The Most Viewed & Popular Post: Trippin Back to the Gravel Pits & The Swimming Capitol of the World

https://www.simplertimeandplacethebesteraever.com/2018/09/

Trippin' Back to the Gravel Pits and the Swimming Capitol of the World

Hi Everyone,

I am back into the old work at the library past midnight--several nights a week--grind. I have vowed to keep on blogging before most every show this semester, so let us see what can be conjured-up as a story from the era described as: Your favorites from the mid-to-late-sixties through 1980 all set to the soundtrack of growing-up tale-end boomer in both Northern and Southern California!

Every time I head back to or through Sacramento, I almost always make a brief stop at the old homestead located at 1606 McClaren Dr. in Carmichael for several reasons. First, the family dog [Let us just call him Scruffy in case I forget a password and end-up needing a "What was the name of your first family pet?" type password recovery question] rests in peace there. The old boy is buried behind the levee that cut the yard into a front two-thirds and what my folks called, "The Back Forty."

Second, a true tree climbing dog--only along the rather flat inclines of the eucalyptus trees he is buried under on the back property line--Scruffy ran wild and free. The 840 acres that was largely riparian forest were ours; at least the several hundred acres that had not been mined for sand and gravel were quite close to pristine.

Later becoming the Crown jewel or missing-link with the river crossing and the long awaited completion of American River Parkway, the now William Pond Regional Park is a far cry from how it once looked in 1970's Carmichael, CA:

...check-it-out: I just looked at some of these videos and I know all of these spots like the back-of-my-hand...or if trees could talk!

https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/william-b-pond-recreation-area-carmichael

...parking lots, lots of signs with rules and the once daring--if not dangerous--Arden Rapids have been re-engineered for all of our safety, thank you, thrill-killers.

The eastern-end terminus of Arden Way used to be the entry to Erickson Sand and Gravel. Just past that, the bike bridge was being built around the time I entered sophomore and junior year; I do remember walking with my buddies at night above an American River practically at floodstage on construction catwalks. Indestructible fifteen-year-olds we were--perhaps high in more ways than one--we trudged above the water; certainly, one misstep would result in being at the rapids in about ten seconds instead of the usual 30-40 seconds it would take during the summer rafting flows, no doubt, arriving dead at the Watt Avenue Bridge in minutes.

...near world class swimmer or not...okay, NOT:

It is hard to proclaim world class swimmer status when Arden Hills Swim Club, largely the brain-
trust of mid-century US Summer Olympic Teams was located just over a mile away. Longtime holder of the most Olympic Gold medals in a single game [7 in 7 1972,] Mark Spitz, lived right off Arden and Mission Avenue. Whereas, Jeff Float [LA Games 1984], was a classmate from Arden Intermediate who also went to Rio for a couple semesters but graduated from Jesuit High. In addition, Summer Sander [early 90s Olympian] and Silver & Gold Medalist Debbie Meyer [1968 Mexico City Games] also trained at Arden Hills, still located right-off the intersection of Fair Oaks Boulevard and Mission Avenue...

https://www.sacbee.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/ailene-voisin/article91545872.html

Did I mention the legendary swim coach, Sherman Chavoor, for all of the above lived just five or six doors-down on McClaren Dr.? I mowed his lawn a few times but that phrase has a bit-of-an icky factor these days!

https://www.valcomnews.com/?p=16488

However, my friends and I swam a half-mile stretch between the Arden Rapids and Sara Court to the northeast on an almost daily basis in the spring and summer. Shopping carts, logs, and the deep-water remnants of an earlier vehicular bridge were used for snagging fishing lures. Then, they were harvested for the purpose of selling shad-darts, spinners, salmon spoons, and other popular lures back to fisherman; obviously, they knew our game, yet they got there gear back at about 25 cents on the dollar. Later--as we entered our early teens--bumming beers from rafters, and even snorkeling into the rapids to retrieve items thought lost forever when canoes capsized, became a more satisfying thrill seeking endeavor.

Hence, this was what life was like along the then fourth cleanest river in the US, The American, in the seventies; plenty of danger at times--yet summer flows led to practically being able to walk across it at some points, and what would only be described as near gang-like behavior in today's parlance, if not for our pre-teen and early teen white privilege.

...that last one--after years of denial of that characterizations even existence--I have come to accept as a-thing; thank you, SFSU, including an Ethnic Studies class or two!

Anyhow, some of the neighborhood kids were not allowed at the river at all; the prominent lawyer, Mr. Freeman and his wife had an indoor pool and sent their son's Phil and the older one who recently was the principal developer of the new Golden 1 Arena in the Sac, to Jesuit High; that is nice, but what makes this weird--to me and many of my classmates--is that they were not allowed to go to the river.

They were about four houses up the street in an architectural gem once considered to become Reagan's Governor's Mansion. Once in a while, you could see the boys walking in view of their parents in waist high water--typical in late summer--surveying their couple of islands of some fifty square feet or something.

[The mansion idea was floated after the Governor's Mansion at 16th and J was declared a fire-trap shortly after Reagan was sworn-in-to-office; however, the location on McClaren Drive was nixed due to terrorist/security concerns as only a thirty-foot-high steep gunite-sprayed slope separated the property from the western-bank or Carmichael, CA side of the American.]

My father--now a newly minted realtor--listed and sold a couple of the river view houses that unlike ours where built behind the levee; matter of fact, as a new house went in next to ours and included grading and a kind-of-two and a half story look--the parcel behind the levee being the largest--Dad referred to our domicile as "the last poor-house on the block!"

...yeah, right Willard!

I think Phil Freeman went to Rio Americano High School for a year just to make sure he was not becoming what we nicknamed our rival school's student body at Jesuit High, referring to the attendees of the then all-male school as [and some of us (who?) were known to be screaming this derogatory term at them out of our car windows while cruising down American River Drive after school] "...JESBIANS," [sic] but I digress!

Once home from school, it was time to slip into some cut-offs, river shoes, and head down to The Rock. Once again, the authorities at the soon to be regional park deemed the large concrete outcropping too dangerous to remain, and the shoreline was restored at some point while living in Portland [according to Neil Erickson of Erickson Sand and Gravel, The Rock--a favorite hang-out for older teen-parties, pre-teen kids using it to dive off-of or explore the river after school, and fisherman alike--was the result of concrete mixers "rinsing-out" left over product at rivers edge in Pre-EPA, CA]

...it was there that I first got to second base and third just a stone-throw away upstream at a spot we called, Trials, some year later [modified Schwinn-framed moto-bikes equipped with heavy-duty rims and with a Vice Grip Brand locking pliers clamped to the seat post were all-the-rage long before the word "Mountain-bike" entered our vernacular.]

Hell, Trials that was the spot I smoked my first joint--waiting until I was fifteen-and-a-half with the goody-good middle sister, Dorain, who somehow almost always got away with everything!

School was out, the rafts were plenty, and my sister and I could cross the river by almost walking across the low summer flows emanating from Folsom and Nimbus Dam. Being careful not to step into partially submerged holes on the clay islands--the holes used to mill grain and nuts by the American Indian tribes that preceded us; obviously, the natural flows were even lower at summer/late summer prior to the Central Valley Water Project:

https://www.usbr.gov/mp/cvp/


Currently, I do posses some Kodak 124 undeveloped cartridges from Dad's Instamatic, and I am pretty sure as we aged and hius picture taking became less of an interest--of his spoiled-rotten kids, no doubt--Dad let us take it back to the river a few times [This is from the Kodak 110 I bought for going overseas.] So, I think I remember borrowing my father's Instamatic, but we will have to see what develops, For now, I do have this picture: Julie was my summer fling while on-leave from Ft. Benning, GA (Late Summer 1981) following basic training. A soon to be Senior of Korean-American heritage, Julie, is pictured here at Sara Court, Carmichael, CA. The Rock was about a miles' float away about where a break in the treeline is.

...I will spare the readers the night we took her folks station wagon to the Sacramento 6 Drive-in!

A night to remember, her Korean War Vet Father tossing me the keys saying, "have fun kids"

Neighborhood Trouble Makers

Getting back to The Pits, It is fair to say most of the neighborhood kid's parents were pretty oblivious of the dangers and goings-on throughout our 840 acres of fort-building paradise.

For example:

Ever want to drive around an asphalt pavement roller even though you don't have a drivers license let alone a heavy equipment operator background? No problem: just get Fast Eddie to hot-wire it and take 'er for a spin around The Pits! I knew no good would come of this and watched from afar, Eddie Ellis and Jeff Spagnolia. Affectionately as emerging teen-age boys we dubbed him, Spag; in typical mean-boys parlance, we referred to our Hawaiian/Italian best friend as a "f***-ing Spaggot" just as one of the mainstays of our group David Lancaster was referred to as either: Lung-Cancer, 'lungy' or my favorite, Dumb-Bastard!
It is the weekend. Things are a little slow on the bomb cars driving down McClaren Drive with springtime--hard-as-rock-- tree-bearing Liquid Amber Balls circuit. Tired of the usual doorbell ditch accompanied by depositing a flaming bag of dog excrement at the victims' home entry porch? If this is the case, why not see if the workers at the rock-crushing-gravel-maker-thingy plant forgot to lock-out the power somewhere...Eureka,we found it.

So Eddie Ellis, and Buddy Rickert, and Todd Diaz--once again, I chickened-out when it came to vandalism or serious mayhem at the Pits--fire-up the conveyor-belts and the rock crusher starts depositing gravel where a huge dump truck is meant to be...Wow, that is loud; better hi-tail it to either the levee and the cover/safety of the neighborhood or back down to the marshlands of the river; this, triggering Jim the Guard racing towards the plant!

How about a little exercise in the Pre-kids-looking-into-screens-all-day era: In some kind of parental oversight brain-fart, there was always the ominous--as seen from my backyard--four or five story pile of sand dropped from a conveyor-belt about where the base and approach to the bike & footbridge now resides. A group of six or seven of us would climb the catwalk along side the belt and once staring out across the river into Rancho Cordova--complete with B-52 and KC-135s occasionally scrambling on alert from Mather AFB--take a feet-first plunge some fifteen or twenty feet and then try to run and tumble down the mountain of sand; surprisingly, I came-to-find-out years later, it was not uncommon for air-pockets to exist--kids doing the same thing could and did get sucked-down, disappearing, only to suffocate as their friends dug frantically to no avail.
Finally, located towards the western edge of the Pits was the regional sewer plant [it looks to me that it has been replaced by a several street neighborhood complete with a Sacto County Sheriff Office (?)]

This G-map Will Give You A Better Picture of The Pits

This was a nighttime operation usually reserved for after Pacific Standard Time, so we could get home by 8 PM weeknight deadline, in my case. I remember our forces would be assembled along the levee near Sand Bar Circle; some of the younger kids from the neighborhood would join in on this rather harmless activity, creating a sort of neighborhood hooligan training camp for those to fill our shoes once girls [and boys for me] took precedent as we aged-out of Ubnoxious-ism.

The object of this field exercise was to mount a blitzkrieg with some of the kids spearheading the drive over the adjacent fence along the levee--others streaming through the front gate in a flanking movement for the purpose of drawing-away the soon to be pursuing workers. Whoever got to run up the mysterious circular round globe we named the "nuclear reactor" would capture-the-flag, so to speak.

...I think we all watched a few to many WW II and Cold War Movies, people!

First one to the top--after running past the s*it-troughs we referred to as "...being full-of Cocoa Puffs" And, thank goodness none of us ever fell in those--is the winner!

Foremost, for us, it was always about wreaking havoc for the purpose of getting chased.

After awhile the sewer plant workers stopped giving chase; however, Neil Erickson, Jim the Guard, and a cast of unknown workers in beat-up pick-up trucks were always up for the chase to break-up what was for them was most likelyu, a monotonous day at the Pits. As we advanced into the second semester of sophomore year, building forts and getting chased gave way to Driver's Ed for our soon approaching right of passage--the California Drivers License; naturally, the ability to double-date with friends who already had the CA DL, began to take precedent over those tween and thirteen, fourteen, and sometimes still fifteen year-old activities.

The Fort Behind the Levee had Running Water Wine 'Cellar' & Upstairs Sleeping Area for 4 Kids

In the Above Image You See a Near Horizontal Eucalyptus Limb Above was Two Story Platform Sleep-over Site Where We Could Watch 'R Rated Movies Across the American River in Rancho Cordova, CA and Observe KC-135 & B-52's Scramble on Alert from Mather AFB. Here is My Tree Climbing Squirrel Hunting Dog Beloved Yankee Davis (1966-1978) RIP 'Little Buddy'

...but for a kid with an always unleashed dog that had required walks as a brief respite from the small patio in LA, the GPs were an unbelievable, almost private, playground. In those days, nature lovers and fisherman entered Erickson Sand and Gravel using something akin to California's landmark Coastal Act (1976) [...so there must be another law involving accessing rivers, and I have yet to find it] knowing of the areas to fish including several "lakes" that were created from dredging below the nearby rivers water-table, yet the area remained relatively unknown to the general public, somehow.

...My Lord, I just now remembered how I went down to Lake # 1 in the mid-eighties releasing my Albino-Catfish to weigh-in with the large-mouthed bass and crappie when I could no longer take care of him or her [them, they, zee, right?]

Join us for the next installment of Simpler Time and Place the Best Era Ever to see what shenanigans or unintentional damage to the ecosystem is spelled-out for my readers. Don't forget to stream the show, Simpler Time and Place, heard Wednesday morning from 9-11 AM at ksfs.media/radio.

Next installment?

In celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the 1968 SFSU Strike, I will take you back to LA's Brentwood Elementary for a story of the LA Unified School District Teachers Strike of 1970:

http://articles.latimes.com/1989-05-13/news/mn-2681_1_teacher-walkout-average-teacher-new-reading-programs

In this instance, Bobby Moore, Craig Kitchner, and some other dumb kid [that would be me] stroll past the picketing teachers explaining that "Our parents are supporting the strike" in order to cut class and later that afternoon, trip over and break [me again!] a television antenna atop Moore's Mother's roof.

At the time, it seemed like a good place to toss around a football to us!

...oh-boy, was my Father steamed having to pay what used to be called a TV Repairman some almost $70.00 to replace the antenna.

Later,

DD

Posted by Drake McDonald Davis on September 26, 2018 4 comments:

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Drake McDonald Davis

Drake Davis is a 6th Generation [Paternal/5th Maternal] Californian who graduated from San Francisco State University in December of 2018. Currently, Davis is about to launch a career in voice-over having over 5.5 years on-air over two decades in Sacramento & Portland, OR; better yet, Davis was there with four additional years in live performance at the birth of Disco and height of the Roller Disco Era in Sac. Poised to go far and in possession of the coveted SFSU Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts [BECA] Degree, Davis can be be harnessed to make money for your media outfit.

Housekeeping

[This and the last post are from today. In addition, I will be putting a few short stories--explained within--up right now.]

Alright, I promised some vintage posts from journals kept over my tenure at Columbia College in Sonora, CA, earlier writings, and from the Summer of 2016 upon acceptance to SFSU.

Perhaps not as fully developed as I was not the writer I have now become, but by the time I finished my Creative Writing classes and was working towards my AA in Liberal Arts with an Emphasis in English [that is really what it says on the diploma people!] I should have had a clue.

Final note: up until now, my writing has been largely autobiographical--this has and will be increasingly not the case moving forward--as I promised my Mother as she lay dying in hospice that I would write a book; hence, these musings of the last five or six years since all this tragedy struck my life are the basis for a manuscript of what I think has been a rather fascinating life.

I may be poor and I have fallen far from my firmly lower-middle-class business owner heyday of the mid-Aughts--BUT...

Watch me nail this prominent-in-voiceover--nationally--thing, build a body of published spoken word, and finally achieve the title: Bay Area Radio Personality or even Political/Newstalk Host.

I've got this!

Here is to looking forward and hearing from my listeners via email:

iconicvoice4udrakedavis@startmail,com

or the station phone, okay?

...we do take requests at:

415.338.1532 "...that's 338.1532!"

Drake

Posted by Drake McDonald Davis on September 03, 2018 No comments:

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Drake McDonald Davis

Lookin' Good Back in the Neighborhood

Hi Everyone,

Arriving about two weeks ago, it has been a hectic couple of weeks. I am going to post a couple of short nostalgic stories, have been working feverishly to get content onto all of my social media platforms, and scrambling to dial-in classes and get homework underway; well, the two classes at City College [CCSF] the Social Media for Professionals and ProTools courses are heading into the third week, already.

Twitter, FB, and Instagram Drake?

No, I am not going to get caught-up in the addictive behavior. For most of you, it is cool if you want to collect friends and likes from people who may or may not exist and advertise products, etc. I am in a social media class and am having my worst assumptions confirmed from what has been revealed; the origins of companies such as FB and Google--that last one envisioned back during the origins of ARPNET and tied to DARPA which makes high-tech weapons of war--is very cloaked in backdoor deals with numerous spy agencies and cash infusions from the Military Industrial Complex.

Also, I have under three weeks to land what will be my second internship!

Anyhow, I want to let everyone know I will be returning to the subject matter for the blog having taken a slight detour for the What I Did on Summer Vacation or previous post, and this one okay?

Let me see if I can post-up some good content for everyone and get back to adding pictures--the obtaining of which was a main focus of the summer trip--to both my linkedin and SFSU eportfolim.

Here are the addresses if you are so inclined:

https://portfolium.com/ddavis31
https://www.linkedin.com/in/drake-m-davis-aka-the-reel-drake-davis-929329ab/

...if you have linkedin and are a media type or otherwise a resourceful colleague who wants to network, send me an invite, okay? Hey, your following my blog, so it is the least I can do!

In current personal news and developments:

First, former two semester radio co-host of Juxtaposed, Christopher Robin and I broke-in the radio station after our BECA 505 [Radio-2] class Thursday hosting a brief music interlude; it will be our second time in a class that can be taken up-to three times, so a few returning old-timers and familiar faces of Pros, for sure. Gary [or is that garret? Muriel, CJ, Malcolm Priston & Alex Paddia, and finally, Benjamin of the bilingual infotainment show--that also has spanned three semesters--comes to mind.

Unfortunately--if a listener--Chris and I have chosen not to carry-on with our show.

Second, I will be partnering with Octosquid [Joaquin Dante on the down-low] from the popular Friday night political round-table show, Warden's Northwest. Joaquin is even a little more whacked on the conspiratorial fringe aspects of the body-politic. He has been known to follow Q-ANON [no thanks] and is really fast on his feet in response or on the uptake.

So, stay tuned for that. We submitted show requests and should be on by weeks'-end or the following week at latest, if they are still massaging the schedule.

Additionally, there will be a blog created for that show and I will have plenty to say about the Tech Giants attempts of destroying the 1st Amendment and WHAT IS now truly election meddling with all of this censoring of Libertarians, Conservatives, Gun Owners/Second Amendment supporters, Christians--you name it!

Third, I have secured housing and will be moving-out of my notorious 10X5 storage area I have called home for well-over a year; hence, I need not explain to an employer where I live and why they should overlook this and still hire me. Furthermore, I can proudly post the KQED piece on homeless CSU Students; moreover, the interview featuring me at the KSFS News Desk was picked-up and ran on all 63 NPR Stations on the California Report airing at 8 AM and 4 PM, Drivetime.

...hyperlink may not work, so put in a browser and check-it-out!

https://www.kqed.org/news/11648942/cal-state-university-students-struggling-with-lack-of-housing-food

[CORRECTION: The KQED story states incorrectly, "Davis had a brief talk radio career."

Not true: I have worked in music radio four times in the Sacramento market, twice in the mid-nineties at a news-talk station in the Portland market, and even made a brief appearance on the Mile High City's Airwaves in 1990]

I would encourage everyone to check-out the extensive web post accompanying the article as well that featured a couple of pictures of me at home in the KSFS studios. It is a testament to my tenacity and grit to have achieved all that I have, and that I am now poised to work in what has always been the dream market since my teenage years.

My well-laid-out plans are coming to fruition:
Namely, just as I ran for congress after a better part of two decades saying that I would do so, and having met face-to-face with President Bill Clinton, it is my time to work on-air in this market--my grades, previous experience in Top 25 Markets, and my talent demonstrates, I belong here. Working as a writer, board operator, or some dues paying will be in order for a year or two--all the while building my voiceover career--I may not end up getting that radio station billboard at the Western terminus of the Bay Bridge or a couple of hot shotgun/shout jingles [Drake Davis!] but they too are both on my bucket-list!

Finally, let me add that I have to get to some homework and post a couple of vintage short stories posted to this blog that do keep with the premise of Simpler Time & Place...the Best Era...Ever!

...oh, and I have been working on finding another forty or fifty songs from the era to add to our playlist. Features for the show will include a mellow Adult Contemporary formatted songs for a day or narrow special themed music from the era certain weeks, and the rather bazaar features such as classic masturbation songs you listeners have cum to expect. Always a little risque--while keeping it PG--you can expect the quirky comments and observations from the disc jockey who never grows-up to continue!

...speaking of never growing-up: Here is a picture from those mid-eighties days with the one that got away--five year relationship and two years engaged--one and only, Stephanie Gibbons.

...now this is perhaps a bigger mistake than leaving Westinghouse Broadcasting?

It was all wrapped-in-one; hence, couldn't afford to keep my muscle car on the road due to the low pay--it was paid for--nor could she see fit to put her career on hold and change hours to accommodate my overnight schedule at KAER 92.5 FM.

Five years younger and met the Summer of '83 at seventeen just as I got out of the Army, the age difference worked against us as she discovered just how powerful her allure was by the on-set of her early twenties.

This was the love of my life never to be equaled again.

moreover, she hated the idea of moving about the country--up and down the Group W radio station dial until I was to have arrived in LA [KFWB] by my mid-thirties!

AND, let us admit the request lines and women that at least still in those days--certain ones anyway--still threw themselves at air personalities; this always bothered her--as it should have.

Honestly, my inability to keep it in my pants, or as she put it, "You'd screw anything with two legs...
Wait, I mean, 'anything with legs!'" laid at or was the crux of the problem, pun intended.

OUCH, Baby!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STs1QlyawpY

"The Love I Lost" (1973) by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes seems fitting. You may need to copy and paste this and the following link in a browser as they both are not hyperlinking, for some reason.

In my heart, I know--we both know--we let each other down...ahh, the glamorous career of radio broadcaster--here we go again!

Which reminds me...

Keeping with the landing stripe [Give me Red,--Red--I Want Red as Sammy Hagar sang in the 70s] and bikini lines, here is a classic from 1981. The song was my best friend and classmate, Josh Lehman, and mines' or our Friday night opening song--homework or the school week over--at the dorms in Sonora, CA The Mother Lode.

So, let the new and last semester, my Bay Area radio transition, and the hot young chicks [now to be defined as those in their late thirties and forties!] that are soon to follow get underway, people; I have worked towards and been waiting a lifetime for this!

here we go again:

Just Down Madison Ave From Orangevale's Rollingwood Commons--both of us worked there--Folsom Dam

[And be sure to check-out the brunette wearing SFSU Blue and Yellow colors at 3:21m TRT]

Might as well post my 72 SS Chevelle I referred to when explaining the hardships of the era, too:

Bored 30-over with TRW Pistons, this made it a 350/350 HP LT-1 four-speed equipped street rod that ruled-the-roust [at least when street-rodding zero-to-sixty style boulevard races] in the Orangevale-Fair Oaks-Citrus Heights Boulevards of the mid 1980s.

Showtimes should be posted by weeks' end with the new political show returning to Joaquin's old time-slot of 8 PM on Friday Night or two hours earlier at 6 PM Friday, hopefully. ST&P has been requested to be on in the 8:30-Noon slot on a weekday. We will see if my senior status at the station carries any weight this semester as it did doing the first show of the last Spring Semester and being in my requested time.

Okay Bi,

Drakester