Jenny’s blog Gray Hairs and Teddy Bears got me thinking about Christmas trees. Jenny has a “live” tree that is already drooping and dropping needles. One of her readers pointed out that it was probably cut back in October, stored in a refrigerated truck, then put out for sale in late November. It doesn’t take a botanist to figure out what is causing her tree to wilt so quickly.

For the past three years, we have had a fake tree. I really dislike fake trees. They just look……fake. Even the high quality ones look like oversized pipe cleaners sticking out of a central pole. I resisted as long as possible, but what did it for me was the idea of being 7 1/2 months pregnant, on all fours trying to water the Christmas tree, with the dog poking his nose where it doesn’t belong. I bought a fake one at Lowe’s. Pre-lit.

As soon as is humanly possible for me, I’m going to start getting real trees again, and hopefully by that time, Orange Countians will still be able to find live trees to cut. Because, you see, the best kind of live tree is one that is fresh cut. Going to pick out the Christmas tree was a family activity on the day after Thanksgiving. That’s the first day you could go reserve them and get a good one.

We would trek out in the Ford de jour to a local place, under the high wires most likely, pull into the mud and gravel parking lot, then walk out into the stands of trees. Close to the parking lot there always seemed to be a forest in miniature with pine saplings no more than two feet high just dreaming of their future in someone’s living room. We liked Monterrey Pines. Their long needles are soft and lush and fairly easy to hang ornaments on, they are hardy and homey.

The chill of the air, the smell of the pine needles and sap, the squish of mud beneath our tennies…these are all great memories to me. It seemed we would spend a long time finding a tree that didn’t lean too much to one side or the other, didn’t have a hole in one side, or didn’t lack the lovely a-line shape of the perfect Christmas tree. We’d circle two or three, my mom viewing all angles. Our living room set up demanded that the tree be attractive from all sides; we couldn’t just stick the hole in a corner. Finally we’d settle on one, tear the ticket and go pay for it. It was ours!

Two weeks before Christmas, we went back and had our tree cut, and that is a great bunch of smells too. There’s the pine sap, sawdust, gas from the chain saw, and the sweat of the young bucks working there. My parents liked the tree flocked, I suppose as a tribute to their Eastern US upbringings. It took me a long time to connect that the flocking was supposed to simulate snow. I didn’t care for the flocking much because it was sticky, smelled weird and I thought it didn’t look natural. Most tree farms would flock the tree for us, and the back of the Ford de jour would be lined with an old sheet to keep the flocking from sticking. Some years my dad flocked the tree himself. That might have been the years we grew our own trees.

Dad ran wires from the tree trunk to the bannister to keep the tree from tipping over, and we draped the tree stand with foil then a white sheet. Once it was set up, it was time to get into the crawl space and pull back the dusty plastic sheets that covered luggage and the boxes of Christmas decorations. The boxes were what you’d expect – old shipping boxes, May Co. or Broadway boxes – with all our precious decorations stored within for 11 months of the year. I can still remember the dusty plastic smell and my poor sister sneezing from it. My sister and I, along with my mother would carry them down to the living room and set them out for excavation. Dad would put on the lights (old school ones with the star reflectors) and Mom would put on the three long strands of glass bead garland (red, white and blue). Then my sister and I would reverently decorate the tree.

Once the family project was finished, we knew we had the perfect tree.

For about a minute of my life, in the 5th grade, my best gal pal was named Patrice. I don’t recall now what her last name was. She wanted to be called ‘Trice, but her mom always called her by her full name. She was a girl raised by parents who were older, and I realize now they were probably alcoholics and they were certainly heavy smokers. But for me, Patrice was fun. We were both awkward socially and so, we bonded on that point. She had a cute fluffy little white dog that might have been a poodle or a cockapoo. I used to walk or ride my skate board to her house, which was a little over a mile from mine. She must have been smart because I think she was in the advanced class with me. I didn’t have many other close friends at that school, so I can’t think of any other way I could have met her.

Being smart did not preclude a questionable childhood surrounded by weird friends of her parents and did not necessarily include a financially stable life. Patrice lived in an unincorporated part of Santa Ana, just behind a fronting of little houses built in the 40s or 50s. Back there, they could still have horses though, and it was like stepping into a rural retreat once you rounded the corner to her street. It’s hard to imagine today there being stables in the middle of a Santa Ana neighborhood, even lots with a house and a stable, with actual horses and chickens, but it’s true. It was a quiet, dark and shady place with large trees, that smelled like soil and horses, manure and car oil. There’s a garish church that was built where a little home with a white board fence once had been. It had acted as a sort of gateway or mile marker into that forgotten little corner of town. The church is hideous, in my opinion, but the little home was a ramshackle abandoned wreck by the time it was torn down, so it’s likely the better of the two abodes.

To help out the family, Patrice wandered around town collecting bottles. Eventually they turned them in at the liquor store for cash, or maybe liquor. I don’t know. Looking back I don’t know really what drew me to her. I found a picture of her recently and it reminded me she was boy crazy and wanted to grow up fast and get out of her house. She was the type of girl I’m sure my parents dreaded I would turn into.

One thing she did teach me about during our brief friendship was that bottles were worth money – maybe it was 5 cents per bottle. I had never even considered this type of a transaction before knowing this girl. Some hot days, if we didn’t have much to do, and Patrice had already collected “enough” bottles for her family, we would go scrounge bottles until we came up with enough for two cones of ice cream from Thrifty Drug Store over on Harbor Blvd. It was near the Zody’s – a store I never went in for some reason. Anyway, to this day, I can remember collecting those bottles…the smell of the warm day on a part of town that was not shiney and clean, the sun on my neck, the weight of the bag with the bottles in it, and the stink of the icky guy at the liquor store who changed them out for us…but even more, the taste of that mint chip ice cream. Sigh…… Pure heaven!

Today’s Growing Up OC is from Auntie Kat. What with back to school supplies flooding Target and rounders full of uniform tops and bottoms, this is a very timely post. I don’t even know if lunchboxes are being used anymore outside of novelties. Probably kids use those nylon insulated soft sided lunch bags these days. For my first lunchbox, I had a white plastic one that probably came from my cousin Becky. It had something very girly on it. Later I upgraded to a metal The Walton’s lunchbox and my mom would tape a dime inside in case I wanted get a carton of milk. So, enjoy our guest blog post, Growing Up OC – The Lunchbox.

Let’s start this story with, I had to wait for the staff to come back to the doctor’s office and I had time to kill in Orange one day. With time to kill and other places to go that were distant I decided to stay in Orange and browse the Orange Traffic Circle Antique or Treasure shops for an hour. What I was looking for was a pair of gloves. I did get them but I digress. I saw all kinds of stuff that reminded me of my childhood. Then I wondered what ever became of my stuff like that. Was it sitting in a shop just like this one waiting to become a prize treasure again or sitting at the bottom of some landfill never to be thought of again. The contemplations of a lazy Friday afternoon.

Then I saw it: a Bobby Sherman Lunch Box. I had a Bobby Sherman lunch box in the 1st or 2nd grade. I loved that lunch box. It was purple. It had a thermos. It was metal. Some of the lunch boxes that year were plastic. And there were pictures of Bobby Sherman on it. Did I mention I loved that lunch box?

I was now down memory lane thinking of Northcutt and lunchtime; going back to school shopping at Sears with Mom, getting to pick out the new lunch box for the year, new pads of paper, and so on. I had to walk uphill both ways in the snow…oh, wait, that was Dad. I walked across the street to go to school. That school was brand new when I was in first grade. That was in 1971, ahem.

As I went around a corner of the shop I thought to myself “I wonder what that lunch box is going for now days?” I took a peek at the price tag and it said $65.00! For a lunch box!? I could not imagine anyone paying $65.00 for a lunch box unless they were a true Bobby Sherman fan or maybe a fan of lunch boxes. You never know, there are fans of everything out there now days. Just go to an antique or treasure shop and see.

So, I’ll trade my PBJ for your cheese sandwich…

In our county, we have a wonderful piece of history called the Dory Fishing Fleet that continues to flourish today. Founded in 1891, the Dory Fishing Fleet is the only commercial fishing fleet that is permitted to cast off by the Newport Pier. The number of boats has shrunk since its heyday, at which time around 30 boats were active in the fleet. Today there are seven or eight who still ply their nets in the open ocean, setting out as early as 2 in the morning. The age old tradition stirs images of a time when we lived closer to the earth, gathering our consumables and using them immediately rather than the convenience shopping we experience today.

When I was a child, my mom would sometimes go down to the Dory Fishing Fleet market to pick up some fresh caught red snapper or the like. We often ate fish and this was a great way to get outside and do some shopping at the same time. I have a distinct memory of going down the to Dory boats with my family and grandparents one year. I was around 8-10 years old I’d guess. We arrived while they were still bringing in the boats, close to 8 a.m.

The process of bringing in the boats involved placing wide rollers under the boat to drag it up onto the sand, and they acted a bit like wheels on a tank. There were a limited number of these rollers, so when the boat rolled over the last one in the rear, it was run around to the front, and this was repeated over and over, a circular process, until the boat reached its destination.

On this particular visit, my Grandpa Jim worked on recapturing his youth. At the time he might have been in his early 70s. He was a youthful man, strong and happy and I always remember him with a smile on his face. He had a great affinity for very loud, very plaid slacks, golf shirts and (gulp) white belts and shoes. I think that day it’s a safe guess he wore sneakers though, since we were going to be in the sand. Well, when we arrived down there at the beach, Grandpa Jim surprised us all be heading down to the boats and helping pull them up on the shore. He was having a fantastic time, helping pull the boat while the rollers were run from rear to front. I remember the air was damp and chilly and he had on a white hat. The smells were of the sand, the ocean, and the fish. It has embedded itself with the visual memory of Grandpa Jim pulling on that boat with a huge grin on his face.

He had the time of his life!

Somewhere there is a picture of this. My sister, dad and I all know exactly the picture but we cannot find it. We recently looked through every old photo album and shoebox of photos we could find. I’m sad to have misplaced the photo, but I am delighted to have the memory. Create a few memories of your own by visiting the Dory Boats. Your kids are gonna love it!

Every summer, the Orange County Fair comes around and most summers I attend. There have been a few summers that it just didn’t work out – like that summer I was on crutches and in a cast. Yeah, that would have been fun! There have, however, been many, many s

ummers that found me at the fair. One of my favorite memories as a youngster was going to the fair because my Dad would spend a lot of time with us in the stock barns telling us stories about his younger days on Granny & Poppy’s farm in upstate New York. Sometimes we’d sit and watch a cattle auction, or see a milking exhibit. I can recall being afraid to touch a cow, and my Dad reassuring me it would be okay as I tentatively reached out my little hand to its bristly side. I knew it would in fact be okay because Daddy said so. These introductions to livestock helped me and my sister understand “where” our food came from and that animals, produce, and the people who tend them are to be respected and not taken for granted.

In our county, we have a wonderful piece of history called the Dory Fishing Fleet that continues to flourish today. Founded in 1891, the Dory Fishing Fleet is the only commercial fishing fleet that is permitted to cast off by the Newport Pier. The number of boats has shrunk since its heyday, at which time around 30 boats were active in the fleet. Today there are seven or eight who still ply their nets in the open ocean, setting out as early as 2 in the morning. The age old tradition stirs images of a time when we lived closer to the earth, gathering our consumables and using them immediately rather than the convenience shopping we experience today.

When I was a child, my mom would sometimes go down to the Dory Fishing Fleet market to pick up some fresh caught red snapper or the like. We often ate fish and this was a great way to get outside and do some shopping at the same time. I have a distinct memory of going down the to Dory boats with my family and grandparents one year. I was around 8-10 years old I’d guess. We arrived while they were still bringing in the boats, close to 8 a.m.

The process of bringing in the boats involved placing wide rollers under the boat to drag it up onto the sand, and they acted a bit like wheels on a tank. There were a limited number of these rollers, so when the boat rolled over the last one in the rear, it was run around to the front, and this was repeated over and over, a circular process, until the boat reached its destination.

On this particular visit, my Grandpa Jim worked on recapturing his youth. At the time he might have been in his early 70s. He was a youthful man, strong and happy and I always remember him with a smile on his face. He had a great affinity for very loud, very plaid slacks, golf shirts and (gulp) white belts and shoes. I think that day it’s a safe guess he wore sneakers though, since we were going to be in the sand. Well, when we arrived down there at the beach, Grandpa Jim surprised us all be heading down to the boats and helping pull them up on the shore. He was having a fantastic time, helping pull the boat while the rollers were run from rear to front. I remember the air was damp and chilly and he had on a white hat. The smells were of the sand, the ocean, and the fish. It has embedded itself with the visual memory of Grandpa Jim pulling on that boat with a huge grin on his face.

He had the time of his life!

Somewhere there is a picture of this. My sister, dad and I all know exactly the picture but we cannot find it. We recently looked through every old photo album and shoebox of photos we could find. I’m sad to have misplaced the photo, but I am delighted to have the memory. Create a few memories of your own by visiting the Dory Boats. Your kids are gonna love it!