculty demonstrated that the majority were incredibly smug and insular.  I was too naïve to realize that it was probably to be expected from a place that was private, small and granted tenure. I managed to complete all 4 years but I was being driven by a student deferment that kept me ineligible for the draft and Viet Nam.  Added to this was the guilt I had knowing my dad had taken on a second job to cover the tuition.  After graduation my resentment toward ...