I begin my education (double entendre intended)

The whole vibe of the 1950's was Father Knows Best but MOM runs the show a la Donna Reed, Harriet Nelson and so many others....really was LUCY a lovable clown or a shrewd operator?

Rivera (the towns had yet to merge) was a sleepy little orchard community that became a bedroon community for Los Angeles-when we moved there in 1952 the main streets of "downtown" Rivera near Burke and Serapis were yet to be paved-there was still a feed and grain store and the picturesque white Baptist church with the cattail filled reflecting pond and the weeping willows.

The old Rivera school house would be moved to Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park-one could feel the influence of Rivera at Knott's in their church and ghost town.

Rivera sits souteast of the whittoer narrows-the Rio Hondo River is south of the town and the San Gabriel River is north a house earthern damn runs across the San Gabriel Valley just above the town and the (brand new in those days) Santa Ana Freeway is the eastern border with Downey.

Its about 12 miles from downtown Los Angeles.

In the 1930s there was a huge flood in California which affected the entire San Gabriel Valley and led to the Army Corps of Engineers flood control project which now includes controlling the two rivers and the use of flood control basins all down the long stret from the San Gabriel foothills to the ocean.

That huge dam was a part of that project and below it was a small amusement park, a trout fishing farm and an exotic bird farm for many years.

Route 66 included parts of Whittier Blvd as an alternate route-that street is in the PICO portion of town which would merge in 1958 it is famous for low riders and cruisers and was also a part of the "Zoot Suit" riots in the middle of the 1900s.

El Rancho high school, an impressive and sprawling institution set on a picturesque site dotted with old growth Avocado trees was finished in 1952 and brought higher education to the area (previouslt it was served by Whittier High School (see Richard Nixon).

As I remember there were 6 elementary schools and 3 junior high schools when the towns became one-all my schools were mere yards away from the high school almost in the center of the town.

I went to pre-school at El Rancho and then to Kindergarten at Valencia Elementary (named for the famous variety of Oranges grown in the area.

I have fairly vivid memories of those days although my classmates have faded away a lot-the town was about 50% Latino and 50% other, mostly Caucasians very few Asians and maybe one African American during my entire school career.

Los Angeles like many western cities was a constantly changing kaleidoscope of communities and ethnic ghettos.

Starting from the Pueblo back in the 16 and 17 hundreds and even further back to the native American communities in the area various parts of the town were in and out of favor but farms and dairy land quickly took over not far out of downtown L A.

Some industry came in during and after the 2nd world war and Rivera was no exception since it was home to the assembly plant for Ford Motors at the corner of Washington and Rosemead Blvds.

When we moved to Rivera my dad worked at THOR power Tool with his father and uncle making $29.00 a week.

On that salary he managed to support a family of 4 and in 1954 when my Mother was expecting my sister his step-father insisted on him getting a better job and he started in the film industry making an astronomical $150.00 a week.

My Mother would have preferred to have worked-she wasn't great at house keeping and domestic chores but my Father was against it-off an on over the years she did manage to have some part time jobs in a doughnut shoppe, a leather tooling store and for a conservative newspaper as a reporter.

Doughnuts were such an iconic part of my growing up.

Every Sunday we went at some point to have doughnuts at one of the various shoppes around us.

We almost never had any in our house but it seemed like my dad needed doughnuts at least once a week in order to function properly.

In those day he worked Tuesday through Saturdays so we kids only saw him on Sundays and at dinner time.

We also went out to dinner at one of three or four diner type places on Wednesday nights.

Wednesday was pay day.

Some times it was Vina Hiveley's Cafe on Whittier Blvd nex to the florist shoppe-she was a good mid-western type cook, made a decent vegetable plate and could chicken fry a mean steak....also it was quite cheap.

I love WARD'S on Rosemead-it was basically a tar paper shack that served HUGE (like 9 inches wide) burgers out of colorful plastic baskets.

The man who owned the place had gold teeth in the front and always wore one of those "wife beater" T-shirts-my Dad said he was an OKIE....I didn't know what any of that meant I just liked the burgers and he looked like many of the guys that worked the traveling Carnivals that came through town which fascinated me.

We had that little amusement park as I mentioned, STREAMLAND PARK but I always looked forward to the traveling carnivals that sat up a few times a year in local parking lots and on vacant strips of land seemingly like magic.

There was something alluring, vaguely dangerous and decidedly sexy about those ragtag shows with their peep show machines from the 1930s and their fixed carnival games....rickety rides...we had one that had a dime wax museum in a big striped tent....Famous people and Hollywood stars.

In the hot dusty gloom of a late afternoon you could give over a dime and gawk at wax busts of people that you mostly had no idea who they were but they were immortalized in wax...that made them almost godlike.

Theda Bara, Ramon Navarro, Rudolph Valentino-names that wouldn't mean anything to me for a few years right alongside George Washington and Albert Einstein...the proximity alone of sharing a tent with Abraham Lincoln made Norma Talmadge important.

Who knows where those wax busts started and where are they now?

One of those carnival tent shows that started on the east coast and go sold west as the circuits dried up in many places during the dust bowl.

We never had a girlie show at any of our carnivals, not with that big white Baptist church and TWO catholic churches to make sure that such lascivious entertainment didn't get a foothold in this virgin familial storybook land.

A couple of the bigger shows did try to add some spice to our lives-a high dive act with a buxom lady in pink toghts and spangles, some french postcards sold from under the counter at the Ballon Pop concession and the occasional "chippie" as my dad called them who would offer a hand job for a couple bucks more for a fiver and the whole shooting match for a ten spot.

They came and went those carnivals and I loved every one...I have always loved that sort of barely legal spangles and feathers peep show kind of entertainment...that and amusement parks.

In later years I got a look at a REAL old fashioned traveling show with all the bells and whistles-a cootch show, a two headed calf and blow off pickled punk and a he-she medical show...oniony grease burgers on the griddle and sex in the shadows...the fortune teller would give you a look at her ample breasts in a spangled net bra-lit by the pink 10 watt bulb in her tent-it just cost you an extra quarter...

And there were those carnival men that looked like the cook at Wards, sweaty and a lot dirty drinking from pint bottles and lurking in the shadows...I knew there was something going on there but it was too far past dangerous for a sheltered youth such as I...

We also lived a short drive from Long Beach which had been a huge Navy town during the war and still had many ships coming in and businesses which catered to the sailors...all sorts of sailors from all over the world.

A jaw rattling roller coaster, creepy fun houses (they actually found a real dead body encased in paper mache in the LAUGH IN THE DARK ride) a tilt a whirl and a terrifying double ferris wheel along with many other rides of dubious maintenance and operational dependability....gambling games, rubber dog poop....cheap souvenirs and naughty novelties.

Up into town were a couple strip theaters...real old fashioned strippers and baggy pants comics and floors so sticky they would pull at your shoes...it was there I was offered my first sex for pay froma genuine hooker of about 40 something (the light was very dim she could have been older) and I also saw my first drag queen although I found him/her very confusing and a friend had to explain-I just thought she was really Butch like one of our girl's gym teachers and just happened to have a marine corps tattoo on her forearm.

I live only a few miles from that Babylon of forbidden delights now-but it has been sanitized and painted up-the lights aren't so dim anymore but nor are they colorful and exciting-the amusement park is gone as are most of the sailors and all the strippers-you can hardly find a girly magazine or an adult book store-its all on the internet so who needs a shoppe to clumsily barge into and hope no one sees you?

Maybe it was the right thing to make the streets safer and cleaner and more sanitary and family friendly but even Las Vegas isn't much fun anymore-where do we go for our cheap thrills and lascivious tastes?

I haven't seen a real travelling carnival show in years-they are mostly corporate money machines run by self proclaimed druggies and mentally tilted folks that don't mesh well with the rest of scoiety-if you don't believe me check out their VLOGS on YouTube-they are scary but not in a good way.

What I want is an Okie in a wife beater with gold teeth in front, a rusty Tilt a Whirl and maybe a 9 inch burger... just for fun...

Double Entendre: first known use 1673