Rites of Passage on South Rice Road

We moved from Ojai into the new home in Mira Monte my folks had built when I was twelve years old, during the summer of 1963. It was right after I was promoted from Topa Topa Elementary School and then began my education at Matilija Junior High School. So, you can see, I was still a boy and dug on doin' wild and crazy things because, as far as I was concerned, I was practically invincible. Lookin' back, I was Young & Dumb.

Although my old home in Ojai was only a few miles away from Mira Monte, the move had taken place before I had a driver's license and motorized wheels. My parents might as well have moved our family to Timbuktu. That's an ancient city in Mali, and it's far away. I mean, all my friends lived in Ojai. They, too, lacked driver's licenses and motorized wheels, and this was long before the battery-powered bicycles that adolescents zip around on presently. Therefore, I had to find new friends and new things to do.

I soon discovered the vernal pool known as Mirror Lake, located next to the railroad tracks (now the Ojai Valley Trail) and Highway 33. A couple of the first guys I met in this new-to-me neighborhood were Rick Askam and Doug Schmelz. They were cousins being raised by their grandparents. The three of us stole the extra split-rail fencing of their Grandpa's to build a raft. But that's another story, and we had to find other things to do besides floatin' around Mirror Lake. Eventually, Joe Silvestri got old enough to hang out with us. Joe had one heck of an arm, and we needed him to play baseball in Grandma & Grandpa's yard. He wound up doin' cool things with us, too. Ronnie Rodarte lived in the neighborhood, too, and attended Thomas Aquinas Catholic School with Rick and Doug.

Ronnie was one heck of an athlete, so he fit right in with us, our games, and the capers we pulled. Of course, there was my little brother, Mitch. He had a few buds, too. All of us, and occasionally, a few others (like my tight buds, Mark Madsen and Mike Payton), would come up with great things to do, like having green walnut throwing fights (the entire neighborhood had once been a huge English Walnut orchard), flattening pennies and nails on the railroad rails, building forts outta our Dads' expensive building materials, teasing Joe's sisters to the point they'd cry, hiding up in an oak tree while annoying neighbor, Mr. Peacock (retired Probation Officer), with our peacock calls; etc. Too many things to list. Besides, this article is about the South Rice Road hill that led from in front of my parents' home down to Baldwin Road (also known as Highway 150). On the West side of this stretch of road was the Ventura County Sheriff Department's "Honor Farm." That's a jail. It's now where Ed's Recycling, the Ojai Valley Raptor Center, and more are located.

Like I stated earlier, I had to find new things to do. Mitch, our buddies, and I were attracted to the kinda steep and fairly long South Rice Road hill like moths to candlelight. Moths don't fare well when they get too close to candlelight. Sometimes, we teenage boys didn't fare too well on our hill. Did I mention earlier that we were "Young & Dumb?" That's why we'd ride anything with wheels (most lacking brake systems) down the hill.

Drew's tight buddy, Mark Madsen, circa 1965.

If I recall correctly, the first thing I ever rode down the hill was my English-made, "Cavalier," narrow-tired three-speed bicycle. My parents gave it to me as a Christmas present around 1960. In 1962, my buddy Mark Madsen and I were in the same class at Topa Topa. Mark didn't have a bike, and he was bigger than I, which logically meant that I should sit side-saddle on my bike's bar while Mark sat on the seat and did all the pedaling. We decided to take a different route home than our usual one. This route took us East on Mountain View to Mercer Avenue. We, more than likely, in our very early pubescent stages, had hoped to check out a couple of cute female classmates we knew lived on Mercer. Mercer is downhill to Grand Avenue. We were movin' along at a pretty fast clip when our bike's front tire dropped into a cavernous chuckhole that caused the toe of my right shoe to engage with the spokes. My shoe toe, so engaged, rapidly whipped up to the front forks, thus causing us to immediately flip forward, with Mark passing directly over the top of me while we slammed into the asphalt pavement, then slid on it for about ten feet. When we came to rest, my foot was still tangled in the broken spokes and bent forks. We hurt so bad we couldn't even move.

Some neighbor lady saw us sprawled in the middle of the street. I'm sure she was relieved when she realized we weren't simply road-kill that she'd be looking at out her living room's front window. She came to our rescue before any turkey vultures besieged us by assisting us to her shaded front lawn. The spokes and forks had ruined my leather shoe, but my foot was fine. Mark and I had some nasty road rash on our bodies that stung like crazy, especially when the sweat got into the gash on my upper lip. I think I got that when Mark landed on my head, which caused me to do a face-plant. To this day, Mark is under the impression I had heroically broken his fall.

The Florence Nightingale of a lady brought us wet washcloths to tend to our wounds, then called my Dad to come get us and my inoperable bike off her front lawn. I know what you're thinking: "Why did Drew tell us about a Mercer Avenue incident when he already stated this article was about the South Rice Road hill?" Am I right?! Of course I am. And, the reason is that nothin' worth writin' about happened on the South Rice Road hill when I was on my Cavalier three-speed bicycle. Oh, here's a tidbit concerning my bike and the South Rice Road hill: Even though that old bike weighed about 42 pounds, I was able to pump that baby from the bottom to the top without stalling out. Sometimes, the bike was about to fall to one side because I was moving so slowly. In fact, as I recall, I was one of the few neighborhood kids who didn't have to resort to pushing their bicycles partway up. Now, let's get back to only South Rice Road events.

Surfing was a Big Deal back in the 1960s, and it spawned Sidewalk Surfing. That is, skateboards! In fact, in 1964, the rock n' roll duo of Jan & Dean released their huge hit, "Sidewalk Surfin." The first stanza was:

Grab your board and go sidewalk surfin' with me
Don't be afraid to try the newest sport around
Bust your buns, bust your buns now
It's catchin' on in every city and town

I'm thinkin' it musta been in 1964 when our parents gave Mitch and me skateboards for some special occasion like our birthdays or Christmas or maybe Ground Hog Day. At any rate, they had wood decks that were only about a foot and a half long. The decks had "SIDEWALK SURFER" painted on them with some funky surfboard-looking decal. Not many, if any, of the other neighborhood kids had skateboards. Our home had a narrow, curvy front sidewalk that Mitch and I quickly mastered. It was only a slight downhill. We needed a wider, steeper, you know, BIGGER challenge. That just happened to be the South Rice Road hill that began its downhill drop right in front of our home. It didn't have any concrete sidewalks; therefore, we just used the same lanes as the automobiles.

Mitch looks on while Drew assists their Dad, Harold, with skateboarding on the curvy sidewalk leading up to the front door of their Mira Monte home. Harold was quite the daredevil in his skateboarding boots! Circa 1965.

Mitch and I somehow worked up the nerve (I mentioned "Young & Dumb earlier, right?) to give the hill a shot. We'd both had skull fractures in a horrific automobile wreck when we were little boys. We survived; therefore, we figured we had luck on our side and fairly hard heads. This was the days before riding with helmets, knee pads, gloves, jock-straps, and all the other sissy body protection equipment. I mean, all one had to do to slow himself down was to pop a wheelie, which placed the rear of the wooden deck into the asphalt pavement. The trick was to know when to slow down because if ya got rollin' too fast and you had to disembark, you were goin' faster than you could run from a standing start. In that case, you'd "bust your buns," as per Jan & Dean, or worse!

Our skateboards had clay wheels, not the polyurethane used at present. Clay wheels rolled really well, but if they came in contact with a tiny rock not much larger than a large grain of sand, they'd come to a screeching halt. This would, effectively and quite efficiently, abruptly eject the daredevil riding the skateboard. Mitch recalls this happening to him. He said he went "head over heels" and wound up with some mighty severe road rash pretty much all over his bod, not just his buns! Mitch reminded me that even though injuries happened to us and our buds, we were right back at it the next day. I did mention "Young & Dumb" not long ago, right? Mitch recalled us sayin' to one another about our road rash, "Just rub some dirt in it. You'll be fine then!"

Mitch and I had a couple of metal wagons. They could have been the common "Radio Flyer." One of them had a brake lever on it. You'd pull up on the handle, then the other end of the lever would engage with a rear wheel to slow and stop the wagon. Hey, if it got rollin' too fast, just pull on the dang brake lever, right? What could possibly go wrong? I sat in the wagon and got it goin' at about what felt about 30 MPH. I had my other hand on the wagon's pull-handle that all of a sudden started whippin' around pretty nastily due to front wheel wobble.

Drew, in 1951 and 1952, learned the craft of wagon-riding in preparation for his downhill descents on the S. Rice Road Hill in the early to mid-1960s.

I freaked, then yanked on the brake handle that was on the right side. I must have leaned too far to that side because, before I knew it, the wagon had spilled over on its right side with me still in it. My right bare leg (I was wearing shorts) was trapped between the wagon's side and the asphalt pavement as I went sliding for what seemed like about twenty yards. I wound up with a HUGE strawberry on the outside of my right knee. Probably the worst abrasion I've ever had (I've had many!). That was the last time I ever rode in a wagon down the hill. But that's not the end of my story about this strawberry. This occurred during my Sophomore year of high school, at the beginning of the football season. I was a member of Nordhoff High School's junior varsity team. It's NOT good to have a huge strawberry on your knee when playing this rough-and-tumble sport. That strawberry would sorta dry up at night, but at practice and games, I managed to get it oozin' pretty good again. I don't think it ever did scab over during the season.

Mitch's tight neighborhood buddy, John Holt, was an avid surfer. You'd think a dude who could balance super well on a surfboard would be a whiz on a skateboard. Mitch told me that wasn't necessarily the case. He recalls that John could never make it more than about halfway down the hill before he would wipe out! I'm sure when John returned to the waves, the saltwater was good for his abrasions, but I'll bet it made him yell out loud due to it stinging. Maybe that's where the surf term "COWABUNGA!!!" originated.

Drew skateboarding with bare feet on the curvy front sidewalk in front of his parent's (Harold & Arlou) home in Mira Monte. In the background is Jeff Hiebert's home, circa 1964.

I asked Mitch’s and my buddy, Doug Schmelz, if he ever rolled down the hill. He told me he did, "I still have the scars to prove it!" Doug remembers sitting on his skateboard after picking up a baseball-size rock in each hand. Then, he'd zip down the hill at lightning speed, but when he'd lean too far to one side, he'd push down on the rock to prevent himself from falling over. I suspect he placed both rocks down at the same time to slow himself a bit. Too bad the rocks weren't flint. If they had been, they woulda thrown some radical sparks!

Another thing Doug recalled doin' is pickin' grapefruit off some neighbor's trees, then rollin' them down the hill at night when cars were coming up the hill with their headlights on. I suspect that's because Doug's rock-in-each-hand idea didn't always work, and he injured his head a few times. I mean, rolling perfectly good grapefruits at cars? He coulda hauled those tasty grapefruits home rather than turning them into grapefruit juice on the road! If I recall correctly, I think it was Doug, outta all my buddies, who had a strange fascination with squished and dried toads on the road, too. To be honest, I did too. Like I've told you, I suffered head trauma when I was a little boy.

I contacted Jeff Hiebert, who is now a friend of mine but was actually one of my little brother Blake's neighborhood friends back in the day. I asked Jeff if he and his little brother Jim pulled off any wild stunts on the hill. He didn't know about Jim but could only speak for himself. Jeff wouldn't admit to me that he did anything stupid on the hill. He did tell me that he recalled riding down the hill on his bicycle many times, tapping on the brakes. He still recalls finally being able to let it rip down the entire length of the hill without touching the brakes at all. It's always been the Little-Things-In-Life that have been Big Things to Hee-Butt (the nickname we called him; a play on his last name. I'm sure Jeff dug it!).

I don't want you readers to get the impression that rollin' down the South Rice Road hill was something just us young guys did. Some of the neighborhood girls were just as nuts.

I recently contacted Joann "Lewman" Troy. Joann told me, "I remember riding a bike down that hill. I was pretty chicken. I tapped the brakes on the way down. I was afraid to zoom out onto Highway 150." Joann was wise, not chicken. But, upon further interviewing Joann, she told me, "I also tried to go down the hill sitting on a homemade skateboard. It didn't end well." Joann went on to say to me, "I skinned up the palms of my hands pretty good!" Joann should have used Doug's rock-in-each-hand method rather than simply using her palms as outriggers and brakes. Live and learn!

Twins JoAnn and John Lewman in their Matilija Jr. High School 8th-grade class photos. Neighbors of Drew's in the Mira Monte neighborhood, circa 1965.

Joann's twin is John. The Lewman twins lived about a quarter-mile from me. John had about the same intelligence as I. If you're reading this, John, my apologies. My Dad hauled home a tandem bicycle that was made by welding two girls' bicycles together. I got this clever daredevil of an idea. It required John and me to don football helmets, jackets over our shirts, long pants, tennis shoes, and gloves. I would be the driver. John, the backseat driver. We got on the bicycle, then pumped as fast as we could get it roarin' down the hill. Near the very bottom, we'd veer off the road at about a 45-degree angle onto the dirt road shoulder; then we'd jump off the bike while it crashed at high speed into the rock and mortar wall along the Honor Farm. The bike would sometimes fly up into the air about ten feet while John and I rolled, skidded, and got bruised up in a cloud of dust on the road shoulder. Yeah, we did it several times. Man, was that ever fun!

Drew and his little brother (Blake) at their Mira Monte home with the girls' tandem bicycle that John Lewman and Drew rode down the hill and then crashed during their daredevil days, circa 1965.

I only lived in the Mira Monte home from about 1963 to 1970. I'm the eldest of six siblings, so setting a fine example for my little brothers and sisters was of utmost importance, at least from our parents' point of view. Mitch was second in line. So, I wasn't much of a fine example for him. We both pulled off some pretty wild stuff, and a lot of it was done together. Our next sibling, Blake, was born seven years after Mom and Dad ruined my tranquility by bringing Mitch on board. Then came M'Lou, Mindy, and Neal in that order. I moved out of our parents' domicile while Mindy was still in diapers (for all I know, she's back in them) and before Neal was born.

I asked Blake if he had any South Rice Road hill stories. He told me he didn't recall ever zippin' down the hill on anything. He did tell me he had a short story about skateboarding. He said that when he and a buddy were young teenagers, they were running around the Nordhoff High School campus when Blake fell and broke his little finger. It had to be placed in a cast. What has this got to do with skateboarding? Hang on! Here we go: A few days later, he was at our neighbor's home visiting Jeff Hiebert. They were on the driveway skateboarding when Blake wiped out! You guessed it, he broke his other little finger! It was placed in a cast, too. Blake told me, with both little fingers in hard casts, it's a bit of a chore using T.P. after usin' the potty. TMI!

When I interviewed M'Lou, she told me she and Mary Silversti had roller-skated down the hill. She told me they, surprisingly, never biffed it. That's a surprise because metal wheels are notorious for locking up when going over really small pebbles. M'Lou said Mary's big sister, Theresa, would stand at the stop sign to prevent her and Mary from rolling out into automobile traffic on Highway 150. Though many times, M'Lou said she and Mary would avoid Theresa, then turn left and zip over the highway to Mary's grandparents' home, located just on the other side, where Flora Gardens Nursery is now located. I've mentioned Joe Silvestri. Mary and Theresa are his sisters. M'Lou told me she remembers Theresa lying on the road as traffic went by. Yeah, the Silvestri siblings were about as short on brains as us Mashburn siblings!

Mindy was the sibling amongst us that has always had some brains. She stayed away from the hill, other than zippin' up and down it in her yellow Ford "Fiesta" when she was a teenager. I'm surprised she didn't require the use of a drag chute the way she drove that thing. Did I say Mindy had "some brains?" Uh...I'll take that back.

My little brother, Neal, and I are 19 years apart in age. I didn't have to be around to set a bad example for him. Blake, M'Lou, and Mindy took care of that for me in my absence. I phoned Neal in the preparation of this fine article to ask him if he'd ever done any Wild and Crazy things on the hill. The first thing he told me was that he remembered when he was a young teenager, he had an old motorcycle that wouldn't start easily. He said there wasn't really much to the engine, and he had just gotten the wiring repaired, which he thought might be the problem. The motorcycle had not been running for quite some length of time, and he figured that's why it wouldn't kick-start. So, there was the hill. Neal figured he'd roll it down the hill with it in gear, with the clutch disengaged, then pop-start it by letting the clutch out after the motorcycle picked up plenty of speed while free-wheelin'. He kept poppin' and disengaging the clutch all the way to the bottom of the hill to no avail. What hadn't crossed his mind was, what if it doesn't start? RATS!!! (that's not exactly what Neal yelled). Now, he had to push that heavy sucker all the way back up the hill. Neal told me he did this about three or four times before he was simply exhausted. On his last attempt, the gas line had come loose. Gasoline sprayed all over his crotch, then ran down his pant legs. Neal told me due to the burning sensation on his tenderlings, he was able to push that ol' inoperative, blankity-blank of a motorcycle back up the hill pretty dang lickety-split!

Neal told me that when he was about 16 years old (Young & Dumb), he modified one of our Dad's waterskis into a skateboard of sorts. I'll bet this highly pleased Dad. Anyway, what Neal did was to use the curved up nose of the ski as the back end of the skateboard. With the turned-up end, it made it easy to pop wheelies. Neal attached wheels to the bottom of the ski. He unscrewed the rubber foot-holds, then turned them the opposite way, then refastened them. He also fastened a moped (those motorized bicycles that used to be around) windshield to the ski. As he was rippin' down the hill on this contraption, a car pulled up alongside him. The occupants of the car stayed next to him. They, obviously, were monitoring their car's speedometer because they yelled out the window to Neal, "45...50!"

Yes, Neal, as well as all of us Mashburn siblings, are still above the ground — somehow.