Soft Ice Cream--Yum!

 Soft ice cream--Yum!

As I typed the title just now I remembered there actually used to be a Yum Burger in the L.A. area. The one I knew was located in Norwalk Square, just north of the Sav-On Drugs store. I searched just now for it--turns out it was a "Yum Burger Shoppe". A menu from the Inglewood location showed up in the results. But that's for maybe another day.

Southern California's weather allowed for ice cream stores all year round. There was Foster's (which is still around I see), but never a Dairy Queen or Dairy King or anything similar, but what there was was Tastee-Freez. Good stuff. In 9th grade we actually lived directly across the street from one. It's gone now, merely a parking lot.

Former site of the Santa Fe Springs Tastee-Freez (2007)
(courtesy of Google Maps)

But even before I knew of this location, I knew of one on Peck Road in El Monte--because at my prior home I had lived just a few blocks away. Technically it was a bike ride away, but I had a bike, my first one, actually. It was an Elgin 26" made before the war. Big bike, big wheels. I think my parents paid $10 for it.

I would ride to the Peck Road Tastee-Freez with a quarter in my pocket to get the LARGE ice cream cone. My mom kept change in a small jar on her bedroom dresser. I can't remember if I had an allowance at that time--probably not--I made most of my money from those birthday cards that you could insert dimes into. Ok, maybe not. 25¢ was the price of the large cone. And I had quite a few until Mom noticed the change jar didn't seem to have as many quarters as she remembered.  And that was the end of that.

By the time I lived in Santa Fe Springs, I had better access to money. I had moved up from 25¢ cones to the "Boston Shake". Wow--what a terrific idea. You take a chocolate shake and add a chocolate sundae on the top. And I recall it was a great value, maybe around 35¢. And it was just a walk across the street. Here's how the Tastee-Freez looked when I lived there.

Santa Fe HS Senior Class enjoying the ice cream at our local TF.
(courtesy of the 1961 Chiefs Yearbook)

My preferred method of transport at that time was a skateboard--a real skateboard. This came about when my next door neighbor (and his sister) got a homemade scooter from his father. It was a 2X4 with a skate nailed to the bottom, and on the front was a 1X4 or so that was vertical with a 1X2 attached for handlebars. At the bottom it had more 1x2s on each side mounted at a 45° to keep the vertical stable. It wasn't long before the vertical part came loose, so we tried it without the front part--voila! Skateboard!

Sidewalk surfin' on the back patio

And immortalized in the tune Sidewalk Surfin' by Jan & Dean, there's a line in it that states: 

"A downhill grade, man, will give you a kick, But if the sidewalk's cracked, ya better pull out quick!"

How true, but my incident happened way before this song came out. Heading along the sidewalk, I had a Boston Shake in my hand, happily cruising when all of a sudden, the board just stopped, and I went flying, with my Boston Shake taking the brunt of my head first fall. Was I hurt? All I knew was my beautiful $$$ shake was spread all over the sidewalk in front of me! I recovered, just a jammed wrist or two, but I hated to lose that shake!

Trash Cans

 In 1952 when I was age six or so, I told my mother "I can lift 120 pounds!" She nicely said something to the effect of "show me". We were living in Los Angeles--I don't remember having the chore (yet) of taking out the trash.

General shape of the drum
(wrong color though)

We went into the back yard and I marched right up to what was an oil drum. It had "Union Oil Co." in big letters on it. It also had handles about 3 inches from the top, which were really just cutouts in the metal rolled to the top so one could lift the drum without cutting your hands or pulling a muscle.

Besides "Union Oil Co." it also had writing on it of  "Net Weight 120 lbs.". Well, Mom broke it to me that that wasn't the weight of the now empty drum, but rather what the stuff inside it weighed when it was full of oil or whatever. My pride was hurt a bit but I got over it. What that drum was used for was trash. It was a trash container, and when it got full, my mother would go out back, toss in a match, and off it went!

Because back in the early '50s in Los Angeles, everyone just burned their trash in the backyard. Some used open oil drums--later on a criss-cross kind of grate was thrown over the top to help keep burning ashes from drifting down the block.

Next year we moved to a new house in El Monte. And my chores were upgraded to include "taking out the trash". A new house meant there was no oil drum. We had upgraded to an incinerator!

A typical incinerator from the '50s
(from Daily Mirror collection)

 

When called upon I dutifully took out the trash to the incinerator. It was located in a back corner of the yard, with a small fence on the side to kind of hide it. It had a metal door on the front you would pull down on, which opened to a chute, and you just poured in the trash. I don't remember about cans. Plastic wasn't much of a problem because it wasn't really used at this time to hold foods. Milk cartons were terrific--they were a waxed cardboard and made a great fire when lit.

So when the chute was full (inside there was a grate about a foot off the floor to allow an updraft), it was time to light it up. I'm betting that most seven year-old boys thought fire was cool!  Toss in the match, close the metal door, and walk away. A few hours later, ashes were all that was left in the bottom. Periodically someone had to take out the ashes. Can't remember who did that. 

L.A. Times October 20, 1954

But by 1958 trash collecting had begun. At this point I was still taking out the trash, but the collector now was a large green barrel (larger than the old drums), with small wheels welded to the bottom at one side, and a handle at the top of that side, made from a pipe that had been bent out on each end so you could grab it, tilt the barrel, and haul it to the curb.

It was a good idea to stop trash burning. I can remember in high school, there were many days during Phys. Ed. (we had an hour of P.E. every day back then!), it was so smoggy your lungs would hurt when you took a deep breath. 

And last, a photo taken from Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, which shows the haze of a typical smoggy day in the mid '60s.

A view from Griffith Observatory -- 1967

 

Dressed For Success
Age 2

Sometime in the next year we'll begin...