Streetlamps with dinosaur necks; speeding cars slowing on sharp curves and macaroni-and-cheese colored traffic signs that match the truck pulling a long, long trailer fashionably two-toned in battleship grey and lipstick red. This isn’t the real Autopia – oh-no! For that you would have to go to Tomorrowland in Disneyland.

This is the four-level interchange, known as the “stack”. When it was completed in 1953, it was the first high-way high rise anywhere in the world and the prototype for countless interchanges that followed. The ultra-modern four-story freeway quickly became the new heart of town and replaced Hollywood and Vine as the city’s most famous and photographed crossroads. Ironically, Disneyland’s “futuristic” Autopia was introduced to the world two years later in 1955.

Southern California’s freeway system began on the drawing boards in the 1930s. By 1940, the first two sections, the Pasadena Freeway, linking downtown with Pasadena, and the Cahuenga Pass, linking Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley, were complete. After World War II, construction began on the San Bernardino and Santa Ana Freeways. The “stack” was the centerpiece and crowning touch of the freeway system and conveniently linked them all. With the exception of the sheer volume of traffic it remains virtually unchanged today.

To me driving on the “stack,” or any other part of the freeway for that matter, is like going on the Autopia – only bigger! Just think for a minute how much more wonderful rush-hour would be if you could smash into the car in front of you over and over just for fun!

Two dapper gentlemen flirt with Cecelia and Marilyn, the most popular ladies in Buena Park. They never need to be fed or paid – just repainted. Over the years these fiberglass females inspired countless Kodak moments for millions visiting Don Knott’s Berry Farm. Claude Bell, the man that built the big dinosaur in Cabazon, California sculpted them in the late 40s. They’re so masculine. They look like men in drag!

I know it’s not called Don Knotts Berry Farm. But it could’ve been if Don Knotts would’ve bought it. Just think there could’ve been the Andy Griffith Show ride; the Mr. Limpet ride and the Three’s Company ride. And, oh yeah, the Apple Dumping Gang ride would’ve fit right in with the western theme of the ghost town.

Knott’s Berry Farm started exactly as that; a berry farm in 1920. In 1928 Mrs. Knott opened a little tearoom next to their roadside berry stand. Then during the depression she began serving fried chicken dinners. Soon people were waiting in line halfway around the berry farm on Sunday afternoons to enjoy the delicious down home dinner. Walter Knott thought he’d better do something to entertain the people while they were waiting. So in 1940 he began creating a western ghost town paying tribute to the gold rush pioneers who had blazed the trails just a couple of generations before.

By the late 1940s Walter Knott’s ghost town had blossomed into a well-researched, total emersion environment of western architecture, displays, demonstrations, entertainment, merchandise, memorabilia, music, food, transportation, and costumed employees. Mrs. Knott’s famous fried chicken dinner inspired America’s first permanent theme park.

Miraculously, some of the original Ghost Town is still exists. But what ever happened to Cecelia and Marilyn?

Here’s to Don Knotts, Knott’s Berry Farm and you,

Could this living room be more Early American? I don’t think so! Don’t you just love that big bow on that ruffled lampshade? How about the tweedy sofa and that mini surrey parked on a doily on top of the maple coffee table. The spittoon and spinning wheel must be just out of frame! This is the perfect place not to share your Animal Crackers.

The other day while on a Dippity-Doo run at Sav-on I got the munchies. So before I stood there and discreetly sped-read the Star and Enquirer cover-to-cover I paroozed the well-stocked aisles of familiar, brightly packaged, bite-size sweets and savories beckoning to be consumed. Without even thinking I went right for the most traditional of all the offerings, Animal Crackers. I chose them not because of the bland-but-still-somehow satisfying mass produced morsels inside, no; I chose them because of the cardboard circus wagon box that was intended to have after-cookie-life as a Christmas ornament. That’s what the string handle is for – to hang it on your tree.

Recalling my childhood Animal Cracker memories as I carefully opened the colorful container (god forbid I should rip it) and tore open the airtight mock wax paper housing what should be called Animal Cookies, I was hopelessly hypnotized as the first bite turned to mush in my mouth. When I came to the box was empty. I had eaten them all.

The National Biscuit Company has been manufacturing Barnum’s Animal Crackers, as they are officially called, and sending them to market in those wonderful little boxes since 1902. Over the past century there have been 54 different animals. Currently there are twenty two in the menagerie. The Koala is the newest. Ironically, circus promoter extraordinaire P.T. Barnum had a nothing to do with the animal crackers that bear his name.

Here’s to Early American Furniture, Animal Crackers and YOU!

Whooshing by on the highway in the sky, passengers travel in supreme space-age style between the Disneyland Hotel and Tomorrowland. I certainly hope they all heard the “Please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times” recording because there are no windows!

The monorail is like an airplane without wings, or a cross between a snake, shark and catfish. It also has a foot-long hot dog/Oscar Meyer Wienermobile feel to it. Never have green tinted glass, ribbed stainless steel panels, lipstick red, and pinstriped white looked so great together. The design is so brilliant that it’s still fashion-forward nearly fifty years later.

The earliest concept sketches of Tomorrowland included a monorail. But as Disneyland was being built Disney had neither the technology nor the money to build his vision of the mass transportation’s future. Then while visiting Europe in 1958 he found a prototype monorail running on a track on a rural farm being developed by Alweg, a German engineering company. Within one year Disney had married the technology with a futuristic design and it was ready to go.

In the days leading up to the ribbon cutting and “first ride” ceremony, every time the engineers ran the monorail around its track for a test run — it caught on fire. Finally the dedication day came. All eyes were on the first official passengers, Vice President and Mrs. Nixon, and their two girls as they boarded the futuristic transportation vehicle along with a very nervous Walt Disney for the trip. Disembarking, Nixon had no idea that it was the first time the monorail had gone around the track without catching on fire!

Here’s to you and the Monorail!

A well dressed tourist out on the town casts a long hat-wearing shadow. He strikes a casual yet confident pose near, but not too near, a guy who quite clearly knows what it feels like to get a tattoo and maybe even hang from tender body parts that people don’t usually hang from. This guy is a walking billboard for tattoo art and a sampler platter of styles for you to be inspired by. Is that a mushroom cloud on one leg and a Native American on the other? Is that a swallow I spot on his right shoulder and some thorny roses on his left inner thigh? And how about that skimpy swimsuit! Is that uniform? Perhaps the belt keeps it from falling off when he’s hanging. OUCH!

In the realm of vintage photography there is no question this slide falls into the “The folks back home will never believe this!” category. I’m sure the folks back home were shocked! I’m shocked, aren’t you? And it’s fifty years later.

I was inspired to share this salty slide with you while talking to a mysterious yet approachable guy last Saturday night at a party. I couldn’t help but notice that he had tattooed flames burning from the neckline of his torn t-shirt. Turns out he’s a tattoo artist at Incognito Tattoo, a tattoo parlor in Pasadena. Explaining that I collect other people’s old slides he asked if I’d ever run across any shots with tattoos. Well, here it is! For all I know the guy I was talking to is covered from head to toe, too.

According to the legend the first tattoos in the United States were done at the turn of the last century in Chatham Square, a seaport in New York City. And the first man called a tattoo artist had trained as a wallpaper designer. Of course! That means tattoos and wallpaper are related.

Here’s to the well dressed tourist, Mr. Tats & Rings, and YOU!

Recognize Helen? Those of you who have seen my Retro Southern California Slide Show you may recall her posing in front of a mint green, satin-finish shower in a sexy semi-see-thru nightie. Here she is again, this time sporting stripes, in front of my all-time, no-question-about-it favorite place in all of Southern California, the Watts Towers.

Soaring majestically nearly ten stories above the community they were named for, Watts Towers transformed a poor working class neighborhood in South Los Angeles into a world-class destination for folk art. One man, Simon Rodia, built the towers by hand in the triangle-shaped yard next to his house between 1921 and 1954. For thirty-three years, until he one day just left and never came back, he fashioned scrap steel pipes and colorful broken bits and pieces of glass and pottery, bottle caps, seashells and even bowling balls into the ultimate Jolly-Green-Giant-scale arts and crafts project. If Gaudi and Eiffel had ever worked together they may have come up something like this. I compare Simon Rodia to them.

By the time Rodia finished working on the towers, they had been discovered as Southern California’s most unusual tourist attraction. In 1959, there was some drama. The City of Los Angeles made grandiose claims that they were unstable and unsafe and would have to be demolished. Fans from far and near protested. Tests proved their durability and miraculously, they still soar today.

Just last week I was there and stood right where Helen stood nearly fifty years before. The towers are timeless. To walk among them is a magical-mystical experience of the highest order. To capture their scale and detail is impossible to do in a single image. They are unphotographable and powerful. Your imagination will be inspired and your spirit will soar!

The Watts Towers are located just 15 minutes south of Downtown Los Angeles at 1761 East 107th St. Tours begin at 11am on Fridays, 10:30 am on Saturdays and 12:30 Sundays. The last tour is at 3pm all three days. For more info call 213-847-4646.

Here’s to Helen, Simon Rodia, his towers, and YOU!