We moved to South San Francisco in 1055. I was 5 at the time. My first memory of the valley is kind of a bizzare one. It was Thanksgiving and I was about 7 years old. We had a marginal car at the time. We left in the middle of the night so that we could arrive in Sunland a suburb near Burbank in the LA basin in time for Thanksgiving dinner, about 1pm.
Altamont was treacherous (a two lane road dominated by truckers. Interstate 5 was far from anyone's idea. 99 ran through the center of every valley down. There were no freeways. 50 miles an hour was considered very risky.
In the middle of the night, about 3 am Dad pulled over in a truck stop around Turlock. It was foggy beyond belief. We got out of the car and walked around. There were many big trucks hauling gigantic bales of cotton. There was this strange moldy almost mildew smell in the air. Sometimes I smell this same smell now when it is foggy.
We made it down to LA about noon. All they were having for Thanksgiving Dinner was this enormous jello salad that Aunt Betty had made. Each layer and there were about 6 layers, had a series of fruit carefully lined up in a very artistic manner. There was no turkey, or anything substantial and we were as hungry as bears. I still don't know what we ate that night.
Blog reader beware: Soem of my memories are prone to hyperbole. : ) Pat
All they had was JELLO?!
ReplyDelete::laugh::: what a very fifties menu!