Anthony’s Tricycle On A Poignant Christmas

By kiki

One Christmas season in the early sixties, we found our finances wanting. I was working at the paint shop of Century Motors, a VW dealership in Alhambra, Ca. The pay was just enough to get by week by week…

Christmas was just around the corner, and Connie and I were trying to figure out how to buy presents for the kids. Fernie, the oldest of the boys, wanted a new bike; Linda never asked for anything, so we knew whatever we got her, she would be happy. Baby Bobby was not yet in the caring stage. But Anthony, who had an old tricycle, wanted a new one.

We were able to buy Linda and Bobby a present. Then, Fernie, we bought him a new bike, a wannabe Schwinn Stingray. Next, we wanted to buy Anthony a new tricycle but ran out of funds. So I got Anthony's old tricycle and took it to work, where I took it apart and repainted it; I am trying to remember what color I painted it now. Next, I cleaned and painted the tires and pedals. When I was done, the tricycle looked new to me anyway….

On Christmas Eve, I took the tricycle out of the trunk of my car, where it had been for about three days, and after the kids had gone to sleep, I put it under our tiny Christmas tree….Christmas morning, the kids got up to see what Santa had left for them under the Christmas tree. Linda was happy with her present, and so was Fernie; Bobby was too young to even care. 

Anthony was a happy kid with his "new" tricycle, that is, until he rode it around the living room a couple of times; after the second time around the living room, he stopped and said, "this is my old bike." I could see tears in Connie's eyes as I tried to convince Anthony that it was a new tricycle; the little kid wasn't buying it, though…

We'd tried our best to make the early 1960s Christmases good ones for the kids, but this one turned out to be a cold and poignant Christmas, but at the same time, it was also unforgettable.

Wrestling in the late ‘40’s-early ‘50’s

By kiki

 In the late  1940s-early '50s, my buddies and I were closet wrestling fans during my preteen and early teen years. Why? Because we were boxing guys, everybody knew that only little old ladies and Charlie Ortega watched wrestling, and everybody knew that wrestling was fake. We didn't want the older Simons guys to know that we were being taken in by the fakery of la Lucha libre; we were supposed to be too cool for that. But, hey, our youth was no time to be sensible, right!?. 

While living in Simons, my buddies and I would ride our bikes up Maple Ave to Olympic Blvd and Park Ave., just south of Montebello City Park, where there was an appliance store. 

After closing hours, the store owners would leave a TV facing a big window; we would ride there, sit on the sidewalk, and watch Dick "Whoa Nellie" Lane call the wrestling matches from the Olympic Auditorium...Truly, Days of Innocence. Que no?!!

The Lou Thesz/Baron Michele Leone match in 1952 was such a big event that it got too big for the Olympic Auditorium and had to be moved outside to one of the ballparks; I don't remember which one, though.