Opposite Side of San Francisco, June 9, 1968

To this day, I have no idea how many miles we had walked just to reach the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge that day.  (And there was a picture of both Mike and me standing there that we must have coaxed someone else to take for us.)  Unfortunately, though the day was still young enough, we had an evening flight from SFO to LAX to catch.  And we still had to walk back into San Francisco, to the downtown airline terminal to catch the airport bus to San Francisco International.

The hike across the bridge had been a challenge.  The hike back was interminable and even more of a challenge, including all of the many other blocks remaining until we again reached the downtown area.  We finally stopped at one point at an old drug store with worn wooden floors that had a lunch counter, just so we could have a cold Coke to quench our thirst.  (I don't even remember that we had stopped for lunch that day.  We just didn't have the kinds of appetites we have now.)  But we did desperately want a Coke.

We drank them in a bit of a hurry because we still had several more blocks to go to catch the bus.  To our detriment, we forget to realize that we had not only been walking many uninterrupted miles, we had also been hiking up and down several hills, several very steep hills in many cases.  Plus, not even drinking many fluids that day--no omnipresent bottled water in that era--and the late Coke did not help--we instantly realized, climbing down from the lunch counter stools, that our legs had cramped, painfully so.

We had no alternative but to keep pushing ourselves and our weary legs and, somehow, we managed to reach the terminal in time to catch a bus to the airport, in just enough time to catch our TWA 727-200 flight to LAX.  With a few more minutes to spare before they announced the boarding, we finally changed our socks and felt infinitely better. 

The late afternoon that our plane raced skyward, the sun was just going down.  A young woman, a couple of years older than we, had taken the window seat; but she appeared to be lost in thought, head down, hands folded.  Mike whispered to me, "Is she praying?"  She heard his question and confirmed, "Why, yes, I am."  We thought it strange but did not press the question any further.

I don't know which of our cars we had taken to the airport because we certainly no longer took the bus to get to the airport.  But just like the lost photographs from that trip and the ones I retained to this day, some of the memories of that trip, enhanced by the remaining photographs taken along the way, are bright and clear as if that vacation were yesterday.  Some memories, sadly, are lost for good, as if they were as long ago as that trip actually was, nearly 44 years ago.

---

 

Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, June 9, 1968

I was surprised to learn back then that it cost 10 cents to cross the Golden Gate Bridge in those days.  You had to pop a dime in the slot before you could pass through the turnstile.  No problem.  We may have been rather poor, earning perhaps $1.50 per hour for our respective employers--Mike at a sock warehouse in downtown LA and me at the wallpaper warehouse not quite as far into downtown LA; but we could easily afford a dime to cross.

Of course, with my warped sense of humor, I thought of all of those lost souls who ventured out to the Golden Gate Bridge to end it all and discovered that they had neglected to bring a dime.  Would they simply glance around, see that no one was watching, and climb over the turnstile to reach the bridge?  And then I also thought that these desperate souls were not even crossing the entire length of the bridge as we were that day.  Couldn't they just pay a nickle, only intending to cross about half-way?  And how much money had the city of San Francisco earned over the years from all of those who had ended it all on the bridge?

Apologies to those who have lost friends or relatives on the bridge over the decades, but that was just the way my mind worked back then.  With the Vietnam War on the nightly news, and assassinations and gruesome murders also populating the decade, as well, it was difficult not to maintain a dark perspective about something like requiring a dime to have access to the Golden Gate Bridge, just so one could jump off of it.  Having been back to the bridge in the decades after this, I noticed that the turnstile and the slot are long gone.  Those who want to cross, or still only cross part way, can do so for free.

Unfortunately, I have an intense fear of heights.  While the two pictures of me above, one flashing the peace sign, make me appear entirely calm and fearless, I was scared.  I wore blue canvas Converse low top sneakers in those days.  My feet kept trying to grip the concrete walkway through my shoes as we crossed, one scary step at a time.  I tried not to look down or around much.  With the wind blowing, I had continuous visions of myself being blown off the bridge to my own untimely end.  I am not sure Mike had it much easier than I. 

---

 

Nearing the Golden Gate Bridge, June 9, 1968

The Golden Gate Bridge, which had been at a considerable distance when we were at Fisherman's Wharf, is now not nearly so far away.  Mike and I were incredible walkers anyway.  I don't know that we ever doubted that we would reach that objective.

---

Palace of Fine Arts, June 9, 1968

As you can see, it was a glorious day.  From Fisherman's Wharf, we likely continued along Marina Boulevard to the Palace of Fine Arts to take these two pictures.

---

Greg at Fisherman's Wharf, June 9, 1968

Wearing my windbreaker jacket because of the strong, chilly breezes off the bay, and those blue-lens sunglasses, I had two pictures taken.  One of Fisherman's Wharf in the background.  The other with the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance. 

As I said, we were young with young legs.  And perhaps we were too oblivious of distances, having already walked down from Russian Hill to Fisherman's Wharf and a still a full day ahead of us.

---

Lombard Street, June 9, 1968

This was not our next stop.  Far from it.  We hiked down Nob Hill and walked through Chinatown, where I took a picture of Mike.  Our next destination was Coit Tower.  From there we might have passed through North Beach before heading to Russian Hill and Lombard Street. 

Perhaps my love of San Francisco began when my step-sister Pam got me a paperback book, a youth novel called MYSTERY OF THE GREEN CAT by Phyllis A. Whitney, which I still own.  I had devoured all of the Trixie Belden mysteries, and the Nancy Drew books, so this was a perfect novel for me.  (I think Pam acquired it by selling magazine subscription.) 

Set in San Francisco, a merged family similar to ours had two boys from the father and two girls from the mother.  Copyright 1957 and 1959, it cost only 50 cents (with the use of the cent symbol, no longer on keyboards).  The third printing, which I got, was from November of 1962.

The characters in the book lived on Russian Hill, not far from Lombard Street.  So memories from reading that book buzzed around in the back of my head when I was finally able to see Russian Hill up close.

---

      

Greg, hiking up Nob Hill, SF, June 9, 1968

The week before I was with Dave and his girlfriend and sister at Mount Palomar, Mike and I arrived in San Francisco the night before this picture was taken, a Friday.  I don't remember what airline or aircraft we flew in on, but once again we took a bus from the airport to the downtown airline terminal.  From there we hiked to the Americana Hotel, located just down from Nob Hill, I believe, where we had reservations.  We ordered Chicken Delight for dinner, delivered to our room.  Mike had fallen asleep on his bed by the time the delivery guy arrived, and I had to wake him to help pay for the meal. 

Once we ate, feeling a bit more lively, we decided to hike around the city near the hotel that night.  A year after Haight-Ashbury, everything seemed to have gone to seed.  We even passed an attractive young woman who picked me out of the passing strangers and asked for money, not seeming to expect any.  I stopped and looked at her wan, forlorn face; but before I could offer any money, Mike pulled me by the arm and urged me on.  She sadly turned and faded back into the crowds mingling about that night on the sidewalks downtown.  I still remember those few moments all these years later and what she looked like.  She wasn't dressed shabbily, and she certainly didn't look bad, perhaps hungry.  Like so many girls of that era, she looked like Katherine Ross from THE GRADUATE.

Maybe she was one of the thousands who had come to San Francisco, lured by the drugs and the promise of a Summer of Love.  But this was a year later, and all of those bright promises seemed to have diminished noticably by the reality of existence.

With all of that having passed the night before, Mike and I checked out of our room, determined to hike as far in, and see as much of, San Francisco as we could this next day.  We had our street map; and most importantly, we had our youthful enthusiasm and young legs to carry us as far as we wanted to go.  Nobody was there to tell us what was possible and what was plain crazy.

I must confess that I do not have any pictures with Mike or with Mike and me on this hike.  I don't know where they are now, but I obviously didn't include them in my photo albums.  Somewhere along the way in my life, they disappeared.  So you are going to see our walking tour of San Francisco from the perspective of Mike taking pictures of me. 

---

    

Dave's girlfriend, Dave and Me

These two are also from June 16, 1968.  The above is in the living room of Dave's girlfriend's parents house.  The lower photograph is of the front of their house.  This might have been when I was also invited to a barbecue at their home but had to leave immediately afterwards.  I guess I neglected to thank them for the meal, and they mentioned something to Dave.  I heard about their comments and sent them a long, apologetic note that rather embarrassed them about making such a fuss regarding my lack of a verbal thank you.

Dave's father, a Marine, was not pleased with Dave's relationship with his girlfriend.  Not many months later, he took Dave out of college and had Dave join him in Southeast Asia--Thailand, I believe--where he was stationed, to break up their relationship.  That action totally screwed up Dave's life.  He was no longer in college, so he became eligible for the draft when he returned.  His girlfriend took up with a guy who had been Dave's good friend in high school, and they would soon marry.  When Dave returned, he wasn't very successful putting his life back together because of that.  He was soon living with his kookie cousin, Mona.  One morning I had to take him downtown to the induction center because he'd gotten his draft notice. 

We'd stopped by the Wayfarer's Chapel along the coast on Palos Verdes Peninsula the night before.  I had tossed a coin in the wishing well there and said to whomever might be listening, "Take care of Dave."  Later that day, Dave called me at A.U. Morse to tell me that, because he had attempted suicide a few month's earlier (probably not a very serious attempt) while he and Mona had been living in Torrance, the army rejected him.  Unfortunately, though, that rejection didn't make his life any easier.  He would eventually move in with his older sister in a trailer park near Oceanside in 1972 or so.  And by the time I was dealing with my military service requirements after college, in 1972 and 1973, he would also join the Air Force as an enlisted man.   But a couple of years later, while I was in the Air Force, stationed in North Dakota, I would find out that he had been medically discharged and would be at a VA Hospital in Northern California, in the "patient squadron," I was told.  I tried to contact him at the hospital, but I never did find out what had happened or where he went after his stay there. 

We'd been good friends since elementary school at Handy in 1960.  But in 1975, I completely lost track of him.  Even Mike had helped Mona out by giving her a ride into downtown L.A., to her job at the Clothing Mart, not far from where he worked.  Mona and Dave were dreadfully poor at one point when I visited them in a clean but barely adequate apartment with very little furniture, in a part of L.A. that was not the best.  She, her infant son, and Dave were sometimes living on just beans for meals, I learned.  I helped by giving him money even though I was making well less than $2.00 per hour.  He'd been my best friend when living with Willene had been so terrible, so I had no problem helping him out. 

Mona never married the man who had fathered her child--it had become that kind of era.  When he died under odd circumstances that I never did quite figure out, and his family disowned both her and the infant, she eventually began seeing a married man in the astronaut program.  He helped her out financially, even set up a jewelry outlet in a small shopping center near the much nicer apartment he had moved them to in a far better part of town, but he soon grew tired of Dave being around. 

Soon, Dave had to move on; and, not long afterwards, I found out that he was living near Oceanside with his older sister and was working at a Fish and Chips fast food restaurant in a town nearby--this was in 1972.  I would drive down there with my new Peugeot bike tucked in the backseat of my Mustang, and we would ride it among the dirt paths near the trailer park.  One time I had to push his Rambler back to the trailer park repeatedly with my Mustang because the seal to the radiator had broken, stranding the car several miles from the trailer park.  It was a long, arduous effort because the temporary seals Dave used, the tops of plastic milk jugs, would stay in place for only a short distance, requiring that we stop, refill the radiator, put another plug in place, and start the whole pushing process all over again.  I drove off that day not in the best of moods when we at long last reached the park.

---

             

In front of the bust of George Hale

Here are Dave, his girlfriend, and I in front of the bust of George Hale for whom the main telescope at the Mount Palomar Observatory is named.  Earlier in the day we had stopped by Dave's oldest sister's house to pick up his younger sister.  His oldest sister had a baby who is in one of the pictures.  But I am certain we didn't take the baby with us.  The stroller in the picture must have been from someone else.  Dave's oldest sister and her husband would soon move inland from Oceanside, and he would become a caretaker for the golf course there.  It was a somewhat secluded valley where soon-to-be-President Richard Nixon and his golfing and religious buddy Billy Graham would occasionally play.  Dave a year or so later related a story to me about when he was also staying there with his sister and brother-in-law and he tried to ask a question of a secret service agent he happened upon but the agent gave him a contemptuous look, spoke not a word, and moved away.   

---

Dave's girlfriend, Sister, Dave Moore, and Me

I must have gotten my 1966 Ford Mustang convertible at this point, but Dave drove this day, June 16, 1968.  The top picture is of Dave's girlfriend, Dave's sister, and Dave Moore.  The bottom is me and Dave and his sister.  (I am wearing blue-tinted sun glasses.  I saw a hot guy at East L.A. Junior College during the fall of 1967 wearing a pair, so I had to have a pair, too.  He disappeared after that semester; and in those days, when you lost your student deferment, you became eligible for the draft and for service in Vietnam.  I always wondered what had happened to him.)  Behind us is the Mount Palomar observatory in the Palomar Mountain Range of San Diego.

---

 

Two DC-9's at Douglas facility, Long Beach Airport

The top photo is of a North Central DC-9, one of which I would later fly on.  The bottom is an Aeronaves de Mexico DC.  The DC-9's also were offered in stretch versions, and the top one is an example of a DC-9-30.  The bottom is a DC-9-10.

---

DC-8's and DC-9's at Long Beach Airport, 1968

I did get quite a few shots taken before the security guard approached in his truck.  The top photo shows two stretch DC-8's, the full one being Air Canada and the three-colored tail is Alitalia, the Italian flag carrier.

The second and third photos show different angles of the same spot on the finishing line:  An SAS stretch DC-8 tail is on the right.  In the middle of the second and third photographs is a Southern DC-9.  To the left of the Southern DC-9 in the middle photograph is a Northeast Yellowbird DC-9, and to the right of the Southern DC-9 is an SAS DC-9.  Behind the Southern DC-9 in the bottom photograph is an Air Canada DC-9.

The original DC-8's could not carry as many passengers as the 707.  These stretch DC-8's, though coming a bit late in the decade, could carry as many passengers with lengthened fuselages and upgraded and more powerful engines:  Series 61, 62, and 63.  The 61 could carry the most passengers but was not the long range version.  The 62 was the long range version but could not carry as many passengers as the 61.  The 63 was longer range like the 62 but could carry more passengers than the 62. 

---

Douglas Stretch DC-8's at Long Beach Airport 1968

These three were taken at the Douglas aircraft manufacturing facility at Long Beach Airport (not long after the merger with McDonnell of St. Louis).  Mike and I drove down there one weekend with the Instamatic camera and I took pictures.  After quite a few photos, we were accosted by a security guard and told we could not take photographs there.  (The company may have been experiencing financial problems and delays in delivering aircraft, so I guess they wanted to ensure that we were not Boeing or industry spies, checking up on them.)

The top photograph is a yellow Braniff stretch DC-8.  The second is an Eastern Airlines stretch DC-8 that features the new 1970's era paint scheme of colorful, bold stripes along the fuselage.  The bottom is a United Airlines stretch DC-8.

---

Aeronaves de Mexico DC-9 and Mexicana 727, LAX

The top photograph is of an Aeronaves de Mexico (now AeroMexico) DC-9, and the bottom is of a Mexicana 727, with a Bonanza Airlines F-27A in the background.  I took these near the fence beside that runway.  Eventually, we realized that the police would not let anyone stand or walk near the fence and the runway, so Mike and I, when we had our cars, would sit in them in a nearby parking lot and watch the planes takeoff and land, while also watching the police force people at the fence to move on.

---

PSA 727 at LAX, 1967 or 1968

This was the simple paint scheme that PSA employed in the mid-to-later 60's.  Most airlines were the same way.  But by the 70's, every airline seemed to be using stripes of two or more bright, bold colors.

---

Orange Braniff 707 and Japan Airlines DC-8 at LAX, 1967 or 1968

The upper photograph is of an orange Braniff International Airlines 707 at LAX.  This was part of their "The end of the plain plane" campaign where their Electras and 707's and DC-8's were painted bold, solid colors:  orange, yellow, blue, red, green.  Not long before this, Braniff had absorbed Pan American Grace, which flew primarily to South America. 

The lower photograph is of a Japan Airlines DC-8 at the old international terminal at LAX.

---

Trans International Constellation and DC-8-61

Trans International, a charter airline, often ferried troops to Vietnam in the 1960's.  All three of these photographs might have been taken at LAX.  Or they might have been taken at Long Beach Airport, probably in 1968.

---

Western Airlines Electras, LAX, 1967-68

Before, during and after college, Ann worked at Helen Grace Ice Cream parlor on Long Beach Boulevard, for the phone company as an information operator (mom actually got Ann one time on the phone when she called to request a number), a school bus driver and, eventually, through her boyfriend Mark's aunt, a job at Western Airlines, which she would keep long after they were acquired by Delta Airlines.  The four Electra photographs above were taken a few years before she worked for Western.  The one in the lower left above is probably not at LAX. 

---

Air France 707, 1967 or 1968, LAX

A 707 in those days was as common as a 737 these days.  But an Air France 707 was an aircraft which represented foreign travel.  Whenever I watched films in the 1960's at the Vogue Theater near the house, or the Park Theater in Huntington Park, I was thrilled to see an airliner depicted somewhere during the film, landing, taking off, taxiing, or parked. 

THE PARENT TRAP:  United Airlines Convair 240 or 340
THAT TOUCH OF MINK:  Pan American 707s
WHERE THE BOYS ARE:  Air France Caravelle
A NEW KIND OF LOVE:  SAS DC-8 (though I do not believe Americans could take an SAS DC-8 from New York City to Paris, France)
WHAT A WAY TO GO:  TWA 707 exterior, disguised, though the interior was of a private aircraft
THE UGLY AMERICAN:  TWA 880 (though one landing in Southeast Asia made little sense)
DO NOT DISTURB:  Lufthansa 707, supposedly flying from London to Paris.  Again, could people living in London take a German airline to Paris?
GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER:  United DC-8

The most entertaining flubs were when they would show one airliner such as a DC-8 taking off and then a 707 landing, as if the passengers and crew changed aircraft midflight.  Or, worse, depicting the landing gear deploying upon landing when it was the unique gear of an Air Force B-52 bomber, not a civilian 707 or DC-8.

---

United 727-200's, LAX, 1967 or 1968

Our second flight down to San Diego one weekend afternoon was aboard a United Airlines 727, like the ones depicted above at LAX in 1967 or 1968.

---

Aerolineas Peruanas, APSA, Peruvian Airlines 990, LAX, 1967 or 1968

Even then, we thought the 990 a unique aircraft, especially a Peruvian Airlines 990.  Only 37 were produced from 1961-1963, and it was the fastest jetliner operated for its time.

---

American Airlines Convair 990

I also once had this postcard.  Mike I would take an American Airlines 990 back from San Diego on what would be our last flight taking the bus to and from LAX.  The flight itself was wonderful.  American Airlines had a great sound system, so we put on our headsets and listened to music the whole way.  As often happened that time of year, there were fires on the hills enroute to LAX.  The airport was also covered in low clouds, so even though we came in for our approach, the pilot pulled up and went around again before we finally landed on the next approach. 

We exited the terminal and caught sight of a bus we could take, feeling fortunate that it had not departed before we got there.  Unfortunately, we were on the wrong bus from a philosophical standpoint.  Just a mile or two before our stop in South Gate, just before leaving Watts, a passenger in the back of the bus, acting suspiciously the whole way, and another in the front who obviously knew the other guy, robbed the driver just before they got off--at first I thought one of them was tickling the bus driver from behind as he had both arms around the driver while the driver sounded as if he was making really odd noises.  In unison, when we realized what was happending, we turned to one another and quietly mouthed, "They're robbing the bus!"  The one with a large, rusty kitchen knife then came back toward us, the last two passengers, demanding that Mike give him his watch.  Mike simply lifted up his arm and the young robber pulled it off his arm and then turned back toward the front of the bus.

Mike then suddenly reached for his back pocket and pulled out his wallet.  I thought he had gone crazy and was about to tell the two robbers:  "You forgot my wallet."  But he then tossed it to the floor, under the seat in front of us.  Without looking down, for fear that what had just happened would be noticed, I carefully moved my foot over and placed it atop Mike's wallet.  The two robbers didn't look back and exited the bus. The one with the knife pointed it back toward the front door and ordered, "Drive on."  The driver closed the door and pulled away.  I looked down at the armed young man and thought that with only a kitchen knife, we could have easily run him over with the huge bus. 

The driver stopped once we got into South Gate and went to call RTD HQ.  The police soon arrived and took our stories.  However, the driver would not continue on to our stop a few blocks away.  Mike was forced to call his dad, who picked us up and then dropped me off at my house before they drove home.  We felt completely insulted that we had been part of a robbery, yet the bus company didn't even take us to our stop but merely abandoned us on a street corner, not even close to home.

We no longer would go to LAX by bus after that close call, having sat motionless like two pigeons.  The robber with the knife could have stabbed us both, and we probably would have still just sat there, dumbfounded.

---

Delta Airlines Douglas DC-8 and Convair 880

I also used to have both of these two Delta Airlines postcards.  The Delta Airlines Convair 880 was, to me, the most beautiful jetliner ever. 

Two Lockheed Electra Postcards

I used to have these two postcards, the top of a Western Airlines Electra over the Southwestern desert; and the bottom, an American Airlines Electra off the California coast.

---

Trans World Airlines Lockheed L-1049G Super G Constellation

I suppose if I had to only retain one vintage postcard, this would be my favorite.  The TWA Super G Constellation was one of the most beautiful airliners, propeller, prop-jet, or jet.  The photograph above shows the Constellation "The United States" with lower Manhattan in the background.  The text on the back of the postcard says that the photograph is from sometime in 1955.  It was sad that in 1960, one of the Constellations collided with a United DC-8 over New York City.  That Constellation crashed on Staten Island.  The DC-8 crashed onto a street in NYC.  Only one passenger, a boy about my age at the time, survived the initial crash but died in a hospital a day or so later.  Everyone else on both aircraft died immediately. 

---

LAX post card, 1960's, American Airlines terminal

Here is another post card that survived.  I always thought it was unfortnate and in between the runways and taxi-ways, all we can see is dirt.

1960's LAX post card

I used to have a slew of airline post cards from the 1960's especially.  One was a vintage, extra-long one of the old Los Angeles International Airport, with propeller aircraft in the background before the new facility was built.  (The cargo and maintenance buildings to the east today is where the old airport terminals were located.)  But most of those post cards appear to be lost.  With two separate water leaks in the storage area where I kept most of my memorabilia, I suspect they were lost or destroyed.  Even the one above shows slight wear damage on the back.   

United Airlines DC-8-61, LAX

Flying to San Diego became a frequent event for us from that June 1967 trip on.  Even after we got our cars, we would sometimes sit in the parking lot of East L.A. Junior College, watching the planes flying toward LAX in the distance over the L.A. Basin, and one of us would soon chant, "Airport!  Airport!"  The other would be instantly persuaded.  We'd then pool our available cash and take a flight to San Diego, just to sit at the airport restaurant counter and have one of their massive hot-fudge Sundays.  The photograph above is likely from Spring 1967, when we just took pictures at LAX.  The below photograph might have been of the United Airlines stretch DC-8-61 that we took on one weekend excursion to San Diego.  The aircraft had just flown in from Hawaii, so there were leis strewn about the cabin, and there were very few passengers flying on to San Diego with us.  I honestly do not recall that we ever had reservations for any of our flights, even to San Francisco later.  We'd just show up, buy two tickets, and board.  The fares were no different if we'd made reservations or not.

---

     

Delta DC-8-61, LAX, Spring 1967

While Mike and I did take a Delta DC-8 back from San Diego on our June trip to the zoo, it was not a stretch DC-8-61 like the one pictured above.

---

Mexicana Comet 4C, LAX, 1967-8

One day, in either 1967 or 1968, Mike and I went to LAX with the Instamatic camera.  We tried to take as many photographs of as many different aircraft as we could see that day.  We may have spent much of the day at the airport and also had lunch.  It was this day, I believe, that we bought our Pan Am flight bags, so this was likely the Spring of 1967, before the first trip to San Diego.  Above is a Mexicana Comet 4C.

---

More Pictures from San Leandro, 1/1/68

In the kitchen of Aunt Jean and Uncle Lloyd's house in San Leandro on New Year's Day, 1/1/68.  The lower picture shows Sue's engagement ring.

I might have left that evening to return to LAX.  Mike recalls that I took a Western Airlines Electra back from Oakland airport to LAX because he remembers me telling him all about the colorful and comfortable lounge on the Western Elecktra.  I only vaguely remember any of that.  Between us two old friends, we have a pretty complete memory of what we did in our lives back then.  Otherwise, without one another, we'd have large blank spots in our recollection of what we did in those days.  What I don't recall is whether or not either of us had our cars at this date, my mom's white four-door Rambler, or Mike his cream-colored Dodge two-door sedan.  No photographs equal no recollection.  But sometime during 1968, with both did acquire our first cars.

---

San Leandro, New Year's Day, 1968

After the Muir Woods tour, we returned to the downtown airline terminal and from there to the San Francisco airport.  I called my Aunt and Uncle Green across the bay in San Leandro and discovered that he was on leave from Elmendorf AFB outside of Anchorage, Alaska.  Also, my Grandma Breeze was visiting.  I asked if they didn't mind my coming over and spending New Year's Eve and Day with them, so I believe I caught an SFO helicopter to Oakland airport and someone picked me up.  The top photograph is of Aunt Jean, Cousin Doug and his fiance, Sue, watching TV in their den on New Year's Day.  The lower photograph is of Doug at the kitchen table with Grandma Breeze in the background, keeping busy, as usual.

What I have failed to mention was that I had abandoned Mike at SFO, to fly back to LAX on his own.  He was upset at having been abandoned, but he was more upset when he watched PSA wheel up a Lockheed Electra for his return flight.  The 727-200 we were supposed to take back had mechanical troubles, and they must have kept a spare Electra ready in case of just such an emergency.  You see, I had told Mike about, and he had further read all about, the air crashes that early Electras had had not long after they'd entered service (a Braniff Electra had come apart in the air over Texas, and an American Airlines Electra came apart over Lake Michigan after taking off from Chicago.  Mike had vowed never to fly in an Electra, but here he was being forced to do so by himself.  He never did let me forget about that. 

---

Greg at the Golden Gate Bridge, 12/31/67

The bus dropped us off at the San Francisco airport.  From there we took a bus to what was called the downtown airline terminal.  You could catch buses from that downtown location to the airport itself, or you could catch tour buses, which is what we did.  We went to Muir Woods, apparently stopping at this overlook.  As you can see, some of the morning fog is still present in the background.  For some reason, I have  no photographs of Muir Woods that day nor none of Mike.

---

PSA 727-200 at San Jose airport, 12/31/67

Rick Barry, who at the time played for the Oakland Oaks of the ABA, was on our flight.  The top photograph shows a Pacific Airlines F-27 and our bus from out of the window of our 727.  In those days, the San Jose airport looks to be out in the middle of nowhere, no longer true these days.  Another anachronism in the bottom photograph:  We exited through the rear exit of the 727-200.  After the inflight DB Cooper escapade, and escape using that rear exit, those rear doors were incapacitated, and I don't believe anyone was able to use them afterwards to disembark.  Besides, with the later widespread use of jet ways, nobody exited except through the front doorway of all civilian airliners.

---

Los Angeles under smog; SF under fog, New Year's Eve, 12/31/67

We took off that morning from LAX and the basin was covered in smog.  When we were nearing the Bay Area, San Francisco airport was blanketed in fog.  We would be diverted to San Jose airport and bussed to SFO.

---

Greg at LAX, 12/31/67

Mike and I took another flying vacation on New Year's Eve of 1967, once more to San Francisco.  This time we were going the spend the day there going to Muir Woods.  The photo above is from LAX, in front of the American Airlines terminal, though we were flying PSA.  At the remodeled LAX,  behind where Mike was standing to take this picture, the international terminal now exists and this ramp isn't there.  The road behind me to my right is two levels now, as well.

 

---

Bonanza Airlines F-27A, LAX

I flew on this aircraft between LAX and Orange County, round trip. Mike and I also flew to San Diego via Orange County on a Bonanza F-27, to visit the San Diego Zoo for a junior college class project. The F-27 was probably flown by almost as many different airlines around the world as the 707 or DC-8. Nearly every domestic short haul or regional carrier flew the F-27: Allegheny Airlines, Bonanza Airlines, Pacific Airlines, West Coast Airlines, Ozark Airlines, Northeast Airlines, Piedmont Airlines, Northern Consolidated Airlines, and Mohawk Airlines (the recent episode of MAD MEN showed a Mohawk F-27 desktop display model).

The Revell model kit above included directions on how to send away to the individual U.S. airlines that flew the F-27 for decals of that airline. My friend Randy Bancroft, of course, always built the Bonanza F-27. I sent off requests to several airlines, to see which one I wanted to build. However, not nearly that many responded with decal sets for their livery.

---

Greg and Ann, Christmas 1967, 8940 Cypress Ave.

My first semester at college was Ann's last year of high school. This would have been our fourth Christmas at the Cypress house. In 1966, I was given The Beach Boys PET SOUNDS album, along with HUMS OF THE LOVIN' SPOONFUL. Good gifts. Mom bought a 1968 blue Ford Galaxy, so I finally had a car, her old white Rambler, which Ann would inherit after I bought the used 1966 Ford Mustang GT convertible.

---

Pacific Air Lines 727

I took a couple of photos of the Pacific Air Lines 727 before I boarded it on the evening flight to Santa Barbara, but I cannot find them. So few color photos seem to exist, except the clip on YouTube from the film. I had to borrow this one from Airliners.net.

---

Doug and his '58 Chevy; Doug along Fisherman's Warf, July 23, 1967

As I mentioned earlier, from December of 1966 until June of 1967, I worked at the South Gate Rod and Gun Club every Saturday and Sunday and hated almost every minute of it. We "trap boys" were treated poorly and paid almost as badly, $1.25 per hour. I think Mike's and my trip to San Diego was a reaction to my finally having quit. After graduation, I got a job through my dad at A.U. Morse and Company just off of Atlantic Blvd. in Los Angeles, unloading the weekly truck delivery of heavy case upon case of wallpaper. I also filled orders from paint stores and individual contractors for the wallpaper that A.U. Morse sold. I took the bus each way every day that first summer, intending to quit in the fall when college began at East L.A.J.C. My salary underwent a very modest increase to $1.35 per hour over the gun club. Our supervisor, Joe, was Italian and played the horses every week. My coworkers were generally Hispanic. The office manager was a white woman; all the women who took the phone orders were also white. The manager in charge of all the salesmen was a white man, as were all of the wallpaper salesmen who visited the many paint stores and wallpaper dealers throughout Southern California.

Mike actually got a full-time job that summer through Richard Meyers at a sock warehouse in downtown L.A. When Lilly Butler, the warehouse owner, realized that Mike was an even more industrious worker than Richard, she let Richard go. Mike felt really bad about that. We didn't hear much from Richard after he was fired until he was called up for the draft. He told me over the phone that he had had to take the bus to the downtown draft board. The bus ride was miserable, he explained, and the passengers were disgusting. The day was a bad one, with the smog particularly pungent downtown. Vagrants lined the sidewalk when he got off the bus and entered the draft building. However, during the intrusive physical, he was found to have a bad elbow and was declared physically exempt from the draft. He summed up his day by saying that he stepped back outside and noticed that the birds were chirping and the sky was a brilliant blue. He noticed the lovely Mexican people strolling along the sidewalks of downtown LA and admired their rich culture. Needless to say, his mood and his outlook had improved considerably.

That phone call, however, was pretty much the last we heard from Richard Meyers. He didn't go to college, he was no longer working at the sock warehouse, and he didn't have to worry about serving in the military and being sent to Vietnam. Whatever happened to his life after that, we never heard.

For me now, with a steady, if paltry, income, and having flown on a PSA Electra from San Francisco, a TWA 880 from Kansas City, between LAX and Orange County both ways on a Bonanza F-27, and to San Diego on a National Airlines DC-8 and back on a Delta Airlines DC-8, I was making up for lost time and had been bitten by the flying bug. When I learned that my cousin Doug was back on leave from Alaska with the Air Force, I decided to fly up and spend the weekend with him and Aunt Jean and Uncle Lloyd. Not one to take the direct route if something unique was in the offing, I took a Pacific Airlines 727 flight from LAX via Santa Barbara and Monterey, CA, to San Francisco, then rode in an SFO Helicopter over the bay to Oakland where Doug picked me up. (A Pacific Airlines 727 is featured in the film MONTEREY POP, carrying rock groups up from L.A. Pacific Airlines had also begun a controversial ad campaign with Stan Freberg not long before my flight, to allay infrequent flyer's' fears of flying. The stewardesses wore hot-pink, mini-skirt uniforms and gave out hot-pink plastic lunch buckets with a security blanket and rabbit's foot inside them. Unfortunately, the whole ad campaign had ended abruptly, and all that remained aboard the aircraft were the hot-pink uniforms and a sign on the front bulkhead that plainly advised those inclined to be nervous: "Relax!" Pacific Airlines would merge with Bonanza Airlines and West Coast Airlines in 1968, to form Air West.)

On Saturday my cousin and I drove over the bay in his '58 Chevy to visit a former classmate of his living in San Francisco. We then drove to Fisherman's Wharf. We also drove through Haight-Ashbury that had already become a mecca for tourists wanting to check out the new hippie haven. The Summer of Love was already in full swing, but I don't think any of us in the car really got the reality of it. We saw a guy with long hair, leading a stoned young woman wearing only a T-shirt down the sidewalk. Once we could, we got out of the heavy traffic and headed back to San Leandro.

On Sunday evening, when I arrived at Oakland airport for the trip home, I was told that my flight had been cancelled. I would have to catch a later flight out of San Francisco. I paid Doug's friend five bucks to drive me to San Francisco International where I caught the Air California Electra to Orange County. I was able to get a bus from their to Disneyland, but that was the end of the line. I had to call mom to pick me up there, for which she was none too happy. Uncle Robert was visiting us, and I think he thought, after he'd heard my story of what had happened, I was pretty inventive to have gotten that close to home before running out of options.

---

Dave Moore and his Rambler, and his girlfriend

The top picture is Dave and his Rambler convertible in his driveway in Orange, CA. The bottom picture is of Dave and his girlfriend at the Orange Country Speedway where they both worked. The speedway was by the San Diego freeway, not far from Orange County Airport. I don't believe that it's there any longer. That whole area has become so commercially developed and the land much too expensive to still accommodate a speedway.

---

Air California Electra, Orange County Airport

Taken from the observation level. Inside was a restaurant. I remember Dave and I discussing going to San Francisco some day as we sat on the upper level and talked. We eventually would go with both our sisters, Debbie and Ann. I didn't bring a camera, but Dave did. We drove up in my 1966 Mustang GT convertible, with a woman almost running us off the road north of San Luis Obispo as she swerved to avoid a dead squirrel in the middle of her lane. We had stopped at a gas station just moments earlier for fuel and refreshments, so hot chocolate spilled all over those of us in the backseat. As we angrily passed her, she looked over apologetically for almost killing all four of us because both lanes narrowed at a bridge and we could easily have slammed into the start of the railing. But since we were all young and still had our reflexes, Dave was instantly able to swerve to avoid her lunge into our lane and then get back in time to avoid the railing.

As I said, Dave had the camera and took all the pictures. A couple of years later, I got to see them and wished that I had copies because one of them was of my beloved Mustang at an observation turnout in San Francisco. I realize now that, even though I first inherited my mom's white four-door Rambler after I got my license, and I had the Mustang for several years until 1973, I don't believe I have any pictures of either car. I lost track of Dave in the late 70's, and so I don't know if he still has those pictures from that trip. We stayed with Aunt Jean and Uncle Lloyd in San Leandro, across the bay from San Francisco.

---

Air California Electras, August 19, 1967

The three Air California Electras with Dave out of the picture. One Air California Electra at dusk. I never actually flew on a Air California Electra.

---

Greg, Orange County Airport, August 19, 1967

Not certain why I have that particular look on my face (probably still hiding the braces). But as you can see by the background, a big square of grass, a flagpole, and not many people are visible around the airport grounds that day. It's amazing to compare all of this to what it looks like today. Terminal buildings and multi-level parking garages take up most of the space to the San Diego freeway beyond where I am standing. The old terminal (brand new in the previous photograph) was swept away, as well.

---

Dave Moore at Orange County Airport, August 19,1967

I might have taken a bus to Orange that summer. Although I took driver's training in high school, I didn't end up getting my license until after I got to East L.A. Junior College that fall.

Three Air California Electras are in the background of the top photo. In both photographs of the new (at the time) Orange Country Airport terminal, you can see that, even in the middle of the day, the airport does not appear to be very busy.

Air California only started service between Orange County and San Francisco in January of 1967, using Electras, as PSA had done several years before. But PSA never seemed to have much desire to serve Orange Country Airport. Bonanza Airlines was the only airline to service Orange County up until then, flying south to San Diego and east to Las Vegas. I took Bonanza a couple of times when the "terminal", such as it was, was only the old tower building. The first floor was where passengers gathered before boarding and where the small ticket counter was also located.

I had sent Dave a letter on one occasion, that I was intending to fly down to meet him, and he could pick me up at the airport. I gave him my arrival time. So I took the bus to LAX, and then flew down to Orange County. But he never showed up. I called his house repeatedly, but nobody was home or answered the phone the entire day. So I sat in the modest terminal building to wait for my return flight that evening. The only time I left was in the early afternoon when I hiked across the dirt parking lot to a restaurant across the highway for lunch at the counter.

Obviously, if Orange County wanted more airlines to service the area, and give Air California a chance to grow, a much nicer terminal building had to be constructed, and was, by the looks of the lower photograph (they still had not installed the mosaic artwork for the front of the terminal, facing the street). But even by August, traffic would not be heavy but was slowly building. And, of course, Air California slowly expanded their service to San Jose and Oakland in Northern California, and Burbank and Ontario in Southern California.

---