I lived in Aneheim in 1963. We lived right across the freeway from Disneyland. I could see the materhorn from my bedroom window. Across the street from my grade school was a large orange orchard. I went back about ten years ago. The orange orchard is now an industrial park that looks like it has been there since the dawn of time.
I also lived in Vallejo in 1963-64. It wasn’t a bad place back then. Not too bad. There was a big water channel behind our house. It’s now concrete but back then it was dirt. Lots of tadpoles.
Anyway, a few houses down was a food bridge across it to the black neighborhood on the other side of the ditch. Our side looked like “Leave it to Beaver”. the other side was the exact same house designs on the same sized lots, but there were no lawns. just bare dirt. The hollow core front doors of many of the homes had holes kicked in them, and I saw a little girl one day riding her bike on the rims. No tires at all.
Both neighborhoods went to the same school. I was the roughest school I ever attended. There was a fight pretty much every day after school. It was always black on black.
My father’s side of the family are all still in Napa. When I visited the area about 12 years ago, I noticed that Vallejo and Napa had gone, culturally, in opposite directions. One is now very upscale while the other is a pit.
I grew up in your neighborhood near Disneyland... we lived across the strawberry field on West Street. I watched Tinkerbell fly off the Matterhorn every night in the summer from my back fence. In bed at night, I could hear the Casey Junior Train song wafting through my windows on the wind. In the spring, the air was full of the smell of orange blossoms. And in the summer, everywhere we went the scent of strawberries was in the air.
I rode my stingray bike to Disneyland and could get in for 75 cents (no ride tickets, just entrance) and spent Saturdays roaming the park by myself and drinking it all in.
It was a great place to grow up.