Taken in 1958 to document a road construction site, this photo from the Orange County Road Dept. almost looks like it was staged. The boys are crossing Coyote Creek in La Habra, near Lambert Road. Today's children, of course, will never be endangered by makeshift bridges, polluted creeks, harmful UV rays, or scary farm animals. They will remain safely in their beige stucco boxes, playing video games and watching "educational" television..
Historian Doris I. Walker will be the guest speaker at the Dana Point Lighthouse Society meeting on Oct 22. She'll preview her newest (12th) book, Images of America: Orange County, A Natural History. The meeting will take place at the Dana Point Tennis Center, 24911 Calle De Tenis, 6:00-7:30pm. Thanks to the folks at Arcadia Publishing, I've already seen the book. It includes many good images I've never seen in print before. And although she's mostly limited to captions, Doris' winning writing style shines through.
.
Speaking of books, I just finished The Happy Bottom Riding Club: The Life and Times of Pancho Barnes, by Lauren Kessler. It's a history of one of the first female aviators and her enormously colorful life. It's not a new book, but it was new to me, and I wanted to point it out. Barnes' Orange County connections included her beach house and air strip at Laguna Beach, and her visits to Martin Field and the Orange County Airport.
..
Someone has started a new Yahoo! Group for Orange County history. Click on over to check it out. I look forward to seeing what this grows into.
.
And while we're on the subject of online resources, I see the Orange County History group on Flickr has reached 145 members and well over 2,000 entries. I love to check in and see what other people are sharing.
.
With my new computer mostly working, I'm once again able to do some video editing. I've already posted two videos of the 1938 flood to the O.C. Archives' Flickr site, and two videos from the Allison Honer Collection (showing the building of Buffum's annex in Santa Ana and the building of the Buena Park Mall) for the Orange County Historical Society's Flickr site.