Summer Vacation 2015

July was the month of the travel vacation for me starting on the first day of the month.  I left for Cove, Oregon from the South Lake Tahoe foothills.  It was 104 degrees when I left.  I covered my garden with some lacy fabric  to act as shade cloth so that, hopefully, something would still be alive when I returned back home and it did all survive nicely.

The first leg of my trip took me through the back country of where I live.  It was a fantastic unfoldment of farms and woods winding northward over rivers and gaining in altitude until I turned onto the major freeway taking me over the top of the majestic Sierras and down and through Reno, Nevada on my way to my evening destination of Winnemucca.

The weather was in the triple digits everywhere except the highest elevations.  I had packed snacks in a large cooler and would move some foot out of it and next to the drivers seat at each baking rest stop that I frequently stopped at.

In about four hours I was checking into my motel room.  At the time three planets were snuggled in the twilight together; the moon, Venus and Neptune.  I went across the street to a casino and won $20, had dinner and came back to soak in the tub and relax.  It had been a hot day and the air conditioners were humming in all the rooms.

The next morning I filled my thermos up with hot coffee and took off with a full tank of gas and drove directly north to cross into southern Oregon and head n/e into Idaho.  Leaving Winnemucca, until I reached Jordan, Oregon, I was driving up a valley floor between two long mountain ranges that seemed about twenty miles away on either side. 

The road was well-paved but a small two-lane highway without any curb area or pull-outs.  Cars had to pass one another.  There were wide farms all along the way until we hit the Oregon border.  Then it was unmarred by man, excepting the road, until the outskirts of Jordan, where I again filled up the gas tank.  Being from California I’m used to filling my own gas tank so it took me by surprise that an attendant helped me out. 

I put some new snacks in the front seat and took off to soon enter an isolate Idaho with wonderful hill formations and then a long curve ride down, down the hills into Idaho farmland surrounding Boise.  From there I found the freeway taking me back up to the east side of Oregon. The weather outside was 104 degrees and I passed a road crew resurfacing part of the freeway.  Somehow that seemed inhumane.  Hope they got extra pay for that. 

 I was getting really sleepy and watching for signs for food and lodging and pulled off the freeway to find a real coffee shop.  I had a vanilla latte and was ready to finish the drive which was actually about to happen after driving five hours already. 

I had seen a lot of countryside that day that was mostly blond with dry grass but had just driven up a steep grade of pine covered mountains, and now was in a large valley of farmland.  The GPS lady guided me off the freeway and through the farmland toward the mountains in the east.

As I saw the town of Cove, population 552, I was in wonder as it looked like a German village snug up against and in the shadow of 7,150 foot Mt. Fanny and built into it’s lower curving base on the eastern slope of the Grand Ronde Valley.  The houses had pointed roofs and many streets were covered with gravel.  It had a charming air about it.

I finally pulled into my brother's driveway and was able to stretch and give and get hugs.  Two days and ten hours of driving was a lot for me to do by myself and I was very happy to be there to finally see my brother Dan and sister-in-law Maureen’s house and small farm.

Cove is where cherry trees grow and I have arrived to help pick the trees.  Each tree has to be cleaned of the succulent fruit or the authorities ask that you cut the tree down to prevent infestation affecting the other orchards.  Dan has six trees, three large Lambert cherry trees, a Queen Anne tree and a couple of smaller trees, one with sour cherries for making pies.  We picked the sour cherry tree first and Maureen made the most delicious cherry pie made perfect with a touch of almond extract.

Last year was a much larger harvest than this year.  Two hundred and fifty gallons of cherries were picked as compared to fifty gallons this year.  We even helped a neighbor pick a tree to get that many.

We used tall ladders that were shaped like little Eiffel Towers that had a third pole to keep it steady.  I made it up to the fourth rung while Maureen was on the top if not in the tree itself.  We put the cherries in cut-off plastic milk jugs and then dumped them into a large cooler.

We used a pitting device on many of the cherries so that we could dry them in a couple of dehydrators.  I was given a couple of huge bags of fresh cherries and dehydrated cherries to take home and share.

Another highlight of my trip was suiting up and helping Maureen check on her bees.  I was wearing a hat with netting that tucked inside my clothing, gloves, and socks over my pant legs while timidly standing beside Maureen while she pulled out slabs of honeycombs stacked sideways in the boxes.  She showed me the queen and the larvae, as without gloves on her hands.

Maureen will be selling her bee’s honey at the next Cherry Festival in Cove this August.  She is going to have Dan help her build a shack beside the gravel road to sell jars of honey as well.  We visited a nearby shack that sold vegetables and spruce tip salt and vinegar.  I bought some of the flavored salt and put my money in the slot of a mailbox-like box with a locked lid.

There were also a couple of apple trees that were covered in clusters of small fruits.  We filled a bucket of apples we thinned out of a tree for the resident critters:  two alpacas, two furry goats, two sheep and several chickens.

Maureen had planned several outings for us.  The first was going to the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center to see a concert and a museum.  The concert was amazing with historical references and information.  Did you know that cowboys sang to the sheep so they would stay calm and not stampede, which could be deadly?

Then we had a picnic at Anthony Lakes high up in the Malheur National Forest where Dan had taught beginning skiing for awhile.  Nearby Grande Lake was smaller and encircled by fishermen on outcrops.  It was an image that made me smile and one that I would see at other lakes we visited.

Another day we went to the farmers market in Le Grande and then had a picnic lunch by nearby Morgan Lake.  Food tastes better when you eat it outside.

We also went to Joseph City in Wallowa County.  I have always like Chief Joseph from the Nez Perce tribe and was happy to be in the valley that they had lived in before they were forced off the land illegally by the American government.    We visited a memorial of Chief Joseph’s father who died there and was touched by the simple items that people placed around the decorative tombstone.

We went to artisanal stores in Joseph’s quaint downtown and then on to Wallowa Lake.  We took a tram up to the top of Mount Howard and looked down on the lake and the valley below.  It was less scary going down in the tram after having a champagne mimosa to relax while on top.

All in all, during my stay in Cove, we had good food, played board games, drank iced-coffee and homemade currant wine, watched the distant fireworks show across the valley at sunset (which took place at 10:00 PM), watched my brother build a foundation for a pool/spa, helped work around the farm and went on great field trips.  Not bad for a wannabe farmer.

It was time for me to leave and go back to California and I wanted to go a different route in order to see more of the countryside.  I drove through the middle of Oregon and then down toward California.  After driving on a curvy mountain road for a couple of hours through the Whitman National Forrest I thought I was getting a little dizzy as the fallen logs between the majestic trees began to resemble large lizards and dragons.

I decided to pull over to a café and have some coffee and spice cake and rest a bit before taking off again through a high valley to my evening destination at a hotel in Lakeside, Oregon.  While driving through the valley I was mystified by the small clouds that seemed to be dancing around distant volcanoes.  Then there was the hugest, darkest black cloud that I called the “mother ship” that I had to drive beneath.  I was really hoping it wouldn’t decide to dump it’s load of rain on me when I felt a hundred miles away from anywhere, by myself.  I probably only saw four cars pass me in this long highway so far. 

In the distance I could see streaks of rain falling at the edge of the large cloud and it made it look like an underwater scene with sun streaks pouring through.  I half expected to see some fish flying by in the sky.  (What was in that spice cake???)

Just before arriving at Lakeside I drove beside a beautiful lake.  It looked so beautiful I had to stop and take pictures.

After spending the night at Lakeside I re-entered California and continued enjoying the mountains and valleys until I reached another brother’s home high up in Quincy.  I spent a few days there enjoying his family and left to visit another brother at the bottom of the mountain in Oroville, following the magnificent Feather River all the way down.  It was by far the best river of the many that the highways I traveled seemed to run along.

Finally I drove up the Sacramento Valley to home, feeling quite happy inside, like a special flavor that I have been savoring ever since.

Happy Earth Day 2015

When I was growing up the world seemed incredibly huge.  The sky was so big and the ocean so deep that they seemed to go on forever.  But I do remember not being able to play at recess because the smog in the San Fernando Valley was so thick.  Even then, my lungs would ache walking home from school.

We used to burn our trash in an incinerator in the back yard but that was outlawed.  As more and more cars drove the Los Angeles freeways, more and more smog accumulated between the inversion layer that would occur usually during the change of seasons.

It got one to thinking about living more naturally.  There were many years as an adult that I would not even drive a car.  I carried many heavy bags home from the grocery store, having to stop at the end of each block.  I rode busses and pushed my laundry to the laundry mat in grocery carts up and down hills with my son in tow.

My shoulders are all but shot now.  I use a heating pad every night on them.

When Saddam Hussein lit all the oil wells up in Iraq, I said to myself, “What difference am I making with my sacrifice?” and started to drive a car again.

I had a garden that was full and lush in my mid-twenties using entirely natural means.  Companion planting, compost and natural pest control.  Who knew that would make me feel like a major rebel of my time?

I garden naturally with pride now knowing that any small act effects the entire whole.  I even have a successful nature blog that is viewed internationally.  We need to trust that life can heal itself if we will only get out of the way.

I also spend a little extra money to buy organic food and in a glass container or from the loose bins, if possible.  Every dollar we spend is a vote for the kind of experience we wish for the earth’s inhabitants.

Happy Earth Day 2015

La Conchita in the Summertime

In the summer I went to stay with Grandpa and Grandma Westcott at their beach house in La Conchita for a week or two (just me, not the whole family).   We would spend hours collecting shells from the wide beach but then we would hear Grandma yell:  “Come up, the tide is coming in!” and we would walk up the stairs and go inside.  In a short while the ocean would be on all three sides of the house down below where it was perched on a sand berm.

The living room had a loft.  I would climb the ladder and lay in my loft while the surf pounded all around the house during high tide.  Later Grandpa moved  to the other side of the highway and railroad track, before the sand eroded the berm even more.

The new house had a root cellar that was cool and fun to play in and there was a small store that sold candy a couple of blocks away that we were allowed to walk to.  I would buy candy cigarettes and Red Hots.  Maybe a pink bubblegum cigar too.

 

This was the same little town (La Conchita “Little Shell”) that was known to have had previous landslides and later did have a series of terrible landslides.  The soft California hills slowly melt and here in La Conchita, they melt toward the ocean and occasionally block the train and highway and bury the homes along with a few residents. 

The town consisted of twenty-eight acres divided into 200 plots only 850 feet wide along the coast and it was without a water source. The area became settled with founding multicultural families consisting of railroad workers, farmhands, and oil workers who were used to making do with less.  La Conchita became a unique multicultural, working class, coastal neighborhood.

As a child I was happy to be walking in such a small town next to the huge ocean and the wide sky and surrounded by the rolling verdant hills.  The biggest thrill was going to get huge blocks of ice from the ice house in Carpinteria for the ice chest (refrigerator).  And of course, playing marbles or jacks with visiting cousins (while chewing gum) and eating Grandma’s cooking.  Tea was every afternoon at 3.  Sugar and milk.  Scones with jelly, thank you.

 

A Nice Saturday

Today was a fun day going to the Farmer’s Market with a friend in Old Folsom, eating lunch out and buying new shoes for tomorrow’s hike which will be led by volunteer naturalist Chris Connard (from the Audubon Society).

I bought a phenomenal salad mix and a Feverfew plant at the market and my new shoes are turquoise blue with acid green shoelaces.

I gave my friend a small planter of new lettuce seedlings I had transplanted yesterday when she dropped me back to my house.

At dawn I had driven a seven mile horseshoe shaped road through the hillside adjacent to the block I live on and was charmed by the trees, vistas, farm houses, deer, horses, pigs and sheep.

Our neighbor said there was a second sighting of a mountain lion on our street yesterday morning and there were three deer in the front yard.

I helped block a fence that the neighbor’s goats were getting through into our yard (which has long delicious weeds and grass) by securing the grates and placing a tarp over the fence and tying it like a quilt in several places. 

The pony was hysterical.  I figured that she (Cupcake) had adopted the young goats and was beside herself when they left the yard.  Cupcake was prancing around and winnying and snorting and quite upset until the little Houdini’s were returned to her side.

Then I started reading the books on birding that I got from the library as prep for tomorrow’s hike while listening to the Coachella music festival on YouTube.

What a nice day.

High Heels Hallelujah

My high school choir, along with two other high schools, were to perform in a large church in downtown L.A. We sang Mendelson's "Hallelujah."  I had been begging my mother to let me buy some high heels and she finally agreed that I could for this performance.

So I bought some "high" heels and wore them with my long robe. When the school bus got to the church and we got off we had to wait in a long line in the sun for at least an hour.  That was long enough for my feet to start "killing" me.  I never knew that feet could hurt so much.

When we filed onto the platforms that were set up in the chancel it came to be my turn to stand in place just where the large priest's chair was, next to the bottom row and I sat in it.  Not sure that I should, there I remained . . . a miracle, and gratefully sang my soprano part.  Hallelujah!!!

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

In June 1967 I took off for Europe with my new boyfriend Lee.  We drove in his Datsun sports car across country.  We got in an accident by going on an off-ramp too fast and rolled down an embankment in Kentucky and wound up staying there for two weeks.  With the repairs (broken axle) and hotel expenses,  there went our cash for Europe.

We drove as far as Washington, D.C. and settled in for a couple of years there.

At first we lived in Silver Springs, Maryland.  I worked for an insurance company as a receptionist and switchboard operator.

Back in the day before copy machines,  I would type forms with carbon paper in between each of several pages while pushing and pulling telephone cords into various holes on the switchboard.  Correcting typos was very challenging.

Next we moved to D.C. proper.  I got a job in the Dupont Circle Building working for Amnesty International.   The office was on the 10^th floor and there was an old elevator that you rode to go up.  It was operated by a man in a uniform who would always try to hug me if I was in the lift alone.  I would leave the elevator if I was the last one out so that he could not do that and take the stairs.

We collected information on prisoners of war and sent out fundraising mailings.  I remember being the hostess for foreign emissaries in the Watergate Hotel with the Potomac River running along outside.

Lee worked as a writer for National Geographic.  We went to a house that bred canaries one day and he bought me a white canary with black bangs.  I called him “Hipshot Percussion.”  D.C. had amazing restaurants of every ethnicity.  At the movies we saw “Bonnie and Clyde,”  “Mrs. Robinson” and “Rosemary’s Baby.”  We listened to “The Age of Aquarius.”

I had not been into politics too much really.  My brother had been drafted and sent to Vietnam which made that personal to me, but most other issues were far removed from my attention.  But living in Washington D.C. has its way of educating you on the issues.  The time I spent there had been quite turbulent.

There were anti-war protests going on all the time.  In October 1967  there was a March on the Pentagon with a rally at the Lincoln Memorial which numbered more than 100,000 marchers.

On April 4,^, 1968 Martin Luther King was shot and killed in Memphis and all hell broke out in the city.  Everything was burning.  We went out a couple of days later to see all the charred remains of buildings. 

It reminded me of the Watts Riots.  A friend and I were in my 55 Chevy and we were lost downtown when the riot broke out.  I drove by a blackened hull of a bus and police officers were yelling at me to go this way not that.  Finally I found the freeway and headed back to safety in the San Fernando Valley suburb.

In May, thousands of poor people started a shanty town called Resurrection City in the National Mall in front of the Washington Monument.  It lasted for six weeks.

On June 5^th, Bobby Kennedy was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan moments after winning the California primary.

On November 15^th there was a march in Washington, D.C. for peace.  It was the largest antiwar rally in U.S. history.  The speakers at the Washington Monument were McCarthy, McGovern, Coretta King, Dick Gregory, and Leonard Bernstein.  The singers were Arlo Guthrie,  Pete Seeger,  Peter, Paul, & Mary, John Denver, Mitch Miller and the touring cast of Hair.

 

  

By 1970 I was back in the San Fernando Valley.  Lee had sent me ahead of him to procure an apartment while he gave notice to his job.  Sadly, he did not rejoin me.  Something I felt quite badly about for a long, long time.  So much for the chances a person can take with their heart.

San Francisco Weekend

My son and daughter-in-law showed me around San Francisco this weekend.  We went to an outside dance in a warehouse district, to the beach, to a park and to the bay.  I went over several huge bridges.

Mentryville

Mentryville

Mom’s dad, Grandpa Westcott was the manager of the oil depot in Newhall, California.  He lived on their property in a large canyon in the Santa Susana Mountains called Pico Canyon.  Pico Canyon is located just south of where Magic Mountain is located now, just north of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County. 

Deep within Pico Canyon was a ghost town called Mentryville. Mentryville was an oil drilling town. It was started in the 1870s. The first oil strike in California occurred there in 1876. It is also the longest running well as it was not capped until 1990.  In 1966 Well No. 4 had the distinction of being the first site in Los Angeles County to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  The Mentryville ghost town is now open to the public as a historic park.

The town was named after the superintendent who was in charge of the oil field, Charles Alexander Mentry.  Mentry lived in the town until his death in 1900 and built the 13-room mansion (we called the Big House) that still stands there.  There have been several caretakers that have lived in the Big House over the years.  As children we played on the porch often and watched the quails peck around the bushes.

Mentry struck oil in 1876, at a depth of 370 feet.  The well immediately began producing 25 barrels a day.  It was called Well No. 4 as it was the fourth well Mentry drilled before he struck oil and it was drilled with great difficulty, as "the railroad had not then been completed, there was no road into the canyon, water was almost unattainable, and there were no adequate tools or machinery to be had." (The town had it’s own blacksmith.)  

“Mentry used his mechanical skills to create improvised tools, including a drill-stem he built out of old railroad car axles, which he purchased from the Southern Pacific and welded together.  When Mentry drilled the well to a depth of 560 feet in 1877, the oil spurted to the top of the 65-foot derrick, increasing the production to 150 barrels a day.  It became California’s first commercially successful well.

After Well No. 4 proved to be a success, Mentry constructed the first oil pipeline in California from Pico Canyon to the refinery in Newhall, later extending it 50 miles (80 km) to the ocean at Ventura, California. In 1895, a pamphlet issued by the State of California stated that the Pacific Coast Oil Company had 40 wells operating in Pico Canyon producing 500 barrels a day, and one well which had produced 1,500,000 barrels.

During the 1930s, most of Mentryville's residents left, many tearing down their houses board by board and nail by nail, and taking it all with them.  

In 1933, my grandparents and their five children (including my mom) lived in an old redwood cabin style house that was built without using any nails and was located just across the stream from the Big House.  My grandfather built a barn next to it.  They only had gas for lights, cooking and heating.  

My mother tells many stories of this time. . . being afraid during storms as the bridge would wash out, my aunt Peg waking up to a tarantula on her pillow, cooking a sparrow for her mother.  Getting stuck in quicksand, killing lots of rattlesnakes and grandma being the family doctor.

My brothers and I used to walk up the winding country road, being chased by aggressive ducks and passive cows, past the ghost-town’s one-room school house, and up to the remaining picnic grounds called Johnson Park.  There were huge barbeques and it looked like a good place to have a party.  There was also a huge oil tower with a plaque on it.  We were proud that this was the first place oil was discovered in California.

The Tatavian and Tonga Indians used to live in the canyon also and we found evidence of this once and awhile as well as lots of sea shells.  The sea shells indicated that the land had been under water at some previous time.

Mentryville and Pico Canyon have also become popular locations to shoot motion pictures.

There was a popular TV show called Lassie and the people in the Big House always took care of the series of retired "Lassies" from the show.

My Aunt Peggy tells me that Zane Grey wrote Riders of the Purple Sage while staying in the canyon.

The favorite part of the canyon for me was the wildflowers.

I later read about how much of the rusty drilling equipment that we played
around as children had been shipped to a museum that was located near where I had been living until recently, so I took a bunch of pictures (which I will post later when I find where I have archived them.)

Grandma and Grandpa Westcott

My Mom Pat Kelly

http://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/westcott-pat-index.htm

Mom's Webpage!

 

Mini Skirts and Music

I met Abe when I was working at a bank and his law firm was in the same building.  I had some interesting adventures with him.  He had just set up A&M Records with Herb Alpert and was also the attorney for Mick Jagger and the Mamas and the Papas.

I remember crying at the bank because I had just had my hair cut so short by the man who would next give the cut to Twiggy.  He practiced on me.  I wore mini-skirts and patent leather knee-high boots then.

There were a lot of meetings of industry people at his apartment in West Hollywood.  At one time I remember they were trying to decide on what single to release (back in the days of 45 rpm record releases) for the Fifth Dimension.  They had another song in mind but I kept insisting on “Up, Up and Away.”   Finally, I got my way.   The song was a big hit!

Occasionally we went to dinner in Benedict Canyon at Terry Melcher’s house (Doris Day’s Son).  One of the guys from Three Dog Night lived in the guest house in the back.  There were lots of wild cats around the property.

A year or so later I saw a picture of the house on the front page of the newspaper.  It was the house where the Charles Manson murders occurred!

Abe and I did a lot of promo work for the Monterey Pop Festival as the Mamas and the Papas were the main act.  They had an office in a house on Sunset Boulevard.  We would go there to pick up 45 rpm records of Scott McKenzie’s “If You’re Going to San Francisco.”  We passed out the records and flyers to a lot of people.

Just before the concert, Abe and I got into a verbose fight and broke up and so I didn’t go.  Too bad.  I enjoyed watching the Pennybaker film. 

Eventually I married the band leader from the Mamas and the Papas, but that’s another story.

Northern California

Northern California

Three of my four brothers moved up to Northern California, one taking my mother with him.  (My father and husband passed in 2008).  Then my only child and son got married and moved to San Francisco.  So recently I moved to Northern California after having spent most of my life in Southern California (with just a few temporary journeys elsewhere).

I am charmed by the oaks and pines of the foothills of Lake Tahoe, where I find myself re-planted.  This time has been spent reflecting on my old life and imagining what my new life will bring.  I find it is a time to reassess my old programming and my knee-jerk reactions to a more compassionate point of view.  Everything in my life has brought me to this point in time, and all for my higher good.

This week I have been making “money purses” and going through my photographs.  I like to do new things as often as possible so today I made a berry smoothie for the first time (with chia seeds).  I also have a couple of blogs that I like to update frequently.  

My room looks like a cross between a factory and a library.  The sliding glass door is open and I hear birds and the rooster crowing and lots of very fresh air is coming in.  Off in the distance I see the snow covered mountains of Lake Tahoe.

All feels peaceful and serene.

Melody Ranch

Melody Ranch

Dad’s Dad and Mom, Grandpa and Grandma Kelly lived on a western movie studio located in Placerita Canyon north of Los Angeles.   Monogram Studios was eventually bought by Gene Autry in 1952 and became the Melody Ranch (after a Gene Autry movie title).  

Grandpa (along with his white german shepherd) was the night watchman and lived in the main house.  I remember my uncles filling the air with smoke from packs of unfiltered Pall Malls, playing poker, and listening to the Son’s of the Pioneers on the radio in the main house.

I lived there when I was three and four years old.  We didn’t have television yet.  We were saving money up to buy a home which we eventually did buy in the San Fernando Valley which was where my father worked for the Southern California Gas Company.  We visited the ranch almost every week-end after that and I continued to vacation on the film ranch every summer until it burned down when I was 16.

During the 30’s and 40’s there were hundreds of movies and TV westerns shot on the movie lot including thirty-five John Wayne movies.  (My maternal grandfather, who lived on the other side of town, is supposed to have trained John Wayne in how to tame a horse.)

Melody ranch was twelve acres large with many streets that had 74 storefronts (fake-front buildings).  There were saloons, a huge adobe church, hotels, a jailhouse, a bank, a theater, a hardware store, and a gun shop. It also had a train and a train track that was not quite full size.  It was about half-size and was used in filming.  It is in a train museum now.  

Really, I did not have a clue that most children did not have their own train to run around in.  In fact I had the whole place to myself on the week-ends.  Nothing was locked and I wandered along the boardwalks while popping in and out of the stages.

I remember being given toys to be quiet in a back bedroom (which was also used for filming and was filled with antiques) while the living room was turned into a hotel lobby or a barroom.  Bad guys fought good guys like Gary Cooper in "High Noon" and Indians crawled all over the roof. 

Many actors worked on the lot.  Some of them were John Wayne, Preston Foster, The Cisco Kid, James Arness,  Bob Steele, Rex Rossi and Dennis Weaver of Gunsmoke.   Former President Ronald Reagan has worked there.  Also Anthony Quinn starred in “Man from Del Rio”. 

Television came along and The Lone Ranger, Wyatt Earp, Hopalong Cassidy, Wild Bill Hickock and Annie Oakley were also filmed there.  Yes, I met a lot of the actors.

One of my favorite memories is on the Fourth of July.  I would ride with my brother in a small covered wagon as "Miss Melody Ranch" in the small town parade.  Every January the men in town would start growing their beards and come the 4th there would be a contest to see who had the longest beard.  The next day all the beards would be shaved . . . until next January 1st.

After the parade we would go back to the movie ranch to a huge BBQ in which all the actors and families arrived decked out in their Nudies costumes.  There would be a Mariachi band and real BBQ.

I was resting on the swing couch in the back of the house when I saw smoke and saw that a pine tree was on fire and went to get help.  That year I was the big hero!

For many, many years as an adult, cowboy shows were on the television and I could see my trees and mountains that I climbed and ran down as a child.

There was a fire that destroyed much of the studio in 1962.  Elvis Presley was on location shooting “Kissin’ Cousin” and helped fight the fire.  No, I didn’t get to meet him.

Gene Autry suffered great loses from the fire.  Champion, Gene’s horse was kept on the property but what remained of his large collection of western memorabilia was sent to his new Gene Autry Museum.  He had an enormous collection of musical albums that did not survive the fire.

The movie ranch has been now been restored and I might like to visit it again someday!

This is my Dad, me and two of my brothers in the back yard of the main house at Melody Ranch.