Looking at that big old moon last night, I remembered growing up

[EFerrari]

in Silicon Valley when NASA was just a baby and the moon landing was still in the future.

Anyone else grow up there?

Our neighborhood was carved out of an apricot orchard and all my friends' dads were either engineers or stock brokers.

When we moved in, the fencing wasn't up yet, so there were rows and rows of nuclear family - type houses but no boundaries at all. TANG and Space Food Sticks were still in the future and we still tied our shoelaces because Velco hadn't made its way to our sneakers.

Does anyone else remember that? I think I want to write a novel about that crazy time. :)

[Midlodemocrat]

1. Space food sticks!!! I remember those.

:rofl:

I grew up on the East Coast, but the neighborhood sounds very similar. Lots of nuclear families in split level homes, each with a swingset in the back yard.

Very happy memories.

[EFerrari]

2. It was so funny because each family was supposed to be

a self-contained unit.

Which made things like parties a puzzle. I was the oldest kid on the block and got babysitting jobs -- when I was EIGHT!

LOL

Great memories but we didn't do groups very well unless it was driveway pick up games. :)

[Midlodemocrat]

4. LOL. I remember my parents and the neighbors having

'carport' parties in the summer. The kids all went to bed and the parents would go to whichever was the host house.

No babysitters. Everyone could see their respective homes from every other house.

The thought of that today makes my blood run cold. Fire? Hello?

But, we all survived. My brothers would go outside and play War :wow: until dinnertime every day of the summer. Funny, too, because they are the four biggest pacifists on the planet.

[EFerrari]

6. My blood runs cold thinking that at 8, someone left their baby in my care.

:scared:

But, we all survived. And *I* played Daniel Boone by overturning picnic benches in the driveway and make rifles out of broomsticks.

:rofl:

[Midlodemocrat]

7. Ha. When I was 12, a neighbor left their newborn in my care.

She was going to be gone for about 2 hours.

She returned home shit faced at 3AM. I had no idea how to even feed a baby. My mom had to coach me over the phone because she couldn't leave my brothers and my dad wasn't home.

Fun times. Fun times. :rofl:

[EFerrari]

9. My neighbor ladies were all NASA wives. They didn't get shitfaced

(or, not so they could be fingered, lol).

But that's how young the whole place was. I was the ranking babysitter at 8. lol

Meanwhile, my schoolmates and I walked across these cute little wooden bridges that the surrounding ranchers built across their irrigation ditches. Everything was so new there. Everyone seemed to feel like they were pioneering the South Bay.

lol

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. My dear sfexpat2000!

I did the major part of my growing up in a development called Cherry Woods, in a suburb of San Jose...

It was part of a cherry orchard, and some of the trees had been left. Our trees bore well, and we ate cherries every summer...

And I remember that time very well...

We did have fences, though...

I think writing about that time would be very smart!

:hi:

[EFerrari]

5. I remember a whole shopping center built around cherries

but that was north of us.

Maybe it was Cherry Woods, dear Peggy.

Isn't it fascinating that the builder left some of those fruit trees up in the developments? We had three apricots on our corner lot. And, being from the San Francisco area, they were my first clue that SEASONS really existed. :hi:

[CaliforniaPeggy]

8. Were you in San Jose then?

We were near the intersection of Hamilton and Meridian...

All of that is still there...

I've been back to see it, and the neighborhood looks very much the same!

:hi:

[EFerrari]

11. We were at the intersection of Hwy 9 and Fremont Blvd.

Now that I think of it, Cherry Chase shopping center was at the Mt. View / Sunnyvale border -- to the north of Meridian and Hamilton.

But, the whole valley was undergoing the same transformation. And even into my high school years in the 70s. The few times I went out to "party" after our football games, we hung in out in fruit orchards. I still remember riding my bike through orchards to get to White Front to buy material for a party dress.

lol

:rofl:

[Arugula Latte]

10. I grew up on the other side of the Bay in the 'burbs (Contra Costa Co.)

I do remember TANG and space sticks. There were still orchards around, and we'd ride horses down the residential streets. Clop clop clop...

[EFerrari]

12. Yours or rented?

I miss those orchards. They were really beautiful. :)

[Arugula Latte]

13. I sponsored a pony, then a horse, then later I got my own horse when I was 12.

Man, we had a lot of freedom. I'd ride a spooky horse in the hills by myself w/ no helmet. No WAY would I let my own kids do something like that!

I loved it in Spring when the yellow mustard flowers would bloom amongst the fruit and walnut trees. *sigh*

[EFerrari]

14. I was from an outlying SF suburb. All we had there were these pale

palm trees and our blue @sses when we went outside and pretended to be at the beach.

When my family moved to the South Bay, it felt like some wild trek to nowhere. That trees could bear FRUIT was a bizarre concept. lol

And my single mom didn't go there with a NASA contract in hand. She was just a small business woman with a great nose.

Later, when I nagged her to death, she used to drive me and a few friends up behind Stevens Creek to the stables and we'd get to ride very patient (or tired) horses of a Sunday afternoon. As soon as we turned to head back, they would finally gallop. :)

[Arugula Latte]

15. I remember moving to Cali. when I was a young kid.

Ohio had been green and full of leafy trees overhead. California struck me as some sort of alien desert.

It took me a long time to get used to it; then I finally came to appreciate those golden hills and those beautiful twisted Live Oaks.

I dunno, though, after living back East and now up here in Oregon I think I'm accustomed to having a leaf canopy again. Lol.

And ... Stevens Creek. I think my association with that is "Stevens Creek Blvd." I used to hear about in commercials. Is that a major thoroughfare down there?

[EFerrari]

17. Yes. Stevens Creek Blvd ends up in the foothills. If you turn left

you wind up by the damn itself, some great picnic country and near the stables. :)

[Oeditpus Rex]

16. I lived in Salinas then

Carved out of an apricot orchard... you didn't happen to live near Blossom Hill Road, did you? :)

[EFerrari]

18. Blossom Hill Road was to the south west, I think.

The whole valley used to be white with blossoms in the spring, though. :)