(Waterflood 2) Long Beach was the fun city of my youth.

There was a huge wooden roller coaster at Long Beach. It was there from the thirties to the seventies. Some say that the Long Beach roller coaster was the greatest and best wooden roller coaster ever built. (I am not surprised. Everything in California is the greatest, biggest, oldest, and grandest.) The beach came up under the roller coaster.

You could walk there and listen to the creaking of the timbers as the roller coaster went by. The amusement zone had several streets full of fun booths. The amusement zone was called the Pike.

There were sailors everywhere. There was and still is a large Navy installation on Terminal Island. Ocean Boulevard ran parallel with the ocean. Several blocks were part of the amusement zone. Tattoo shops, bars, etc.  I had last seen these blocks at the time of Pearl Harbor (1941). When we moved to this area in 1966 those few blocks looked the same. The roller coaster and the rest of the amusement zone was gone, but those few blocks on Ocean Blvd were still there.

Now that whole area is under huge buildings. Office buildings, a new city hall, and a large convention center. The fun city of my youth is gone. The Long Beach Gran Prix is run down Ocean Blvd.

Long Beach is where we would go when there was some one with a car. I remember a Model A that we burned smudge oil in. Every 1/2 hour we would have to stop and clean the sediment bowl out. A friend and I were driving home from Long Beach when we heard the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Jackie and I purchased a nice home in a large subdivision named Rossmoor in Orange County. It was barely out of the city of Long Beach and the county of Los Angeles. When we moved in it was a quiet place. Then they completed a new freeway that ran along the edge of Rossmoor  It was about 200 feet from our house. In the yard all you could hear was the roar of the freeway, We hated it. We looked into relocating but never did.

About this time we bought a new red Mustang. Not exactly a family car but we put many happy miles on it.