Friday, January 21, 2022

Peter Pan and Skull Rock, June 1962

Here are a few fun photos from June, 1962. They are from stereo views, but I decided that the "wiggle-vision" views caused more headaches than was worthwhile.

First up is this cute view of two young kids (perhaps 5 years old?) sitting in their pirate ship vehicle, about to fly over moonlit London and on to Neverland. The girl looks pretty chill, but the boy is all business. He knows how important this mission is. I love that they are both wearing their souvenir "Indian headdresses" - I don't recall seeing those on kids in any of my other photos. 


"Come on everybody, here we gooooooo!". The girl gives us a smile as the pirate ship begins to fly. I wonder if this was their first-ever trip on this attraction? After all these years, it still ranks among everyone's top Fantasyland rides.


We've seen plenty of nice photos of Skull Rock, and I love many of them, but the addition of the boy with his feathered headdress almost makes this one POSTCARD WORTHY. The trash can (which I dig, daddy-o) might not be postcard material, though. At this point Skull Rock and the lagoon were two years old, but the plants are still pretty small. It looks like the highest waterfall (to the right of the skull) wasn't working on this day.

29 comments:

Nanook said...

Major-
I guess sporting an Indian headdress these days would be considered non-PC, but you cant deny their beauty and coolness. Also, junior's jacket, with split, zippered hood. Talk about mixed fashion messaging-!

Nice cigarette butt container placement at Peter Pan's Flight. Evidently smoking is prohibited above the streets of London and in Neverland-!

Thanks, Major.

JB said...

First photo- The ride operator, lurking in the shadows, is wearing a costume themed to the early 1960s: narrow tie, too-short pants, white shirt (short sleeve, no doubt), I bet his white socks are striped near the top. It looks like he might be wearing denim jeans, which doesn't go with the rest of the costume. No matter.
I thought CMs wore costumes befitting the ride or Land in which they were working on a given day.

Second photo- Major, I think it's a lot of peoples' favorite because of the overhead track system. There's just something about swaying through the air with nothing below you for support. It's sort of like magic.

Third photo- Very nice shot of Skull Rock. Interesting how not even a toothpick-sized smidge of the Pirate Ship is in this picture. Maybe it sailed away to Neverland.

We don't see many pictures of the Peter Pan vehicles. Thanks, Major.

Chuck said...

I’ve changed my mind. If you haven’t gotten me anything yet, I think I’d like a Peter Pan ride vehicle rather than a doom buggy for my birthday.

I think the highest two waterfalls are working in the last photo. If you zoom in on the skull’s left ear (to our right) and track along to the right along that “stone” arch, you can see the little cascade that fed the waterfalls on either side of the skull. That was the highest one facing the main lagoon. The other one at roughly the same height that was all the way over to our right and drained into a little pool to the north of the eating area exit walkway (between Skull Rock and Monsanto) is also running but mostly obscured by a palm. You can find it immediately above our little chief.

Well, I’m off to encourage excessive use of our resources. It’s just what the trash can ordered.

Chuck said...

Make that “…(between Skull Rock and Monstro)…” Those few letters make a whale of a difference.

Chuck said...

Looking at some more overhead photos, I think the waterfalls at the skull’s right ear (to our left) are fed by a different pump than the one that feeds the high point to the skull’s left (our right).

K. Martinez said...

I'm glad you didn't go "wiggle-vision" with these pics. They're beautiful. Not a fan of "wiggle-vision" since it distracts from the beauty of a photo.
Thanks, Major.

Anonymous said...

Yep, they really nailed it with Peter Pan's Flight. And right out of the box, too. No "just give us a few years to build up to something cool."
I think the whole "looking down on everything" perspective makes the ride more exciting. If you try to imagine it from a non-suspended viewpoint, it really seems pretty boring. Of course, that wouldn't work anyway, since forced perspective is used more than snails in France. I don't know what that means.

Skull rock is always the coolest of the cool! How could it miss? You have cliffs, waterfalls (plural!), and SKULLS! Maybe its removal was actually part of the "deskullification" of Disney? Of course, pirate skulls seem ok, for some reason, so probably not. The fact that there is a grotto for sitting and eating tuna sandwiches just pushes this whole idea over the top!

Bravo, old Disney, Bravo!

"Lou and Sue" said...

Note to self: Add colorful headdress to wardrobe.

These are gems, Major.

Kathy! said...

I noticed the weird cigarette butt barrel in the first one too, Nanook. The boy’s pants cuffs are of legendary size! I like his coordinated red socks. Peter Pan is great.. here we goooooo! The last photo is a beaut, what a day those kids must’ve had. Thanks, Major.

MIKE COZART said...

Yeah it seems that most shops , restaurants and attractions in the early years of Disneyland had specific themed costumes for females , many male employees ... or “Disneylanders” did not. But rather wore just a office-life shirt and narrow tie with a jacket. This outfit remains in use into the later part of the mid 60’s. Also note that in the early years some merchandise and attraction sponsors were required to provide their employees with a Disney approved uniform / costume. Eventually Disney’s own costume department would design and provide costumes for those sponsor whose employees were not really Disney but that of the sponsor : Like Bell Telephone and Bank of America are two examples.

Growing up in the 70’s we used to play all sorts of things and had props and costume pieces : when we played “Pirates” most of the kids if my street had a pirate hat with feather plume from Disneyland and a plastic pirate sword from Sea World ( they always had a giant plastic jewel at the handles end. We would play ARMY and usually all had items from our dad’s time in the military or things bought at the many army surplus stores ..... we always played the GOID GUYS and the BAD GUYS were usually imaginary “Germans”. We would sometimes play COWBOYS & INDIANS where we split up the two . Sometimes we even just played INDIANS and again , most of the kids had some form of play outfit pieces to use ... like feathered bands , waist belts with a holder for a rubber dagger .... and many of us had wood pole “spears” with rubber heads ......these were really African /Native toys we got from the San Diego Zoo or the Wild Animal Park. The Indian and cowboy dress up stuff was common then in toy stores , department stores , Disneyland and Knott Berry Farm. I remember wanting a TOP HAT badly when I was little that I got from Knotts Berry Farm ... I really wanted it for my magic tricks but I remember wearing it sometimes when we played COWBOYS .... lol! What was I ? A railroad robber baron ? A undertaker ? A patent medicine salesman?? ...... I don’t remember.

One time my friends Scott , Greg and just sister Becca .. we were all playing INDIANS and Scott’s mom would give us “indians” little paper nut cups filled with salted cashews - she dispensed to us from a glass jar from behind the family’s liquor bar ...because THATS what pretend Indians ate in the 1970’s San Diego “wilderness” !!

DrGoat said...

Sue, you beat me to it. I think the only place you could find a chiefs headdress like that is at one of those souvenir shops on the highway, like "THE THING" out on I10 east of Tucson. Doubt if you could find a shocking blue one though.
Mike, If the Indians got salted cashews, count me in.
Really wonderful pics, Thanks Major.

MIKE COZART said...

Another note of growing up in the 1970’s is one of my birthday party’s was all indian themed : my no was really big into cake decorating then ... lots of moms were then ..... and like TOKYO MAGIC and I have mentioned our moms had those Wilton Cake decorating books/catalogs.....
For this birthday my mom mad a large round “Indian” drum cake ( american/native Indian .... not a Hindu theme!!) and a group of smaller Indian ti-pee cakes! All the children guests were given a headband with feathers ..., mine was a Indian Chief type since I was the birthday boy ... and all the guests were given these printed paper ( loin cloths ??? ) to wear around their waists. We had a scavenger hunt game too. I don’t think those kinds of party’s would go over very well today.

Major Pepperidge said...

Nanook, yes, it’s safe to say that Indian headdresses would be a no-no these days, and that’s OK. Somehow I’ve gone my whole life without wearing one, and look how I turned out. (???) Junior didn’t know he was going to be wearing a headdress when he got up that morning, otherwise he would have tried to have a matching ensemble. And yeah, that bucket full of butts, yuck.

JB, I wonder when they decided to have women dressed as Snow White as ride operators? It must have only been fo a very short time. We see a LOT of ride operators - especially noticeable in Fantasyland - wearing the white shirts and skinny black ties. I agree about the overhead track, and the way it gives a wonderful swooping feeling as it takes occasional dips, or as it goes around curves. Pretty neat. I wonder how many other rides had already used that system outside of Disneyland? I think the photographer must have purposely left the Pirate Ship out of the frame in the last photo, he wanted skull and nothing but skull.

Chuck, at the Richard Kraft auction they had a Peter Pan vehicle, and I think they had a Doom Buggy as well… I think I would choose the flying pirate ship as well! And you’re right, the highest waterfall might be working, I do see the little bit of cascade. Somehow I thought that the highest waterfall was more than a trickle, but of course it is mostly hidden by rock at this angle.

Chuck, too late, “Monsanto” is on the record and it can’t be changed!

Chuck, my friend Mr. X often complains about waterfalls not working, I think that those pumps must be expensive to operate. That probably wasn’t really the case in the early ‘60s though.

K. Martinez, “wiggle vision” was mostly my attempt at trying something new, but it was always a mixed bag. Even if the 3-D effect worked OK (which it often didn’t), the flashing back and forth was distracting.

Stu29573, I haven’t seen the latest improvements to “Peter Pan”, but I’ve always loved this ride - obviously everybody else does too, based on the lines. Yes, the bird’s-eye view is really great, I can’t even imagine what sort of ride it would be from more standard “on the ground” vehicles. I’ve mentioned how much I loved Skull Rock when I was a kid, especially at night, when its eyes glowed green. SO COOL.

Lou and Sue, send pictures of you wearing a headdress! ;-)

Kathy!, I know that smokers are not happy about being unable to light up in the park - I still think it would be nice if they provided an out-of-the-way place for them to congregate so that they don’t lose their minds. I’m glad to not have to smell the smoke, though. That boy’s mom knew that he would shoot up four or five inches soon!

Mike Cozart, it does seem like costumes for men (back in those days) were sort of random. The balloon vendors who had to wear those “Tyrolean” costumes (the poor guys) were an exception in Fantasyland. Of course the Jungle Cruise CMs had many different costumes to choose from. Our friend Huck (I need to email him to see how he’s doing) told us about the Bell employees and how they worked at the park. I don’t remember playing “pirates”, but we sure did a lot of “kung fu”, thanks to the movie “Billy Jack”, and thanks to Bruce Lee movies. We’d put sticks against the wall and snap them in two with our might kicks. I can’t even print the name of a game we played where we’d chase a person with a football, it’s unbelievably rude. Of course at the time we didn’t think twice (or even once) about it. I wanted a top hat too, but I wanted one of those pop-up types that you sometimes saw in the movies. I love the memory of your friend Scott’s mom with the cashews. Hey, that’s a good healthy snack!

Major Pepperidge said...

DrGoat, I think you’re right, those headdresses (along with many other Disneyland souvenirs) were probably pretty generic, although I do have a friend who has some amazing early collectibles, and it is surprising how many of them were customized for the park in some manner. Anybody else out there love those almonds with the smoked salt? I was addicted to those when I was a kid.

Mike Cozart, cake decorating must have been a brief fad for moms in the early ‘70s… my mom took a class, and that meant that we got a new cake every week. Of course I loved it! The only one I remember vividly is the clown, I assume she had to buy a different mold for each cake, I wonder what happened to those. As far as I know she only used them once. Paper loin cloths, whoa!!

"Lou and Sue" said...

Major, how come you didn’t ask Mike for a photo from that birthday party? It may top the one of him in the saloon?? Though I doubt it. It still makes me laugh.

Bu said...

We had Indian Guides and feathers were some sort of "Boy Scout Badge" equivalent. Same things with our beaded necklaces. A different bead for a different rite of passage. I loved the Wilton Cake stuff. A cake a week sounds great. A cake a day sounds better. I had the Donald Duck mold and it was super fun to decorate. Took forever and the cake was eaten in a nano-second. Nothing says "flying over London in a fantasy boat" more than a bucket of cigarette butts! That is probably more accurate than we know... as about the same time this photo was taken all of my London relatives were smoking like chimneys. That continued all the way up until I went to Oxford where I was also smoking like a chimney- as were all my thespian student co-horts. Not sure if I have one photo of me without holding a cigarette or one hanging out of my mouth. I don't smoke now, but that bucket in the Peter Pan queue makes me WANT TO!!! "Check" on the costuming. It looks like the ladies got fancy ones and the boys got white shirt and grey trousers. In some places that didn't change. However white socks were a great big no no. Black socks ONLY. Thats why if you were in Bear Country and wearing those boots you regaled in the fact that you could wear your white socks. For "emergencies" there was a vending machine that sold black socks for a nominal fee. Employees were sent back to be "compliant" or go home. Hard core those days were. The vending machine sold other things like a comb, or a hair net, and a couple of other things that didn't allow employees to get away with anything. Shoes were to be black oxfords with a defined heel. The "shoe mobile" made regular trips backstage. If you didn't have the cash, payroll deductions could be made over the course of a few weeks which I thought was very nice for those who did not have the generally $40 price for a regular pair of shoes. For fun, as a kid I am going to eat a sandwich under a dead persons decapitated fleshless head. When you think of it that way it does seem kind of macabre. In high school I was completely horrified to find out that the full scale skeleton that we studied was an actual skeleton. Maybe it was those feathers and beads that made me so sensitive?! The photos are great. The two boys are so serious on that ride- holding that bar like they are going to take off into outer space. Don't forget your black socks everyone!

Chuck said...

re: Wilton Cakes...Mrs. Chuck took a couple of Wilton classes in the 2002-2003 era, and we still have various molds and decorating tools that, unfortunately, get very little use anymore. Still, she made some amazing cakes, like a hamburger cake (it only looked like a hamburger) and a Winnie-the-Pooh cake (not actually made from a stuffed bear) for my youngest's first birthday.

Mike, I had a "Cowboys and Indians" birthday one year, I think when I turned five. I remember a cowboy cake from a store and paper-and-feather headbands. My birthday is in November, and I remember I was a cowboy that year for Christmas (my sister dressed up as a cowgirl).

A neighborhood kid a couple of years later had a very elaborate (and educational) Native American-themed birthday party. The family kids made a probably 3/5 scale teepee in the backyard with newspaper and some sort of poles, and then made beef jerky over a fire while they camped out in it. We had the party in and around the teepee, and while we had cake we also had some home-made jerky. I remember the parents using the party as a teaching moment on how Plains Indians lived.

They were a fun family, and very much into home educational experiences. They had a big garden, and they even grew vegetables in the borders where most people plant flowers or lava rocks. Their son who was my age had globes of both the Earth and the Moon in the same scale.

Chuck said...

Correction - "...I remember I was a cowboy that year for Hallowe'en." I was Monstro that year for Christmas.

JB said...

Chuck, Disney ought to place other cans around the park, too. Like "Waste Gasoline" and "Waste Electricity".
I'm glad your straightened out the Monsanto/Monstro thing. I was getting a headache trying to figure out what Monsanto had to do with it.

Kathy!, haha. I didn't even notice those cuffs. I think I saw them but thought they were just something that I couldn't figure out what they were. They might win 1st prize in the Tall Cuffs category.

Mike, I love your recollections of neighborhood kids at play. The only thing I remember playing (besides Tag, Hide and Seek, Red Rover, etc.) was 'cowboys', no Indians that I recall. This was in the late '50s to early '60s. We all had cap guns loaded with rolls of red-colored caps and fired at each other from behind shrubs and such. Somehow we would determine who got 'hit' and who missed. There must have been rules of some sort but I sure can't recall them now. Whoever got 'hit' would have to lie down till the round was considered to be over. When everyone was 'dead' except one, a new round could begin. In addition to the cap guns going off, we usually verbally added a "Pow!" just to make sure the other guy was truly, unequivocally dead.

TokyoMagic! said...

The sand and the cigarette butts in that ashtray, gave kids something to play with while there were waiting in line!

Mike and Major, don't forget that the Carvel cake pan for Fudgie the Whale, could be rotated 180 degrees, and also used to make a Santa Claus cake. How many of Wilton's cake pans can make that claim? Although, I suppose the Cinderella "cake dress" pan could potentially be used for a "Matterhorn" cake.

When I was ages 3 through 5, my family would go to a cool 1960s western themed steak house. They would give the kids a feathered headdress. I wasn't quite as plush as the ones in these pics (shorter and fewer feathers), but it was pretty darn nice for a "freebie." I remember the feathers were very plush. Sadly, none of those survived the years of my brother and I playing with them, but the restaurant is still standing and has not been "bastardized" or torn down, like so many other establishments from that era. However, they did stop giving out the feathered headdresses.

Anonymous said...

Crud! I had the car started and was heading out for my headdress!
Of course, I had no idea where I was going...

JG said...

Major, I love these photos. Especially Skull Rock, that one is almost perfect, even has a proper trash can.

I don't recall having an Indian headdress of my own, but I do remember having one loaned to me for a photo by the Chief in Knotts Berry Farm. I was probably wearing white socks in the photo.

We have talked before about the mens "Air Force" uniform versus the ladies "dress-up" outfits. I have one picture recurring in my slide show of Alice wrangling caterpillars as Lt. Smith looks on approvingly. I find this dichotomy fascinating and wondering what drove the decision to have the men so plain, and the ladies so fancy. I doubt that it was expediency or lack of imagination, since there are so many examples that the old WED wasn't driven by those limitations. The Columbia's existence is proof of that.

Seems like I rarely played with others as described here. I lived way out in the country with no close neighbors. Most of my interactions with friends were at school on the playground and there were no pirate hats, feather headdresses etc. there. I was alone much of the time, but not really "lonely" as a kid. Now that I'm old, I am grateful for my friends on the other side of the screen. I liken all of you as pen-pals that correspond almost every day.

Thank you Major (and all of you), very much indeed. I've been ill quite a lot lately, but seem to be over the worst. GDB is a fine therapeutic.

JG

"Lou and Sue" said...

JG, I am so sorry to hear you've been ill, but it's good to hear you're improving. I'm glad we can help! Am sending some get-well wishes and hugs your way.

In the early 70s our favorite outdoor childhood game was "Tag in the Dark" - and it was, obviously, played after dark. I'm guessing there were at least 6-12 kids playing at any one time (the more, the merrier), and we made boundaries that included about 8 houses/yards, and a T-intersection of streets that was in the middle of the 8 properties. You could not cross the boundaries and you could not go inside any house, garage or car. If you found a really good hiding spot, you could relax and watch everyone running back and forth across the streets. Spooky and fun. Miss those summertime "days" (nights).

I still want to see Mike's Indian Chief pictures, here.

Chuck, though you later retracted it, you said, "I remember I was a cowboy that year for Christmas (my sister dressed up as a cowgirl)."
I have pictures at Christmas time wearing my cowgirl outfit, around 4-5 years old. It's interesting how kids LOVED cowboys/cowgirls, back in those days. (And, Chuck, let's see your cowboy photos!)

Major Pepperidge said...

Lou and Sue, I didn’t think I wanted photos of anybody in a paper loincloth!!

Bu, my best friend was in the Indian Guides, it’s funny because he looks like Satan, but he’s actually very nice and talks about his time in the Guides often. Wilton Cakes, I have no idea if that was what my mom was involved with at all. I probably could have used less cake in my life, as much as I liked it. I loved my grandparents but hated that they both smoked, it was awful to leave their home smelling like an old ash tray. I’d need a shower and would have to wash all my clothes. Black socks, snore. How about some nice argyle socks? That’s what I’d want. Who even notices socks, anyway? I know that they wanted “The Disney look”, but jeez. I guess that’s just what came with the job, and if somebody didn’t like it, they could go elsewhere. No free spirits wanted! I guess I’m not that squeamish about skeletons, even real ones - I may have mentioned it before, but my mom bought me a genuine human skull in an antique shop in Wisconsin of all places. I still have it, though it does not get much display time.

Chuck, it sounds like my mom’s classes pre-dated the Wilton curriculum, if they were doing things in the early 2000s. Ooo, a hamburger cake, I’d love that. Hey, I think my mom made a Winnie the Pooh cake too! I never had a theme birthday, I guess I wasn’t imaginative enough. I wanted a “destination birthday” in which all of my young friends had to meet up in Nepal. Home made beef jerky! My nephew made some last year, it was pretty good. He gets a bee in his bonnet about something like that, and then he gets it out of his system, never to think about it again. In fact he was literally interested in raising bees for a while.

Chuck, oo-la-la, you used the apostrophe in “Hallowe’en”! Very fancy.

JB, why limit yourself to just wasting paper? There’s so much to waste! Food, time, water… it’s all about ME! Monsanto has to do with everything, I’ll have you know. I want pants with 5” cuffs, so that people will think I am still growing. Those cap guns with the paper rolls were so fun. Were the green rolls any different from the red ones? I loved the smell. Sometimes we would just take the rolls and hit the little gunpowder blisters with a rock to make them explode.

Major Pepperidge said...

TokyoMagic!, the sand also made for a healthful snack for hungry tots. I didn’t know that the Carvel cake pan for Fudgie was also used for Santa - I could have sworn that it was also used for Cookie Puss, but I never bothered to do any research. Hey, I’d like a Matterhorn cake. Hmmm, I wonder what the western-themed steakhouse was? “Ponderosa”? I guess there were many. As a kid I would have loved getting one of those headdresses.

Stu29573, if you don’t have a headdress, you can always wear a nice afro wig. Perfect for all occasions.

JG, I do love these photos as well, which is why they made the cut for Friday. I know I had a red felt cowboy hat, very much like Jessie the Cowgirl’s in Toy Story 2, I’m sure I have photos of myself wearing it. Somewhere. I honestly don’t remember wearing black socks unless I was going to church. I wonder if the standard men’s outfits were just considered to be “classic” and businesslike, while there was no such standard for women? I admit that it is more fun to see the young ladies dressed as Alice or Snow White. Living in the country must have had its good points too - though maybe not? I’ve heard about cow tipping, but that just sounds kind of mean. Poor cows. OH NO, I’m so sorry that you have been sick, I hope that you truly are on the mend! Feel better soon.

Lou and Sue, it sucks to be sick, but it’s always nice to realize that the worst is behind us, and that every day we will feel a little better. Tag in the dark sounds fun. My dumb younger brother liked to get his BB gun, and his friends would put on goggles and shoot at each other! Somehow nobody got hurt to my knowledge. Still, it boggles my mind even today. Those playtimes with fellow kids seem so long ago now, at some point we moved to new places and didn’t have the same sort of friends as before. We did like to go to the creeks and rivers and get into trouble, that’s where I tried cigarettes and knew immediately that I hated them. I liked my cowboy outfit (well, the hat anyway), but honestly don’t remember anybody ever playing “Indian”!

JG said...

Major, one of the best parts of growing up on our farm, I had almost a mile of river front beach and a whole separate canal full of fish and frogs all to myself. In recall, in was almost as good as living on TSI, without the fort or the cave.

I think you may be on a right track. Back then, maybe people looked to men to be in authority, and the tie and conservative uniform made them look like IBM employees to inspire confidence, while women were not in “business” except in “support roles” and so the ladies were more “themed”?

Sue, thanks so much! I had a half week down with the plague and then right after, another half week recovering from the so-called “booster”. Neither was a real dangerous illness, only a mild fever and sleeping 20 hours/day like my cats. Scarlet Fever was worse. I’m lucky since co-workers had similar exposures and were much more sick. Worst part was not being able to work, but my team covered for me. Grateful for my GDB friends.

JG

JB said...

Tokyo, playing in the ashtray/barrel sounds like fun! You could mound the sand up into a dune and line up all the cigarette butts to make a retaining wall. Then go dumpster diving in the trashcans to find used cups with melted ice, and add that to the beach scene to simulate an ocean! Umm... I never did that... nope... never.

JG, I got a little teary eyed reading about how you were all alone with no one to play with as a kid. Glad to hear your health is getting better. I got my Covid booster and a flu shot and a pneumonia shot all on the same day in late October. Not fun. I felt lousy with a lot of muscle pain for about a week.

Sue, I remember us neighborhood kids playing long after dark on warm summer evenings, not sure what though.

Major, I'd forgotten about the green caps. I assume they were the same as the red ones, just a different brand maybe. A couple of times, I took a whole roll of caps and clobbered it with a hammer or rock to produce a wonderfully loud BANG! My ears would ring for several minutes afterward. Probably why I have tinnitus now. :-\
And yes, the smell of exploded gunpowder is heavenly, probably filled with carcinogens as well.

TokyoMagic! said...

Major, I think the Cookie Puss mold/pan could be used to make another cake, but I can't remember now what that was. I remember at Christmas time, when they would advertise their Santa cake, it was obvious they had turned Fudgie around.....now that I think of it, only 90 degrees, and decorated his tail so that it would look like Santa's hat.

Major and Stu, that restaurant is called The Steak Corral. It really has gone virtually unchanged on the outside, for 50+ years. And I've heard that the inside hasn't been altered much, either. The outside has a statue of a little cowboy, about the same size as the Bob's Big Boy statues outside of those restaurants. He used to be lassoing a giant steak, but the steak disappeared some years ago. Maybe it was stolen? They had at least two locations in California, Arcadia and Whittier. And it's the Whittier location that is still standing. I think Charles Phoenix even visited it, a few years back.

JB, I remember sitting in the Sears shoe department, as a child. There were those tall ashtrays with a "trap door." I remember pushing the button to make the trap door open and my mom telling me how dirty that was and that I shouldn't be touching it. I don't think I ever did again. The smell of the old stale ash residue inside was enough to make you want to vomit, so I'm not sure why I was touching it in the first place. Kids will be kids!

JG said...

JB, thanks.

JG