{"id":270,"date":"2011-01-28T10:33:21","date_gmt":"2011-01-28T15:33:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dalelafferty.com\/?p=270"},"modified":"2011-01-28T19:26:39","modified_gmt":"2011-01-29T00:26:39","slug":"long-beach-remembered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dalelafferty.com\/?p=270","title":{"rendered":"Long Beach Remembered"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday Jan 21, Richard, Dianna, and I drove to Long Beach, California. The plan was to visit the old neighborhood where, some forty years ago, we lived, worked, and went to school. I was hoping a drive through town would jog memories of bygone days of my youth. <\/p>\n

Things sure change a lot in forty years. I remembered the names of streets I used to tool around on in my old Volkswagen beetle, remembered the place I used to work at, remembered the landmark of Signal Hill, and vaguely recall a place I used to eat. But there was so much unfamiliar to me, most of the time I could have been on another planet. <\/p>\n

My brother is a super tour guide. As we wove through the streets of Long Beach, Dick pointed out points of interest and changes to the area. We passed by General Valve where we both used to work. I remembered some of the characters I met while working in the shipping area. The college I attended for a short while is no longer there, instead a housing development of run down buildings. The whole neighborhood seemed seedy, not even safe to walk through anymore. <\/p>\n

The one bright spot in a community forgotten in progress was Signal Hill. Dick and I used to cruise up and down the twisting, steep, hairpin turns that characterized the dirty, oil field sloaps of Signal Hill. I’m not quite sure what the attraction was for driving up there except for the fact you could see the city lights below and scare girls with a roller-coaster type drop on the other side, but we were always going up there. Now the hill is built up with modern townhouses, beautiful roads, and a park on top with walking trails along the ridge. It’s really quite nice and we spent part of the afternoon strolling along the pathways, reading signs about the history of the oil fields and enjoying the views. Dianna prodded Dick and I into taking an extended hike all the way around the top of the hill. It felt good to walk. <\/p>\n

After lunch at a nostalgic burger joint, ( everything was smothered in chili) we drove to the Queen Mary and signed up for all the tours. For the next five hours we ducked through hatches and compartments on a Russian submarine, climbed through five decks on a magnificent ocean liner, and learned the history of a cruise ship turned troup carrier during WWII.
\n\"Queen<\/a>
\nLater that evening, we found a nice restaurant on the waterfront where we had tacos and drinks, and then strolled through some shops where Dianna found a cute hat. Dick steered us next to an ice-cream shop where we sat on a bench, licking our cones, gazing across the water at the mesmerizing lights of the Queen Mary. It was a perfect end to a perfect day.
\n\"Queen<\/a>
\nMy brother and sister-in-law are so good to me. We had a wonderful time. Thank you Richard and Dianna for a beautiful day. I love you both. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday Jan 21, Richard, Dianna, and I drove to Long Beach, California. The plan was to visit the old neighborhood where, some forty years ago, we lived, worked, and went to school. I was hoping a drive through town would jog memories of bygone days of my youth. Things sure change a lot in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dalelafferty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dalelafferty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dalelafferty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dalelafferty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dalelafferty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=270"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/dalelafferty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":279,"href":"https:\/\/dalelafferty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions\/279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dalelafferty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dalelafferty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dalelafferty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}