Jive-Bomber submitted a new blog post: Danger On The Streets!! Continue reading the Original Blog Post
They sure had a lot of child stunt actors back then. I cringed when the '37 Desoto bumper was about to get hit!
Yes indeed, the background disturbed the message for today's viewers. I was surprised at how many cars had whitewall tires. Totally bald tires on the lady's roadster. Nice packard sedan 1/2 way thru. But that 33 5W...
I couldn't get any sound but it reminded me of the "cross at the green not in between" stuff from when I was a kid. That never caught on in NY because our mothers all taught us to cross the street whenever we saw trouble. I lived i a neighborhood where, if we were playing stickball in the street, drivers had to wait for the inning to be over before they could pass. Colunbus Ohio was the opposite. Perfectly healthy pedestrians would wait for the light to change even when there was no car in sight. A cop once chased me down the block for jay walking. I thought that was pretty funny. If a pedestrian put his toe over the curb, every car in sight would stop dead until the offending toe was safely back on the sidewalk. I didn't fit in very well in that town, walking or driving.
Pretty much did all the shit in that film when I was a kid. Ran stop lights/signs on my bike, sketched behind cars for blocks on snow covered streets. Slept on the rear window deck on long trips, stood up on the front seat. Stopped traffic to catch a fly ball. Didn't have 'play dates' either. Was told to go out and play. Was 11 or 12, and delivered morning newspapers at 4:00 in the morning on my bike. Guess what helped me survive my childhood was my parents instilled a bit of common sense in me, along with the threat of the razor strap.. Now while I didn't always use common sense, the thought of that razor strap did help in the decision process.
The thing that struck me is how the drivers were... it looked like a free-for-all on the roads with cars cutting off others and weaving in and out. Probably still more than a few who learned the way my Grandfather did, dodging haystacks in the field. My mother talked about 'going to town' in his '15 T and being terrified in traffic...
We'd wear slick shoes and bumper slide/ride cars on slick streets in the winter. Not arranged, random. I did it once and hit a tar strip under the snow and almost bashed my head into the bumper. Never again.
The tracks start at Long Beach Blvd and Ocean Boulevard and follow the boulevard up past the 405 freeway where it goes inland to the other cities. Some of the names are street names and not specifically city names. Hello, Having grown up in the Long Beach/Los Angeles area, we saw and were a part of the confusion with early traffic. Prior to the freeways being built and opened, the surface streets still had the truck transports coming from the LA/LB Harbor area, right through our Westside of Long Beach area and into the busy downtown Los Angeles area. When our mom took us to Los Angeles, she did not have a car of her own. So, we taxied to downtown Long Beach and got a trolley ride on the Big Red Cars, through downtown Long Beach, out through the backside of Bixby Knolls and through the cities of Compton, small areas of south central Los Angeles to the downtown LA Red Car Station. It was near the old Richfield building with the distinct tower on top. Currently, the same tracks, but with modern cars are still being used as a way to get to downtown Los Angeles. But, instead of a red car, it is called the “Blueline.” The direction and cities are the same, just a little bit different in their own history. Following them in cars during our teenage years was hectic. One did not know when they would stop, but we got the picture of staying in the right side lane in downtown Long Beach. In Los Angeles, it was worse, as the red cars went down some very busy streets and stopped to let people on/off in the middle of the streets. Plus, the overhead lines on those streets were a giant blight added to the mix. These days, in Long Beach, there are designated center stations for pedestrians to get on and off of the Blue Line Cars. Jnaki The old film was probably shown in our driver education classes and we all laughed at those stunts. We never saw those signs anywhere, even after car/red car accidents. For the most part, the downtown areas of Long Beach were and still are shared with the Red Cars, now, Blue Line Cars. But out beyond the city limits, they run along the empty areas near residential areas and cross a few streets. It has been and still is a method of public transportation that we started riding in the early 50s to Los Angeles. As far as the traffic in the LA Metro area, it is horrendous and one needs to be calm to finagle the roads to get where you want. Timing is the best as far as when to go, directions, and alternative side streets, then it is just like any other place, a good road trip... YRMV
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