Dusty Dirt Roads and Avenues

     

By kiki

Dusty dirt roads, streets, and avenues were all I knew in my youth in the 1940s and early '50s. I grew up in a company town with dirt roads, streets, and avenues (Simons Brickyard). The company town was located about 12 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles, Ca. And I have many fond memories of growing up and playing in those dusty streets. Those dusty streets were our baseball diamonds and football fields. In those long-ago summers, we would play till the sun went down; we couldn't play after dark because the town didn't have any street lights… Soon after the sun went down, we kids lit a fire to hang out at. We would hang out by the fire until our parents would call us in for dinner. After dinner, we would head back to the fire to see what mischief we kids could get into, and we'd get into a lot of mischief back then. But now that I am an old man, I like to tell people that it was just innocent mischief we were getting into, But I don't think many believe me. But nevertheless, sometimes I wish I could go back and tell my younger self some things about that mischief, . . . but he probably wouldn't listen.

We would walk those dusty streets to our elementary school (Vail Elementary School). The school was fronted by a paved avenue (Vail Ave.), and part of the schoolyard was covered with "blacktop" The school and Vail Ave blacktop was the only blacktop we would see unless we went into Montebello or downtown Los Angeles…. So many great memories were made on those dusty roads and streets of that company town, and I am glad the roads and streets were never paved. Still, I bet that the older guys and the men who drove those dirt roads and streets in their old jalopy cars during the rainy seasons wished the roads were paved but had they been, we kids would have been robbed of some great memories….The above picture gave me a chance to reminisce about those beautiful dusty dirt roads, streets, and avenues of my youth.