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"Reflections"
is a collection of memories, history and tall tales collected and
written by Nat Trives. Here is the first installment:
Welcome to California
The year was 1949 and in the midst of one of the worst winters in
the 20th century, a fourteen year old boy had to give up his spot
on the Glendale, Ohio, high school basketball team because the family
was moving to California. His parents, sisters and brother all loaded
into a Ford station wagon [woody] and headed south through Kentucky,
Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and New Mexico to
escape the cold as they traveled across country. Little did they know
that they would see snow as well as palm trees in Phoenix, Arizona.
The sign read "Welcome to California" but there was no beach
or ocean in sight for what seemed like an eternity. There was desert
and more desert and then snow capped mountains and down into lush
green valleys with trees bearing oranges for as far as the eye could
see. They drove and drove, finally taking a stretch of Route 66 right
into Santa Monica.
The family settled into temporary quarters on
Broadway, a few doors from the Fire Station located at the corner
of 20th Street. Since basketball was an important part of the fourteen
year old's life, when he heard someone dribbling a ball outside
the window of the family apartment which overlooked the St. Ann's
Catholic Church's playground, he perked up, put on his sneakers
and went out to play. What he heard next was a language that was
foreign to him, even though he had been in a college prep program
in Ohio, and had begun studying Latin, he had not heard or spoken
a word of Spanish. Welcome to Santa Monica and his first pick up
game of basketball.
The fourteen year old was enrolled in Lincoln Junior
High School, at 15th Street and California Avenue, where his first
day could easily have been his last. He went to school wearing short
pants and long stockings, which was not uncommon in the midwest
at the time. To his chagrin, leather jackets, tee shirts and Levi
jeans were in vogue among the guys on campus. His wardrobe changed
and he fell somewhere in between the extremes with some kind of
preppy look, never really liking the low hanging jeans. Classes
were easy for the newcomer and he made the basketball team as starting
center. He quickly made many friends and was soon elected class
representative.
The kids all went to the Ocean Park Amusement
Pier for the rides and the carnival like atmosphere. They took in
movies at the Dome Theater or the Rosemary in Ocean Park or went
to the movies at the Hitching Post or the Criterion Theater in downtown
Santa Monica. The streetcar provided easy transportation to Hollywood
or Long Beach or even downtown Los Angeles. Henshey’s was the
towns' leading department store. The Santa Monica Blue Bus had it's
own turntable at the foot of Pier Avenue in Ocean Park. Douglas
Aircraft was the engine that drove the Santa Monica economy and
Kaiser Permanente was rehabilitating polio victims in its facility
located at the foot of Pico Blvd. Santa Monica College was located
at 7th Street and Michigan Avenue in temporary buildings and Santa
Monica Technical School was at 22nd Street and Virginia Avenue.
Santa Monica’s population of 54,000 was increased by six when
the fourteen year old and his family moved into town.
The happy fourteen year old was none other
than Nathaniel Trives !
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