Blast from the Past Articles

Halloween traditions

I have fond memories of Halloween -- costumes,  trick-or-treating, and giant candy bars -- not those tiny "fun-sized" ones that we hand out now. My friends and I grabbed our pillowcases and walked the entire tract of  Whiting Woods. My mom said one year, we had 200...

Golly as an exclamation

I was walking across campus at Occidental College, a path surrounded by native oak trees,  chatting with this guy, and I blurted out, "golly." He didn't say anything about my odd exclamation. Frankly, I didn't know it was odd. But later, after we were married, he told...

Burbank and Palm Springs and Carmel California in the 1960s

At the time of my birth, my parents were living in Burbank, California, home to film studios and Lockheed Aircraft. Both my Mom and Dad worked at Lockheed -- my Dad was a sales engineer, and my Mom checked the updated blueprints for the airplanes. You remember that...

1960s California culture

I grew up in the suburbs of Hollywood in a small town that housed Marilyn Monroe's mother. La Crescenta is tucked into the Verdugo Mountains and was named after the settler, Don Jose Verdugo, in 1784. The Tongva Indians inhabited the area before that.     In...
Bewitched

Bewitched

I’ve always wanted a little mystical, magical power. Bewitched was my favorite TV show. I would get all my homework...

read more
1960s bathrooms

1960s bathrooms

I've never seen a bathtub like this, except in my childhood home. Yep, it's the same tub, circa 1950's -60's. Cast...

read more

Finding Friends

  My daughter called, asking my opinion about preschool for her 2 1/2 year old. We never did preschool with my...

read more

High Heels

I never wear high heels. I grew up in the 70’s and had kids in the 80’s. HIgh heels were not part of the deal, instead...

read more