Maybe it's the heat...

It could be that these thoughts are springing from a run of over 100 degrees for the last 30 days, and no end in sight...

or it could be that I've seen so many blogs this summer that are reminiscing about days gone by...

whatever, it has triggered some in me as well...

This post is Janette's fault! She did a recent post on old movies and music, and got me going... I commented that we had heard a small group one night when we were high school kids, and we ventured over to 'cruise' on Hollywood Blvd. The group was singing in a tiny little pub or burger club and they were called The Beach Boys... we loved them, and the rest is history...

I was thinking about those years...

Growing up in southern California was wonderful! We lived in Pasadena, so every year we had the Rose Parade which went straight down the main street, still does... Colorado Blvd. In the younger years, we lived 3 blocks from the parade route. When I was in high school, we moved up close to the foothills, about 3 blocks from where the parade ended.

It was the thing to do for a Pasadena high school student ... 'working the floats'... from after Christmas until New Years Day. There were huge warehouses where the basic floats from all the entries were driven or constructed. We signed up through our schools to work during that intense week before the parade. It was our job to glue every single flower, stalk and leaf into the perfect place and make it a showpiece. You can't imagine the HUGE amounts of flowers that were shipped in from all over the world, orchids from Hawaii almost looked common, there were so many. Seeds, grass, florals of every description, they were all there for us to create from. The warehouses were refrigerated, so it was COLD as we worked. We worked around the clock during that week before the big day, and it was so much fun.

Our church youth group would go to Colorado Blvd. the night before the parade and the street was lined with groups of people, sleeping bags, ladders, food, etc. We claimed our space, and then walked the whole street, for miles, meeting and greeting the thousands who had invaded our city. All the restaurants were open, and they were filled all through the night.

Finally the next morning, the whole crowd began to buzz as the sound of the parade could be heard back at the starting point.

I went to Pasadena High School, and the Tournament of Roses queen and her court were chosen from our high school back in those days. Yes, I did try out, and no, I was not in the court. I did manage to get through some of the eliminations, but the process was scary to me. You had to walk the length of the pool at the Huntington Hotel, while a huge group of judges silently watched every move! I had never done anything like that, and I was NOT a natural... but my friend Margarethe Bertelson was, and she was chosen as Rose Queen that year. I recently saw a program on ebay from that year with her picture on the cover. I've often wondered what happened to her...

Times sure seemed so much more simple in those days, and somehow not as fast paced and 'out there' as it is today.

...or maybe summer is just a good time to reminisce...