Summer in the Valley

Fresh Hell, California 

It is finally September. And Labor Day Weekend is upon us. It's going to be a scorcher. In fact, my iPhone weather app reports that tomorrow, the day before Labor Day, the temperature in my community here in the San Fernando Valley will be 112. For those of you who aren't in the know: That's hot! It would be nice if I didn't complain about this. But then, it wouldn't really be whatwouldsandrado if I didn't complain. But I shall try to temper my complaints with some positive info, and shared memories about The Valley.

I grew up in Burbank. The Burbank of Warner Brothers, Walt Disney and NBC. All through my childhood, to get to the freeway to go anywhere we drove past the Columbia Ranch Studio and Warner Brothers Studio. I attended Mingay Elementary School, where I joined Brownies. By the time we were Girl Scouts, our summers included outdoor slumber parties where we threw our sleeping bags on top of tarps on back lawns. A few of us were able to stay up all night, telling stories and giggling. In fact, it was at one of these that Barbara Rosselli told me about sex. I was surprised by what she described, but even more so that she had learned this from her mother! I later checked out Barbara's information with my older sister, who confirmed. It didn't seem quite possible that people really wanted to do this. Especially on warm, summer, moonlit nights when you could stay up all night with your girlfriends at a slumber party. Summer nights were perfect for this; warm and fragrant with nightblooming jasmine. Why waste them doing that?

We moved out to the middle of the San Fernando Valley in the 60s when the residential streets had no sidewalks nor curbs, and horse ranches and orchards took up a lot of acreage. My mom and dad, who had both graduated high school in Los Angeles and Hollywood respectively, told us that when they were young, they had gone out to the this part of the Valley for hayrides and barn dances. Many of the golden age of Hollywood movie stars had ranch properties in the Valley. In fact, Clark Gable's estate still stands in the center of a subdivision named Gable Estates. An aside: Trick or Treaters hit that neighborhood hard every Halloween as they are known for giving out good candy there.

We settled near San Fernando Valley State College, which became California State University, Northridge (CSUN) before I attended. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz had a home nearby, as did Monty Montana, who I have never heard of but am told was famous.

Summers were hot in the Valley, and October always brought brushfire season. I grew up with fires, and with a father who knew how to navigate the hills to get us a safe view of them. Dad was, evidently, a frustrated fireman. He would get us up in the middle of the night if there was a fire nearby, and was known to follow firetrucks, albeit at a safe distance. As a child, I once asked him to chase an ambulance, but he said No, we don't do that.

By each October, our summer memories had faded as we had returned to school in September, and were looking forward to dressing up on Halloween. Each season brought something. But summer brought whole days spent in my family's pool or in the family pool of my best junior high school friend, Dayle. Dayle could do an aerial somersault into the pool and tried for one entire summer to teach me to accomplish this. Alas... Nevertheless, we spent every day swimming, and by summer's end, my blonde hair was slightly green on the ends from the chlorine. It was worth it. It was a blast.

Dayle and I parted as best friends when we went to different high schools. I missed her. But what replaced our girlfriend time was dating. I had four summers through high school: two of them spent in Hawaii. But the home summer nights were often spent driving around with boys in convertibles, and occasionally on the back of Honda motorbikes. In the same way that Dayle and I had spent all our days outside, I was now spending all my nights outside. The Valley releases heat as night sets in, but not so much that you can't be outside every night; riding in convertibles, attending street parties, watching movies at drive-ins and blissfully comfortable without a sweater. Those memories, along with the soundtrack of the rock and roll of the time, are imprinted on me. And, in their own way are equal to the memories of those summers spent in Waikiki.

Later, when I was attending CSUN, I had an office job in Canoga Park. With no classes during the summer, I worked from 7:00-11:00 each morning. My boyfriend, David, worked evenings for a grocery chain. With our schedules so, he would pick me up at work at 11:00 and we could get to the beach by 11:20. On nights off, we could travel to the open-air Universal Amphitheater for concerts in about the same time. We saw movies in Westwood Village, and saw theater downtown on student standby tickets. Disneyland was less than an hour away. Everything in LA was accessible. With less traffic at the time, there was no better place I could imagine to live with access to so much, and those perfect summer nights.

The movie stars moved away, and the horse ranches are gone to cookie-cutter tract homes. But we still have the summer nights, and all of the memories they elicit. Even as a child, living in Burbank, I can remember going to bed at night and hearing the laughter and conversation which lasted late into the night, of my parents, adult cousins, and aunts and uncles, from the patio at our home.

I have spent this summer wishing it away. I haven't spent much pool time, and even less time outside at night. And, this year, I have longed for autumn. Autumn speeding past Halloween into November and winter. Whoever said Time flies whether you're having fun or not, never experienced a pandemic. And yet, as Labor Day passes in the intensity of a cooker heatwave, I will spend some time reflecting on better summers, including the golden ones of my youth. And all of those stellar Valley summer nights right here in The Valley. Thank you for reading my blog. Stay cool. Hydrate 🍸. I'm kiddding... drink water! Or beer... I'm kidding. Or am I?