Here's a photo of a Santa Ana breadline from the real Great Depression. Things may look bad now, but we've got a long way to go before we match the economy of the 1930s..
Heritage Hill Historical Park in El Toro will host their annual Pioneer Roundup on Oct. 26th, 2-4pm. Members of local pioneer families will attend the Saddleback Area Historical Society meeting to greet old friends and reminisce. Come meet them and hear their stories.
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Saturday's Daily Pilot featured an article about the late great movie theaters of Costa Mesa, including the Paulo Drive-In, and the Mesa Theater. I never went to the Paulo, but I remember the long-neglected Mesa as a building with lots of potential for restoration. However, the Mesa is now gone, replaced by the Borders Books at Newport Blvd and 19th. (I posted another photo of the Paulo here.)
2 comments:
The Paulo Drive-In Theater was among the best places for dating when we were in high school at Costa Mesa High. It was so close and very inexpensive and when we went it was about a dollar a head. Most of my friends went almost every week and we all shared stories of this place for many years. I can’t recall ever not enjoying being there even if we had a girl that week that preferred to watch the films.
One of my dad’s cars was an old ’56 Pontiac convertible that had a well behind the back seat where the top folded down and was seated. When the top was up that well was open to the trunk. So to make sure we had the cash for the refreshments my friend Rick and I used to have the girls drive in and pay and we’d be hiding in the trunk. Once we got parked it was a simple matter to crawl out of the trunk into the back seat without being seen. We then paired off with out dates and watched the movies. Most kids then hid in the trunk but parked in the back row and had to open the trunk to get out and they were caught often. We never were caught but eventually the theater changed to car load pricing and that made our ruse a big waste of time. We stopped going when the theater changed to Spanish language because we were all so bad at Spanish. I still have to apologize to Señor Manzo our Spanish teacher at Mesa High. Apparently we didn’t pay enough attention.
Thanks for the photo and the article…nice memories!!!
I used to live (and now work) in Costa Mesa, and I remember protesting the closure of The Mesa. I know a lot of people (including myself) who refuse to shop in that Borders bookstore. I'm not always opposed to change or beautification, but the destruction of The Mesa seemed needless and the bookstore has never had a very strong customer base. I don't know how they're even still in business.
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