Attending the grammar school on the beach on the Newport Peninsula back in 1952 was quite an experience. We lived on Lido Isle, when you could fire a cannon across that island and not hit much except the tennis courts and the central restroom. On the fifth week in the 4th Grade there was an 11 year old girl that had breasts! A month later she was found to have been pregnant, by her father, and was removed from school.
Three years later, we had moved to Fullerton. We were attending Wilshire Junior High School. We had Lowriders that threatened us on a daily basis and in 7th Grade we were forced to attend a Boy’s Health Class. They used a lot of WWII Army Training films about Social Diseases and told us about the threats of Gonorrhea and Syphilis as well as Crabs! Pretty shocking for an uninformed 12 year old living at home with parents that never discussed Religion, Sex or Race issues. Dad became a 33 degree Mason of course and mom did the gardening!
We watched a lot of Ozzie and Harriet and the Honeymooners, as well as Texaco Star Theater. Occasionally, we watched Wide World of Sports, NFL and USC Football, Victory at Sea, The Big Picture and The Wonderful World of Disneyland. We also got to watch Time for Beany, Buffalo Bob and Howdy Dooty and Sheriff John – as well as Engineer Bill. Some our personal favorites of course were: The Tim McCoy and Iron Eyes Cody show, American Bandstand, The Mickey Mouse Club, Brave Eagle, Laurel and Hardy, Paladin and Wanted Dead or Alive and Wild Bill Hickock and of course Gene Autry, Sky King and Roy Rogers and Dale Evens with the Jeep: Lulu Belle. Finally, Mom demanded that Father explain the facts of life to us…..which was both complicated and embarrassing for both of us.
The sophomore year of High School……at Fullerton Union High School, they had a Science Day Exhibition put on by the County of Orange and the School District. It contained all those dissected Frogs, bugs, a lot of Bunsen Burners and some stuffed Taxidermy animals. The highlight of course were the 10 large clear cylindrical containers with actual dead babies starting from week two up to the ninth month of pregnancy….floating in some type of preservative – probably formaldehyde! Shocking would be an understatement for someone that had yet to experience a single sexual encounter. The Exhibition was probably the best type of Birth Control that was ever invented!
One area of education that wasn’t broached much until our first year of college of course were the myriad of questions about the black race. In the third grade we had learned about our local Indians in California and how Father Serra had converted them all to Christianity and had them work in the fields of the various Missions in California. The Mexicans of course were thought to be part of the systemic makeup of California. After all, they had literally founded California along with a contingent of a small Russian Colony, following in the earliest days of Exploration right after Cortez had taken Montezuma out.
The word “Slave” was kind of a word you might only use when thinking about the Greeks and Romans. You could see their likenesses in magazines like National Geographic. Pictures of Black people in Africa too. You even got to see their female breasts exposed. Adventurer Frank Buck, had a program called: “Bring ’em back Alive”. Martin and Osa Johnson and Clyde Beatty all did Jungle adventures where you could see native Africans without clothes! Of course you could get photos of White or Mexican girls in what they used to call “French Postcards”. Many of these you could get in Tijuana or find them in your grandparents photo boxes, some from World War I. Don’t remember when we first heard the term Caucasian…..may have been sometime in 1958.
Today, there is quite a stir, in places like Texas and Florida about School Districts teaching about the “S” (Slave) Word or about Teaching Sexual Practices to young kids….even in Grammar School. So, when they are talking Critical Race Theory, do they mean US History with some details about black folks? Having your first cigarette at the age of 11, given to you from the bad boy in your class Pete…..will always stick with you. (Mom caught us…..and made us smoke three unfiltered Camels….and that ended that until many years later). Abortion? Mom’s older sister had four – during the 30’s and 40’s! They used metal coat hangers and sometimes back alley doctors in those days!
The kids today however have electronic equipment. They can pull up every image, photo, concept or information from anywhere. Ten year old girls and boys are being sexually exploited, traded, sex traffic or worse on a daily basis. The parents meanwhile sit in a dreamworld that their children “aren’t going to grow up too fast!” These parents are a serious danger to society in general and many times to their own children in particular. Ten year olds’ steal their parents liquor, prescription drugs, sometimes vehicles and firearms. They buy Opioids from other classmates! Children are inquisitive! Holding back knowledge of the LGBTQ concept is to simply close your eyes and pretend that this information will simply go away or that you may have to send the dumb kids to soccer camp and they won’t get it.
School Districts require intelligent, knowledgeable, wise, ethical and most certainly honest individuals to determine what is truly beneficial and important for the growth and understanding of those under their charge. What must the kids of today think about Abortion? About Immigration? About the Races in General? About Religion?
These issues have been around for all our lives and they are not going to go away. We ran for School Board back 2002. We didn’t win! Maybe the time has come for someone else to step up and say: “Why can’t we tell our kids …..the truth about everything!” If not, be prepared to take away every electrical device from them until they leave home! You will have to watch them every second of the day, to make sure their friends don’t show explicit images, audio or written messages.
Good Luck with that!
Your thought balloon for the day: In 1984, David Lee Roth did a song and video entitled “Hot for Teacher” Watch that video and understand how tame it really is for kids today!
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Why we ran for School Board…..way back when! We can only hope that someone else picks up the mantle now!
So you really do use the royal “we.”
Or are we to understand that you and Anna share memories of the 1950’s, and ran for school board as “Ron and Anna Winship?”
*Celebrating Anna’s birthday today, although she is in Sweden for a family funeral,
We have shared our lives and knowledge from the beginning. Anna has run for both the Water Board and the School Board. I have run for City Council four times which included an abbreviated three week win…along with a loss for both School Board and Water Board. Our memories are inter-twined without a doubt. The number of issues that we disagree on can be counted on one hand over a 36 year history. Our writings are always co-mingled. So, that is the best WE can do to answer your query! We agree 100% with certainly on Women’s Rights and what we consider to be Bigotry and Unethical Breaches of conduct!
* Happy birthday Anna!
Thank you for de-purifying my conception of 1950s OC. I do like your calling “Slavery” the “S-word.” (Technically, Serra having the forced converts work in the fields was a discussion of slavery.) Yes, they did use metal coat hangers, and many other methods with gruesome results, and most of the country (though not the Republic of California) will likely see a lot more of that again by next year, as I’m sure some already do. That and just arranging an “accident” for the pregnant woman.
On a happier note, Beanie+Cecil and Sheriff John were both excellent. I hope that when Anna returns from Sweden, you’ll have a belated party with a birthday cake, put another candle on her birthday cake, and when you do, a wish she’ll make, and you’ll have some pie and sandwiches and chocolate ice cream too, then sing and play the day away until you remember to have her blow out the candles. (That “one more thing” always seemed like it should have come earlier in the song.)
But I do have some questions:
Why didn’t they send you to Garden Grove HS? That was open by then, right? Much closer, right?
How long was your commute? How’d you commute: parents drove, covered wagon?
What did your not having had sex have to do with being shocked by seeing preserved fetuses? You would still never have seen a fetus if you’d had sex, right?
And lastly: so, why did you run for school board?
*Oh, well then THIS is le YouTube juste!
I used to send that clip out to my FB friends on their birthdays, but after a while the hassle of my finding the URL began to outweigh the benefit of people seeing a video of a strange man dressed as a sheriff singing across the fourth wall.
*Dr. D., yes. indeed we do love Chocolate. Anna loves almost anything chocolate, as long as it is Swedish. I prefer a really loaded Hot Fudge Sundae!
For you other question: When we moved from Lido Isle in 1954, we spent a brief year
living in Norwalk on Via Piuma Street, directly across from one of the local Dairy’s. Got to see a calf born from time to time. Went to the local middle school, while my parents were building their house at 100 La Entrada Place in Northern Fullerton. Sunny Hills High School didn’t open for a couple of more years until after I graduated. Road the bus to school with Sandy Doggett…..Sandy was probably my first high school crush….but of course being a typical 13 year old wimp….she had nothing to do with me. Her dad was the Radio Commentator for the Newly ensconced Brooklyn Dodgers. Jerry Dogget, Buzzy Bevasi and some other folks lived across Fullerton Road….at the time. Got my first car, a ’40 Ford Coupe in 1955 but couldn’t drive it until I got my Learner’s Permit and had taken High School Driver’s Ed Training, ..which all came in late 1956. Our training car was a brand new ’57 Chevrolet 4-door, from Connell Chevrolet – three speed stick on the column. This time gave me a time to rebuild my ’40’s, 59A block, ported and relieved, bored and stroked, put in a new cam, replaced one of the cluster gears in the transmission myself, nosed and decked, ’56 Packard Midnight Blue paint for and bigger
tires………. Anna is so tired of hearing these stories…….
Hope that answers your questions. Thanks so much for all the great video’s for Anna’s Birthday…very nice!
One last thing: Walter Knott himself gave our Commencement Address to our High School Graduation Class. David Boies also graduated in ’59 and was one of my big competitors in Discussion and Debate! Extemporaneous and Impromptu however was my forte going to most competitions in So. Cal. NO…..we never have seen Boies after High School. Both of us however are/were members of the National Forensic League…ha.ha.ha! Like everyone else…our high school photo was terrible!
*”Anything chocolate as long as it’s Swedish.”
I will go out on a limb and guess that most things chocolate are not Swedish.
*Chairman Vren,
Please go to IKEA and look in the food section, They have wonderful
Chocolate Balls with Coconut, Daim Candy, Cookies with Chocolate and
a lot more. Even Larry Gilbert might want to take a trip there?
And “this is your life.” Ralph Edwards, host
*So Larry, maybe you can help the young kids out and talk about the “Sexual Revolution” during the 1960’s and 70’s!
Kids today, need to know what they might have missed?