Growing up near the Granddaddy of Parades

We moved to Pasadena in 1948, and I left home for Berkeley in 1959. For a decade, then, I lived two blocks from the route of the Rose Parade, near its end before spilling into Victory Park, which was located across from my elementary school and later became the site for a new high school (too late for me). Living so close to the parade was an extraordinary experience. Sometimes we'd get to sleep out on the street with a supervising adult or two in order to save our spots for the parade. Our neighborhood became a parking lot for visitors, cars often ending up in our driveway, once on the lawn, no permission asked. Something of a zoo. But exciting to a kid, however frustrating to my parents.


The highlight of the parade for me early on was always the appearance of "Hoppy," or Hopalong Cassidy. He was a regular. So was Lash LaRue, and sometimes the parade brought Gene Autry or Roy Rogers. Or Johnny Mack Brown. Or Gabby Hayes. I think Randolph Scott was there a time or two. Bob Steele. When I moved to Portland, which has a summer Rose Festival and parade, I became a snob about parades, the one here such a sorry excuse compared to the Granddaddy down south. But I got over it.

Pasadena was a good place to live in 1948. Development hadn't gone crazy yet. A drive to Santa Anita, where my granddad liked to play the horses, was a country drive through Orange Groves. Not a bad place to grow up at the time at all.

Pasadena in the 50s, Portland in the 70s and 80s: I've been in some nice places just before they got too big for their own good.