We are visiting Los Angeles with our son this weekend for a campus tour of UCLA and USC. It’s a memorable trip for me.
This is where mom and dad grew up — mom in Westwood, and dad in Santa Monica. It was the Golden Era in L.A. Both of them went to UCLA.
Mom went to University or “Uni” High (her classmate was Andy Williams, and she led Gov. Ronald Reagan around campus as a student leader) and dad went to Santa Monica or “SAMOHI” high.
Both of their parents worked (one grandma worked at Hughes Aircraft and another was a school teacher; one grandpa worked at Pac Bell, and the other ran a “mom and pop” grocer. Dad became an exploration geologist with Humble Oil).
Dad’s office was on Flower St. in downtown L.A. before it relocated to Avenue of the Stars in Century City, next to 20th Century Fox. He joked that one afternoon he looked out the window and saw actors running around in “ape suits.” As it turned out, the street was closed for a filming of “Planet of the Apes.”
Their childhood neighborhoods were ideal: “location, location,” quiet, well-manicured lawns with sidewalks and so on. During WWII, their houses required “blackout curtains.”
These are still considered ideal neighborhoods — and the homes are much pricier now.
Jeff Pelline's Sierra Foothills Report 