Memories of the 1960s

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Eine Schwarzwaldfahrt-- Better known as, "A Walk in the Black Forest"
By Horst Jankowski

Best listened to on your lunch break from you job at a Richfield Gas station, sitting in the Whittier Hills, with a bottle of Squirt and some tacos.





Do you remember Harvey's Broiler? They are restoring it. These guys could not wait for it to be finished. The cars rolled through all evening long until closing time. Big Vets, low riders, rods, the works, creeping through in an endless procession showing off.

Glenn Toews and I went through in his puck green '63 Rambler. We had the windows open, and we were playing KFAC, LA's big classical music radio station, at top volume. We were holding bread sticks that looked, in the partial lighting, like cigars, and when some rod group looked at us in amazement in Glenn's funky beater, we would stare at them like we were mad and suddenly chew up the bread stick "cigar" all the way down and into our mouth. They went crazy pointing and yelling at each other about those crazy guys in the Rambler. What fun. It is now open!

You people in New York City and Philadelphia-- do you remember the automats? These were lunch restaurants where you went through a line. There were a zillion boxes along a wall that looked like mail boxes at the Post Office. You could see through a small window what was in the box, and if it looked like it would not kill you, you put in a dime or quarter, and you got a serving. You did this several times to make up a whole meal. You had to sit wherever you could and share a table with someone. Some people stood along the wall at a counter to eat. They are all gone now-- To bad Bamn did not survive.

Do you remember the chestnuts roasting on the street in NYC, the hot dog vendors, and the soft pretzels with mustard. I hear they are all gone. Too nasty and dangerous for your health. We must be delivered from the nanny state soon, or our culture will all be defined in Washington DC. It is a sad day when the fun things become only memories.
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