May 31, 2019 Hews Media Group-Los Cerritos Community Newspaper eNewspaper

Conrad / Maria says:

Great Educational Read. Cerritos | Great Photo of Swallows Bird Nest, which can be viewed in out of the way locations throughout greater Dairy Valley, South Orange County, Palm Springs and Temecula. Many of the birds are becoming more domesticated and nesting Inland Empire and the news are reporting, bird nests can be found in the new OC buildup around Palm Springs.

Said nests, Located on many homes roofing eves, exterior walls, patios, carports, entry foyers, etc. Also, bird watching can be seen under many bridges and mountain hillside, were there are a lot of rock formations. Said Mud nests, are rebooted or build fresh, every yr in the Springtime months and vacant So Cal in the Fall Month and return to S. America.

Personal Note: my 2nd story balcony, many swallows are flying and hitting the windows. Bird flyes in V Shape and is noisy flyers. Walk along the flood controls and river beds, nest are built in to the bridges sub frames.

https://www.loscerritosnews.net/2019/05/31/may-31-2019-hews-media-group-los-cerritos-community-newspaper-enewspaper/

Blanca and Billy Jr. says:

DECORATION DAY IN 1950’S..

Hmmm, What do I remember about Memorial Day weekend in Greater Dairy California, during the 1950s? Few things, read on…….

Always around the – 3-day weekends in the summer, before and after the holiday weekends, could see homeowners travel trailers spotted/staged throughout the city, as residents traveled to: Desert, Mountains and mostly to the Beach. Camping Trailers included : Travel-eze, Airstream, and Shasta travel trailers ( Wings on the side). Many residents, traveled to Huntington Beach: former Tin-Can Alley, for weekend camping excursions. Some families from out of state, came to vacation in Greater Dairy Valley, to camp in driveways and visit with relatives in areas. Travel trailers became the backyard guesthouses for Greater Dairy Valley and some homes had guest homes built in the backyards, attached to the garages. Family cars were large, 20 ft long, so the streets and driveways were jammed with these large cars and station wagons. Parked cars on streets, made for holiday parking traffic….NO such thing as small cars back then. Many streets in Greater Dairy Valley had the man-made CDS barricades, which made for more traffic snarls.

Most of the families in Greater Dairy Valley, had Family reunions picnics in their backyards during this holiday. Many of the dads who lived in the homes, (after World War II), and after the ban of backyard incinerators, built Backyard Barbecue centers, much different than the ones today. BBQ’s were a custom brick fireplace, resembling brick fireplace, but they were used for barbecuing,: Ribs-hamburgers where the main choices along with BBQ hot dogs. Grills were over size, could easily fit couple dozen pieces of meat on one iron grills. No such thing back then, as stainless steel BBQ, no propane, no gas. Back then, entire blocks of homes, could smell the aroma from BBQ grilling, smelled oh so so so good.

Greater Dairy Valley Meat Markets: All American, Crons, Safeway, and Boys. Most of the meat was purchased by consumers, in white meat wrap paper, it was sold as the pound. Meat was cheap cheap cheap. Beef was cheap as 25 cents pound.

Ferndale-Andys Nursery, supplied homes with color plants: Begonias, glads, cannas, carnations, geraniums, mums, sweet peas and few pansies. Orchids were just starting to be intro.

Many homes were building backyard: aluminum patios and engineering /constructing heated swimming pools. Open wooden lattice top patios and vinyl patios were not introduced yet. Most homes cranked up the heaters in their pools, around Easter-Mothers Day weekends, so the pool was the main atom to the picnics. Some yards were deep enough in size, to have slip n slide blankets to run and have wet times. Had to be careful of the galvanized Rainbird sprinklers, hit one of these assemblies, it was like today’s Shark Bites in the ocean. Don’t remember any covered pools, as skin cancer was not a concern for pool users back then. Today, patio covered pools-spas are flooding the market to prevent skin cancer attacks.

Early on Memorial Day or/Decoration Day weekend, the local dads and the men in the city, sat around the (ONE) radio and listened to the Indianapolis 500 or watched it on their black/ white TV’s. Portable transistorized battery operated radios were just entering the audio markets. Most homes only had one TV Set.Greater Dairy Valley Moms/Women in the city, were busy preparing picnics menu: Potatoe Salad, Disneyland Bean casserole, deviled eggs, garden grown backyard pickles, home-made ice cream, rice crispy bars, Jello Salads, Yellow corn on the cob, Watermelons, Tap beer by Pabst Blue Ribbon, Popcorn balls, Helms Bakery goods: Jelly Rolls and Hamburger Buns. Few times, early spring temps, brought us backyard grown apricots to the picnic tables. Gas filled Tiki torches were used at dusk, since Greater Dairy Valley had a lot of mosquito issues, since there were still many citrus groves. Tiki torches were great, when we sat around and roasted BBQ marshmallows and made gram cracker/marshmallow sandwiches. Bottled milk from Rockview Dairy Farms, provided us with award winning chocolate milk drinks, fresh from Ms. Cow to the exterior milk doors on the homes!.

Eating utensils: Paper plates, Styrofoam had not entered market, paper cups, plastic wood cutlery, paper napkins, plus wash n dry toweletes.

Greater Dairy Valley backyard patios were filled with aluminum tables- umbrellas, and aluminum folding web chairs . Most of the people got their patio furniture at: All American Home Center, Thrifty or Sav-On drugs. There was a Sears catalog and many shopped there and delivery was in Compton- Lynwood areas. Greater Dairy Valley had no Sears store until 60’s. It was rad to have festive floral patio cushions along with matching white cotton tassels hanging from umbrellas and table cloths. Terry cloth table covers were just becoming vogue. Plastic flowers in vases, were the Home n Garden specialty. Some of the patios had telescopic chases lounge, but outdoor patio sofas had not come in to play during the 50’s.

Most of the Memorial Day Weekends, weather was overcast gray all day. It would be kind of cool, muggy, many times we stayed under the patio or in the garage to keep warm. Sometimes the sun would break late in the afternoon. Very seldom did we have a hot summer Memorial Day weekend. It was hard to look up at the sky’s during the over cast landscape, to see the airplanes following Firestone/Manchester Blvd, landing in to LAX.

Many of the Greater Dairy Valley homes had postcard perfect dichondra lawns, very soft grass-like to lay on for a picnic, and do remember smelling the Orange Groves, they were In Bloom in late Spring, the rose gardens were just starting to bloom. Most of the citie’s Azaleas/ Camellias were finished blooming by Memorial Day weekend. Some homes had a back yard lemon or lime tree, which produced great juice for Lemonade drinks for the picnics. Almost no tropical fruit yet. Our backyard viewed out to a to 10 acre + citrus grove, plus Dad/Mom had a small plottage of 200 rose bushes done in formal garden setting.

Remember going for afternoon pony rides down in Paramount/ North Long Beach areas. There were some equestrian Stables down there, since the 91/105/605 did not exist. It was always fun to go on pony rides in the arenas. Many of the first time residents moving into Greater Dairy Valley, after World War II, were transplants from the Midwest, (Heartland of America ) so a lot of the dads were used to hanging around farm horses Etc., so they enjoyed taking us kids, to ride or play with the horses. Not many kids had bikes, to poor following World War 2. We always had used second hand bikes for transportation. Bikes were fun, along with skates, during the holidays.

Many backyard patios had colored hanging plastic lights, strung from the roof rafters , (a lot like the cafe lights today) except they were plastic flowers fixtures, and also some patios had portable drinking water fountains adjacent to the garages, plumbed in to the water lines. Some patios had portable-fiberglass waterfall fountains bowls……Most of the laundry rooms at that time were located in the garages. Many homes had clotheslines in their backyards, to dry their clothes. There were not very many clothes dryers available at that time. Some families, used manual clothes drying techniques, to squeeze out the excess water by hand rollers machines. Some washing machines reused some of the clear recycled rinse water over and over again. Garage laundry room was the go to place, for storing picnic food, since Dads brought in large blocks of ice, to cool the picnic foods, over the long 3 day weekends. Refrigerator/ freezers were small at that time. Ice was stored in washroom sinks or large aluminum tubs.

US garden flags were hard to purchase, so some homes displayed one US flag on the front of the homes. I can not remember flags all over the city at that time.

Once awhile, during these holiday weekends, trucks full of redwood patio furniture would drive up/down the streets, selling patio furniture off the trucks, which was custom made by the men in the city. Workmanship was awesome, but the quality of redwood stain and not so good back then, just did not have the technology to make paint recipes. These truck sales, made big bucks selling during these holiday weekends.

Few Greater Dairy Valleychurches participated in decorating the cemetery graves for Decoration Day: Rose Hills, Artesia, Downey and All Souls…since many residents were transplants from the Midwest, a lot of Greater Dairy Valley family’s contacted local florist in another city, in order to put up flowers on gravesites, for Decoration Day or Memorial Day, at the cemeteries in other states or cities. My family did that also. My family paid florists to decorate the graves in Iowa/ Minnesota via contracted florists in those cities. There was no teleflorists, etc. I don’t think this practice of decorating graves, is done very much anymore.

Most of the clothes came from either Pennies or Sears. It was hard at that time to get Levi pants. I wore Levi cut offs, since money was tite, we grew fast, so cut offs were very cost effective. Double knit clothing had not come yet, most of the clothes were cotton, and Perma Press or wrinkle-free clothes we’re just starting to enter the market. Women were just starting to wear shorts and pants, still dresses were the #1 outfit for woman. Few women wore the floor length dresses, to aid in leg bites by insects. Men never wore Speedos, very few woman wore 2 piece bikini either.

Very good memories of the yesteryears in Greater Dairy Valley, especially Memorial Day weekends, that was the grand opening for great summers and summertime car trips.