Our Times

Between 1955 and 1956, we frequently walked to and from the school, located only blocks away from our homes. Dwight D. Eisenhower was our president, admired and respected everywhere in the world. Lincoln pennies had wheat on the reverse side and first class postage cost three cents. Our parents read the L.A. Times-Mirror or the L.A. Herald Examiner each day. World events included the Cold War and nuclear testing, the Suez crisis and the upcoming Melbourne Olympic Games.

Our world, however, was the neighborhood bounded by Pico Blvd. to the north, Robertson Blvd. to the west, Guthrie Blvd. to the south, and Fairfax Blvd. to the east. Dividing us was La Cienega Blvd., where we spent much of our spare time when we were not playing on our own streets.

We attended movies shown at the Stadium, Lido, and Picfair theatres located along Pico Blvd., played miniature golf at the Hi Point Miniature Golf course on La Cienega Blvd., and bought baseball and football cards along with Pez candies and Red Hots at Marty’s Bike Shop.

We went shopping with our parents at the Daylight and Big Town Markets, where we often separated ourselves in the newspaper and magazine section so that we may sit on the floor and read MAD Magazine and other favorites.

Our most frequently visited diners included Nick’s Coffee Shop and Kentucky Boys BBQ on Pico Blvd.

We rode our bikes and roller skates on our streets and to the Adohr Farms property on La Cienega Blvd.

Adohr Farms property, La Cienega Blvd.

or to the Projects between Guthrie and Cadillac Aves. We ate push-up ice creams purchased from the Good Humor Man and Happy Jack. We occasionally saw the Helms Bakery truck turning from Airdrome onto Crescent Heights Blvd.

We appreciated those folding cardboard Helms trucks given to kids for free whenever we could get him to stop for us.
At home, we watched TV in the living room and played with our collector’s cards and playing cards in the kitchen, choosing war and canasta among our favorites. The kitchen sink counter top had a stack of S & H green stamp booklets.

In our bathrooms, boys applied Brylcreem and girls washed their hair with beer. (By the way, girls, where did you get the beer?)

In our rooms, we either played with dolls and other toys or assembled model airplanes and cars. Our homes had backyard incinerators not in use since 1951. We had only one telephone, located either in the living room or dining room and our telephone numbers began with Bradshaw, Madison, Walnut, Webster, Whitney, Wyoming, or York.

At school, we had our lessons and our routines. We also had homework! Let’s not forget handing in our book reports and then hearing those frightening words from our teacher: DROP! We were reminded to put our hands over our head, get under our desks, and never look towards the windows.

We also had our fun at school, however. On the playground, we played ball, tag, hopscotch, jump rope, and flipped nickels and dimes against the wooden wall on the handball court. On rainy days, we closed our eyes, put our heads down on our desks in the classroom and put up our thumb, playing Heads Up-Seven Up. And let’s not forget the square dancing we did in the school auditorium, an original building still in use today.

Our field trips included Olvera Street and the wholesale market in downtown L.A., and even the Bank of America on Pico Blvd. near La Cienega Blvd. to open our first bank accounts.

Fifty years later, we realize that there was really only one world and life has been a roller coaster with many ups and downs. We’ve been there…done that. Looking back, Crescent Heights Blvd. Elementary School is largely gone now as we remember it, as are many of the above-mentioned places and things that accompanied our childhood. When we went flying high to junior high, our lives changed forever. At Louis Pasteur Junior High School, we played academic musical chairs and as time went on, we saw our best friends less and less. As stated by Richard Dreyfuss at the end of the film, Stand by Me (1986), “Friends came in and out of our lives like busboys in a restaurant.”

When we on the S’1956 reunion committee spoke with you on the telephone or communicated by e-mail, you talked to us as if we saw you yesterday. You told us things that one only tells close friends or family members, as if we were part of your family. Perhaps we are, in a way….an extended family.

Our bodies don’t listen to us much anymore and for some of us, our bodies declared war many years ago. Some of us are gone. Well, they are not really gone if they are not forgotten. My own best friend at Crescent Heights Blvd. School, a graduate of the W’ 1956 class also pictured on this website, died 20 years ago of cancer. I’ll both remember him and miss him forever.

Our world is very different now. We are constantly reminded of this fact by our media. While shopping one evening with my wife and daughter in the supermarket, I instinctively went to the magazine rack near the market's entrance. After a few moments scanning it's contents, I suddenly realized that there were no MAD Magazines. In fact, there were no humor magazines! Magazines that were in abundance I decline to describe or list here, however.

Upon arriving home and putting away our groceries, I kissed my daughter and said "Good night", and went to the TV to watch a late night movie on the cable station, BRAVO. Instead, I found a serial program called Real Housewives of Orange County. I'll just leave this one for your imagination. :-}

It's true that we don’t know what the future holds for us but at the same time, we can and do cherish these days before we had hobbies and goals. Wasn’t Richard Dreyfuss correct when, at the end of Stand by Me, he typed on his computer screen the following phrase,

I never had any friends like the ones I had when I was twelve. Does anyone?

This site is therefore dedicated to (1) the graduates of the 1940s and 1950s who passed through its corridors along the road to higher education and (2) to the Crescent Heights staff who helped us along the way.

Glenn A. Gorelick

Class of S' 1956