The East Aliso Years
Drew's Favorite Childhood Home
Drew’s East Aliso Street home in 1954. Harold’s 1930 or 1931 Ford Model A pickup is parked in the driveway, with Drew’s maternal grandmother’s car along the curb. Sunny, the family pet, relaxes on the front lawn. The ArmorCoat asphalt street out front — discovered by trial and error — was not recommended for learning to ride a bicycle.
Wanna know what’s bugged me for my entire seventy-four years of life? I don’t care if you do or not — here it comes. I consider myself an Ojai Valley native, but my birth certificate claims I was “hatched” in Ventura. That’s only because there wasn’t a dang hospital in the Ojai Valley back then. I was born in the now long-gone, but covered, Foster Memorial Hospital. Wanna know why I said covered? Of course you do. Community Memorial Hospital was built right over it, completely encasing Foster Memorial inside. Now that’s some dang cool trivia right there.
But I digress.
When I was born, Mom (Arlou) and Dad (Harold) were renting a home on West Oak Street in Ojai. I was seven months old before Dad and I met for the first time, because he was a torpedoman on a destroyer during the Korean Conflict. His ship even went above the 38th parallel into North Korean waters. Dad was a combat veteran. As a side note, he had already served in World War II after joining the U.S. Naval Reserve during his senior year (1943) at Nordhoff High School. Dad was, and always will be, my Most Favorite Hero, and I don’t care if that’s another digression. He deserves it.
Harold’s (Drew’s dad) torpedoman’s patch from his Navy uniform.
Here we go again. After Dad came home, we lived in that West Oak Street house for just two more months before my parents bought a brand spankin’ new home on East Aliso Street in Ojai, right up against the main baseball diamond at Sarzotti Park. We lived there from early 1952 to 1960, which means I was nine months old to almost ten years old during our time in that house. It’s taken me a bit to get to the point of this article, which is this: so much happened at that home that I can’t possibly lay it all on you, but I’m gonna tell you about a few things that did. Here goes... hang onto your jockstraps (if that applies).
Sunny
Mom and Dad owned a medium-sized, black and white, long-haired dog named Sunny before I came onto the scene. I guess I wasn’t perfect enough, because two years and seven months after I was born, they had their second child, Mitch. Or maybe they just messed up on their selection of birth control. Long story short, Mitch wound up being a fairly decent little brother after I knocked off some of his rough edges.
But I digress.
Summer 1959 at Santa Barbara Harbor: Mitch (six years old), Arlou (twenty-nine years old), and Harold (thirty-three years old) with Harold’s “P14” boat. Photo taken by Drew (eight years old).
I’m pretty sure Mitch would agree that, not so much Mom, but Dad preferred Sunny over us. Here are some examples. Whenever Dad took just the two of us for a ride in his car or pickup, Sunny always got to hop in first and sit right next to him. Or Mitch and I would get filthy playing outside in our bitchin’ backyard, usually with Sunny. When it was time to come in, Dad would open the back door, and Sunny got to hightail it inside. Mitch and I, however, would be swept down with a broom. Didn’t feel great. Sunny never had to suffer the sweeping or the indignity of it.
Another time, around 1958, Dad bought a brand-new P14, thirteen-foot fiberglass boat from a dealership that used to be in the building where Ojai’s American Legion is now housed. That was the end of his highly prized, super clean 1953 Mercury Monterey sedan being parked in our single-car garage — the boat took over that privilege. Anyway (did I digress again?), whenever we took the boat out, Sunny got to sit on the bucket seat up front next to Dad. Mitch and I were relegated to the backseat, which had no backrest and was basically a tail-busting plank. I suspect Dad did like us somewhat, though, because we had to wear big, bulky life jackets that rode up to our ears. Sunny never had to wear one.
Thank goodness Mitch and I outlived Sunny. The Christmas after he passed, we got a baby miniature dachshund named Herman. The whole family loved that low-rider, but Mitch and I could tell Dad didn’t prefer Herman over us. We had finally moved up a notch in Dad’s eyes. He loved us just as much as Herman.
Location, Location, Location
Left to right: Drew, Mitch (Drew’s younger brother), Steve “Church-Mouse” Church, and Mike Payton — all East Aliso Street buddies — on the front porch of Drew and Mitch’s home. Photo taken around 1959.
I’m sure most of you three readers know where the skate park is in downtown Ojai. Behind it is property owned by the Ojai Union School District. They might park school buses on it now. It’s part of Ojai Elementary School. Back when I was a boy in the late 1950s, there were two small baseball fields where the skate park and the field behind it are now. I played two years of Farm League hardball there, on the Braves. Coach Beamon Carney and Assistant Coach Homer Nichols taught us boys the fundamentals of baseball. I played every position except catcher and pitcher.
Get this: Coach Carney had me playin’ with a left-hander’s first baseman’s glove he loaned me. I had a perfectly good right-hander’s outfielder’s glove, and I was (still am) right-handed. I told him that, but he wanted me to be able to do the first-baseman stretch with the long reach of the left hand to snag baseballs being flung erratically by fellow Farm Leaguers in my direction. It was a fiasco. I remember chasing all kinds of missed balls into the spectator area.
The second year I played, Randy “Rat” Russell (a year younger than me) was our pitcher because he was the best athlete on the team. I think Rat got most of the hit balls anyway, since in Farm League the boys (no girls, as I recall) couldn’t bop them very far. Rat would field the ball, run halfway toward me, then lob it underhand to my nearly useless left-hander’s glove. Bless Rat’s little heart.
Left to right: Mitch (Drew’s younger brother), Peg “Magee” Wells (Drew and Mitch’s maternal grandmother), and Drew in the boys’ backyard. In the background are the fence and tall hedge that foul-tipped baseballs often sailed over from the ballfield. Note the tall lighting standard from the park visible above the hedge.
So, what’s all this got to do with me livin’ at the East Aliso Street home? Well, I learned from Farm League that I didn’t care enough about baseball to continue into Little League at the Sarzotti Park field behind my house. In the second paragraph of this article, I told you our home backed up to the main baseball diamond at Sarzotti Park. You know somethin’ pretty cool about livin’ there? I’m sure I owned more baseballs than any other kid west of the Mississippi due to all the foul balls that flew over the right-side grandstands, past the narrow road, the high hedge, and the six-foot-high cinder-block back fence Dad built, and then into our backyard.
I made sure I was in the backyard a lot during those Little League games. I’d grab and hide those foul balls before the kids — usually older than me — scampered over Dad’s fence (which really irked him) in search of them. I’d swear no ball had come into our yard. My ploy worked well. Why I wanted all those balls, I don’t recall, but I had ’em, and that’s what counted.
Drew with his dad, Harold, showing off the results of one of Harold’s local ocean fishing trips. The boy at right is possibly Tom or Gary Bugg. The family’s 1953 Mercury Monterey sedan is seen in the background.
Another cool thing about that field: directly behind our home were the right-side grandstands. In spring, milkweed grew thick under them, and big, squishy, beautifully striped Monarch caterpillars showed up on the plants. We boys loved collecting a few in glass jars with holes punched in the lids. We’d add milkweed leaves and stems. If we were lucky, the caterpillars would form chrysalises, then hatch into majestic Monarch butterflies we’d let go.
One time, my next-door neighbor Mark Kingsbury and I cut a hole in the hog-wire backstop so we could get into a closed-off area behind it, hoping to find coins or treasures that might’ve fallen there. But that’s a story for another time. This one’s about my East Aliso Street home. You don’t want me digressin’ too much, do ya?
Advanced Riding Skills
Drew in the backyard of his East Aliso Street home with his new tricycle, which he proudly rode until he was about six years old. He was two years old in this photo, taken in 1953.
I had a super bitchin’ tricycle when I was a little boy. It was white and red, and when I rode it, I knew I looked dang good on it. I could haul butt on that little three-wheeler. I’m the eldest of six siblings. I always thought that was a cool thing to be, but it’s not so cool now that I’m pushin’ three-fourths of a century. We’re (in order of hatching: me, Mitch, Blake, M’Lou, Mindy, and Neal) all still kickin’. Bein’ the eldest, I got to experience the cool stuff first and never had to wear hand-me-down clothes. But if we all live to ripe old ages, I could be the first to experience the beyond. I kinda like it here a lot. But I digress.
Back to my totally cool tricycle. Since I was the oldest, I had no older siblings to teach me to ride a two-wheeler. I think I rode that trike until I was about six years old. Meanwhile, my tight (and younger) neighborhood buddies — Mike Payton, Mark Kingsbury, Danny Nickerson, and even a few girls — were already ridin’ bicycles without training wheels. The Bugg family lived kitty-corner across the street. Gary and Tom Bugg were siblings and a few years older than us. I’m pretty sure one of them — I think it was Tom — got tired of seein’ me barely fit under the handlebars of my tricycle. Out of the kindness of his heart, he decided to get me up on a two-wheeled, big-kid bicycle.
East Aliso Street wasn’t paved with nice, smooth asphalt like we have today. It was coated with what I believe was called ArmorCoat — hot asphaltum with large pebbles in it, spread over a dirt road. Those pebbles stuck up out of the asphalt after it dried. Tom had me climb onto an adult-sized bicycle. My stumpy-short legs barely reached the pedals. He held onto the bike and ran alongside me while I pedaled. We did this a bunch of times. Even though I struggled to reach the pedals, I was actually propelling myself. Bike ridin’ was gonna be easy-peasy — until Tom got tired of runnin’ next to me. That’s when he finally gave the bike a shove to motate me along on my own. No sweat — until I ran out of shovin’ speed and crashed onto the asphaltum, with those huge pebbles stickin’ up and abrading flesh all over my body. Man, did that hurt somethin’ fierce.
Drew steering the “reins” of his make-believe horse (actually just a shovel) while riding double with Mark Kingsbury in front of Drew’s home.
Obviously, I didn’t have the highest I.Q. (still don’t, but I try hard), because Tom got me to try it a second time — same result. Tom musta been grossed out by all the blood. After I recovered, we tried on the dirt shoulder of the road. After floppin’ a few times there, the dirt kinda dried up my blood and sealed my wounds. I figured I wasn’t gonna bleed to death, so I asked Tom if we could try on the front lawn of my house. You might ask why we didn’t start there in the first place. I’ve already given you the answer — my somewhat low I.Q.
A couple more tries on the lawn, and I was proudly a novice two-wheel rider. And I never had any sissy-butt training wheels.
Mark’s Big Brothers
I was about four years old when a young teenage boy lived in the house on the east side of mine. Technically, it was my parents’ house, but they let me live with them. (Slight digression there, but back on track.) I can’t recall the teenage boy’s name now, but I thought he was a pretty Cool Dude at the time. One day, he was showing off his pellet rifle while I had my bag of marbles with me. He asked me to hand over my favorite marble. I did. He pointed his rifle straight up, set my prized marble on the muzzle, and pulled the trigger. That marble shattered into about a zillion pieces. We were dang lucky not to have gotten glass in our eyes or anywhere else. Needless to say, I no longer thought he was a cool dude. Not long after, he and his parents moved away.
The next family to move in was Nona and Jerry Kingsbury with their three sons: Dale, Rick, and Mark. Dale and Rick were a few years older than Mark, and Mark was just a year younger than me. Mark and I quickly became friends. Dale and Rick were always very good to Mark, me, and our buddies. They became the new Cool Dudes in my life — and they absolutely rocked.
I never told them how much I appreciated that they shared so many fun things with us younger kids and treated us kindly while doing so. I’ve lost touch with them, but I hope they read this someday.
Left to right: Dale Kingsbury with his little sister Linda, his little brother Mark, and Drew (hoping to catch a ride) in front of the Kingsbury home, which was just east of Drew’s place.
The first skateboards I ever saw were made by Dale and Rick. They took apart metal roller skates and used big nails to attach them to short two-by-fours. The nails were bent over to hold the skates in place, but they looked pretty rough. Eventually, their dad showed them how to use wood screws instead of nails, and those screw-on skateboards looked sharp while everyone else in town was still clunking around with wobbly nail jobs. Dale and Rick let me try their boards on their driveway. I didn’t make it more than six feet before I lost my balance and fell off, but those were the first skateboards I ever rode. Thanks to Dale and Rick.
Dale, Rick, and Mark each had their own bedrooms, if I remember right. That changed after Nona and Jerry got frisky and produced Linda, which caused Dale and Rick to start sharing a room. Those two had stacks of every kind of comic book printed at the time leaning against their bedroom walls. Mark and I would sit on the floor and read comic books there for hours. Dale and Rick never once shooed us out. I’m especially grateful for that because I loved looking at the lovely curves of Veronica in the Archie comic books.
Dale and Rick also had a newspaper route — I think it was for the Ventura County Star. There was a side door at their house that led out to the driveway, with a small porch and steps. Sometimes they let Mark and me help them fold newspapers there. They taught us how to fold them into tight squares that needed no rubber bands. We’d load the folded papers into the back of their family’s big, full-sized station wagon, then lower the tailgate. Sometimes Dale or Rick would let Mark and me sit on opposite sides of the tailgate while they drove the route and told us which houses to throw the papers to. Those folded newspapers flew almost like a Frisbee when thrown right. It was a friggin’ blast riding on that tailgate and chucking papers.hgn
Hey… wait a sec. Were Dale and Rick just using Mark and me to do their work? Nah, they were too dang Cool for that. But I might have to check with Mark, just to be sure.
Left to right: Drew (eight years old) holding Herman the DASCHUND, Arlou, Harold, and Mitch (six years old) on Christmas morning in 1959, in front of their East Aliso Street home. In the background, Harold’s P14 boat was snug as a bug in a rug inside the garage.
In 1960, my folks sold our East Aliso Street home. They had bought it for $9,000 and sold it for $13,000. According to Mom, they felt they had made a killin’. We moved one street over to East Matilija Street while Mom and Dad were having their Dream Home built in Mira Monte.
I could tell you all kinds of stories about what happened at those next two homes, but this is a story about my East Aliso Street home — and goin’ into the others would just be a digression.
COVER: Drew with his parents, Arlou and Harold, in late 1951. Photo taken at their rented home on West Oak Street. Editor's note: I believe that's Sunny in the corner.