BOOMER by Tim Engel (smallest ebook reader txt) 📕

Southwest Museum in Los Angeles. I think this is because of the Indian culture represented there. He was very interested in Native American Culture. We toured the Southwest Museum and saw lots of Indian depictions. Clothing, pottery, bonnets, papooses, and the like. The museum is currently located on Museum drive in Los Angeles and has extensive American Indian history for all tribes from Alaska to South America. We would also go to Griffith Park and Travel Town. Griffith Park was a huge regional park right off the 5 freeway in Los Angeles. Within the park is Travel Town. On display at Travel Town are numerous trains and you can also take train rides. There are a number of different trains of different styles with Pullman coaches and diesel switchers. There is also a Christmas train ride where children and adults alike ride to the North Pole and can visit with Santa Claus.

Dad’s Willys was so cool. It was a 46 or thereabouts. Willys! Whenever Dad saw a jeep he would chime “Look at the jeep, look at the jeep, look at the jeep jeep jeep!” So we got into that same thing – Mom, Tom, and I. This thing was so cool. Visions of camping trips, going off-road, and just being really cool came to mind. How could you not love this thing. Just as the ’59 Impala was cool for it’s beautiful flowing design, the Jeep was cool because of it’s utility. For being a ‘man machine’. Cars are so cool. Dad helped us to understand that. As boys, we knew that Schwinn Sting Rays were cool, mini-bikes were cool, so were go-karts, dragsters, roadsters, street rods, and Jeeps.
Mr. Atlas lived down the street on our side. He lived 2 doors down from the Olsenz. He was a very nice man and really loved us kids. He had skee-ball machines in his garage that he let us use. Actual skee-ball machines just like you find today in Chucky Cheese. Now where in the world did he find these we wondered. But not for too long because we enjoyed playing with the machines so much. They all worked, too. Amazing! And he also had about 20 bicycles. The bikes were available for us to ride; all we had to do was sign out for them and then we were good to go. There were 20 different kinds of bikes. Including one that had an off center hub on the rear wheel that you rode like a scooter. Strange but cool at the same time. Occasionally Mr. Atlas would come up with ideas to make money. One time he had us selling bags of fertilizer to the folks in the neighborhood. He worked out a deal so that we could make some money at the same time. Very cool. Especially for energetic young boys who were out to make some extra money to accentuate their allowance. So we sold the fertilizer and made a few bucks and a few bucks in 1964 was serious money!
Now can you imagine the activity and noise level when we had some 25 kids down at Mr Atlas’ house and the skee ball machines are going and the bikes are all up and down the street. It was crazy. Crazy fun!
Halloween in Lakewood was a blast. We would usually work up some costume that would do the trick like a pirate, a hobo, or something like that. We had gotten pretty clever on our trick or treating. We would use pillow cases and start early before it even got dark. Since we were young and full of energy, we would yell trick or treat as we came up the walk and most every house on Hayter Ave had candy or money for us. Pillow cases make great collection bags, because they didn’t tear and you could grab the top together and run like the wind and not worry about losing any of your precious booty. We would head down Hayter toward the Lakewood Golf Country club and as we got closer to the golf course, we would see more full size candy bars and money. Some folks who lived in the nicest homes would give us $1 dollar bills. No kidding. In 1964 when a dollar was a dollar. We were ecstatic! How cool was that!? These folks must be seriously rich because who else could afford to give us treats like these?
We’d run all the way home and show Mom and Dad what we had. A pillow case at least half full of candy. That’s a lot of candy! Thank goodness that Mom and Dad helped us eat it and also to ration what we would eat. Otherwise we probably would have been very sick!
LYNWOOD
Well, we weren’t going to be staying in Lakewood. Mom and Virgil were to be married and we were going to be moving closer to Mom’s parents – my Grandparents Kevin and Marion in Lynwood. I wasn’t real excited about changing schools. I was going into the 6th grade. I was a little intimidated by the change and remember asking Mom if the schools in Lynwood were ‘behind’ the schools in Lakewood. Like, “can I get a break on this move?” “No, Artey, I don’t think so!”, Mom replied. Oh, well, I had to ask! What I found later was that the schools in Lynwood seemed to be every bit as good as good ol’ James Whitcomb Riley Elementary. I ended up going to Roosevelt Elementary for the 6th grade. It was a great school as far as I could tell and I met good friends and had a super time going there.
We moved into an amazing home in Lynwood on Lewis Road – 10831 to be precise. The home had been owned by a rich man who had been involved in the Aerospace business. It had a slate roof, intercoms, mirrored walls in the front room and bathroom, it had a chime door bell that played “How Dr I Am”, a screened in patio with hard roof that had a ping pong table, built in BBQ, fireplace all made of beautiful sand stone, a wet bar complete with neon signs, a large bonus room that Tom and I used as a bedroom behind the garage. The bedroom was approximately 400 sq ft, had cork flooring with a 2 level safe in the floor, one wall had a giant mural of a lake, it had fluorescent lighting, paneling, a wardrobe, dressing room, and bathroom. Behind the screened in patio was another small room that had originally been a ‘dark room’ for photographic processing. The floor in the garage was covered in tile where the aerospace business was run. There was beautiful cabinetry in the garage with roll away beds. The home went on and on with amenities. One of those diamonds that you just wouldn’t imagine unless you went inside and looked around. There was another large patio with metal awning cover on the side of the house. And liberal use of sand stone all around the home from front to back, in the patio areas and walls.
One of the first things I decided to do once we had some free time was to hop on my Sting Ray and race over to Grandma and Grandpas house to see how far it was and surprise them. I think it turned out to be about a mile. As I raced along toward Grandma’s house, I went through some gutter water that got my feet wet. I stood up on the pedals and ooops, my foot slipped off the pedal and went in front of the pedal. So when my foot hit the ground the pedal hit the back of my leg and sent the whole contraption somersaulting onto the asphalt! My chin went into the blacktop as sure as a hammer hits an anvil. OUCH!! That’s gonna leave a mark! As I picked myself and my bike up and started to put things right, a couple of witnesses came over and looked at me and sort of winced, and said “Oooh, let me get you a wash cloth.” “Thanks a lot”, I managed. Clearly I was bleeding and the looks on these folks’ faces told me it might be pretty bad. One lady brought me a wet wash cloth which I pushed into the wound. “Let me see that”, she said. “OK.” “Mmmm, I think that’s going to take some stitches.” “Really?”, I asked. “Do you think so?” “Yep, it’s pretty deep.” I had never had stitches. I couldn’t fathom having stitches. So I held the rag on my chin and turned for home. When I got there I showed Dad and he said “Let’s go.” Meaning let’s go to the hospital. The Doctor cleaned it out and gave me a shot of novocaine in the general area to numb things up and proceeded to whip in 9 stitches to sew up my chin. It was like a badge of courage. Everyone wanted to see my stitches. Some took my word for it; others wanted to see under the bandage. “Yuck!!” my buddy Joe Stidham said. “Yeah, pretty bad, I guess.” My Aunt Bea later told me to put vitamin E oil on the scar which really did seem to help!
BRUCE and BILL
There were lots and lots of kids on Lewis Road. At one time we counted them all up and it was a total of 58 kids. On one city street. At once. There were some kids that appeared to be about my age. I saw some of them out playing and I thought I’d ride down by them on my cool Schwinn Sting Ray and see if I could get to know them. And as an ice breaker, I had my little fan. Now, why you would need a hand held battery operated fan while riding a bike, I would never know. But it seemed like it might be an ‘ice breaker’. This was the first time I saw Bruce Birdsong and Bill Vilareal. They looked to be about the same age as me. Bruce noticed my fan and said “Hey, how ya doin?” “Good”, I said. “How are you guys?” “We’re good”, they replied. This would be the beginning of some beautiful friendships. We were kids, we loved to play, to hang out, to mess around with other kids. I soon found out that they had Sting Rays, too. Cool. We would be like a gang. Well, not really.
I had never been much of an athlete in my life. But I could ride a bike pretty well. I rode the Sting ray as fast as I could go. We raced up and down the block. As it turned out, I was the fastest rider! It felt good to accomplish something; to be the best. Even if it was only the best bike rider on Lewis Road. Bruce and I became good friends. We hung out with