Crestline and Life “Up the Hill”
My friend Mark recently sent me a photo of more than eight feet of snow outside of his house in Twin Peaks, California, a community in the San Bernardino Mountains near Lake Arrowhead.
He told me that many residents said that they hadn’t seen snow like this in 40 years.
Looking at the photo sent me down a rabbit hole of nostalgia.
Part of my childhood was spent in Crestline, also not far from Lake Arrowhead. Crestline was dubbed Little Switzerland, and many of the homes resembled chalets. I remember a street named Zurich Drive, and my aunt and uncle lived on a dead-end named Zell Court. I also remember a kid named Chris Dietrich, who used to brag that his parents owned a bar called The Yodeler. That kid loved to brag.
I lived at 221 Darfo Drive with my mother, twin brother and Cathy, our niece.
We moved from Miami to Crestline twice, one of many shuttles across the country perhaps intended as a means of de facto reconciliation between my mother and father. They never got divorced, but they were never really together either.
Dad moved to Hollywood in 1967. I still remember him waving as he turned left onto Kirk Street from Tigertail Court in Coconut Grove in his blue 1967 Chevy Impala.
Hollywood was 90 minutes from Crestline. Dad would visit, and I could see that there was some sort of stab at the illusion of family, but something wasn’t right.
My relationship with my father was as loving as could be, but my mom and dad weren’t fated for long term romance. I didn’t see any of the lovey-dovey, television-style mom-and-dad stuff going on.
All that being said, Crestline was a different experience for us. Moving from the sea-level, humid climate of South Florida to a dry California air at an elevation of five thousand feet took some getting used to. At first, my lungs were sore, likely the result of trying to get used to the thinner air.
Even after I lived in Hollywood years later, the same thing would happen when I would visit Crestline.
Hold on. We lived in Buena Park for a very short time after we moved from Miami. Buena Park is the home of Knott’s Berry Farm. I remember going the end of first grade at a Catholic school called St. Pious V. More about that in a future blog post.
I remember living in two rental houses before we moved into our house on Darfo Drive.
We walked a lot in Crestline – exploring the terrain on and around Darfo Drive, checking out the A-frames, pine trees, blue jays…
We walked along a brook, mostly with Dad – and we carved our names – Roger, Chris, Cathy – on a little tree.
Years later, we saw those carvings high up on the now-mature tree, our names expanded along with the growth.
My brother and I took the bus to school. Cathy was something like four. Not old enough for kindergarten yet when we moved to Crestline for the first time. Chris and I were starting second grade. Mom would drop us off at a fire station across from Lake Gregory. That part of the lake was not set up for swimming, but we saw people fishing over there. There was also a beach area a little further down the road. You had to pay to get in, and you could rent paddleboards. We couldn’t swim then, but when we came back for fifth and sixth grades, we started going to that beach regularly. We learned to swim in Miami when we were third graders.
In the fifth grade, my then best friend appeared: Glen Ross. Glen and I hit it off almost immediately and were fast friends in fifth and sixth grades. Our birthdays were three days apart. because I bounced all over the place so much, we lost touch for a long time. I am happy to say we are in touch once again thanks to Facebook.
The first time it snowed, we were in awe. I thought it was like a moonscape. The only other time we saw snow was when we drove through Flagstaff, Arizona on the way to California. But this was a different animal altogether.
We weren’t used to bundling up, but we soon got used to it. There were these plastic discs with nylon handles on the sides, and we’d go careening down embankments.
There are home movies of our First Communion along with a pair of sisters, the Goodwin twins – daughters of the owners of Goodwin and Son’s Market – the only game in town for groceries. We looked like dual brides and grooms, all decked out in our finery.
My friend Mark told me that the roof of that store collapsed under the weight of the recent snow. I wish them the very best.
More to come.
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Roger Yale 