Odds & Ends Around the Valley
Old-Fashioned Fun
Most of us know historical societies are for old fogies who sip weak tea and fondle their pedigrees.
Lineage lionizing is a serious business with these folks, who also save some historically correct buildings. The buildings are generally more than 100 years old, with faulty plumbing and designed by someone’s Cousin Jonathan or Uncle Ethan.
Almost none of this interests any of the rest of us, who do not seek ways to experience group tedium. This is not meant as a slur upon these groups. The description is simply a widely held characterization.
The folks at the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society have not grasped the concept.
First of all, anyone can join their group. This is not the done thing, of course, but these renegades do “things” their own way. Their Sunday Christmas party is a case in point.
The party, which is open to anyone, will be held in the old Saugus railroad station house that the group saved from demolition and transplanted to the William S. Hart Park in Newhall.
Anyone dropping in between 1 and 5 p.m. can listen to the membership rattle off all the history of the area, which has very little to do with anyone’s pedigree and a lot to do with deviant behavior.
It seems the valley used to be a haven for outlaws and other undesirables, particularly that old reprobate Tiburcio Vasquez, after whom someone saw fit to name a bunch of rocks.
According to Michelle Hoffman, a Vasquez aficionado and society partisan, the old bandit used to hold whole towns hostage while he took his time robbing women.
Hoffman seems to think that this is suitable fodder for a historical society and generally enthuses about the area’s dark past.
She said Newhall was the last frontier of the Old West and a hide-out for gun-happy desperadoes. She, or any of the other members, is happy to show exhibits in the station house that depict, through dioramas and other re-creations, the lives and times of these historical people.
To get everyone in the historical mode for the fete, the members are dressing up in fashions from the bad old days, with some of the costumes being reproductions of the real thing, donated by the Kern County Museum.
Hoffman said her costume will include a hat with a dead owl on top, which she is certain was a great fashion statement of those bygone times.
Oh Christmas Tree
In 1956, Oliver Holt was fresh out of the Army, newly married and working in his father-in-law’s nursery. To make extra money, he suggested getting Christmas trees to sell, which he did.
The first year he did about $3,500 worth of business and found that encouraging. This year, with five lots and a 12,000-person mailing list, he expects to gross about $120,000.
The Northridge lot, where he has been since 1962, is the main place of holiday business for the entrepreneur, who during the rest of the year is a landscape architect. The lot handles the local trade and is the dispersal center for his commercial accounts. His $400 and $500, 15- and 16-foot trees are headed for places such as the Biltmore and Hyatt hotels, bank lobbies and department stores. He has other lots in Van Nuys, Sherman Oaks, North Hollywood and Toluca Lake.
In addition to the big jump in sales, Holt said the primary differences between now and when he started in the Christmas tree business are safety and technology.
All his trees are sprayed with a fire retardant and are kept fresh by spraying them at night with an overhead sprinkler system. And instead of getting trees by permission from a forest, as he first did, he now works with tree farms in Northern California and Nevada. He said this is ecological and ensures that the trees are as full as possible. The farmers prune and shear the trees as they grow. This technology has developed to the point where every tree is picture perfect, he said.
Another new development is the name of his organization.
When he started out, it was just Oliver Holt Christmas Trees, said the father of five. Several years ago, it became Oliver Holt and Sons.
This year his signs will say Oliver Holt and Sons and Daughters because “the girls probably work as hard or harder than the boys, and they are not going to be denied.”
Going My Way?
For 18 years, Pierce College has been harboring a travel agency, which may come as a surprise to some. The agency sends people on guided tours all over the Southland and often for less than purely educational purposes. Take Saturday’s trip to Barstow.
Round Town Tours will bus eager shoppers to the Barstow discount mall where firms such as Polo/Ralph Lauren, Bugle Boy, Evan-Picone and Royal Doulton have factory outlets.
The purpose of this one-day outing is to shop, obviously, and the only thing participants are going to learn is how fast they can deplete their bank balances.
Participants will receive an additional 10% discount at participating stores, said Marian Sukurt, who coordinates these tours. But the bus fare is $48, and you can get your own lunch. Sukurt admits that the bus fare is high, but said she is just covering expenses. She added that last-minute passengers will be welcome because the trip is not sold out.
One that did sell out was the recent Victorian weekend at the Mission Inn in Riverside. Participants scouted the great old houses in the area.
A weekend in Catalina and a nostalgia buff’s trip to a railroad and airplane museum are planned in January.
Penny Ante
You know you’ve been hoarding pennies. There isn’t much else you can do with them. Perhaps your penny jar has turned into a penny bucket, and the last time you lifted it you required corrective surgery.
The helpful folks at Granada Hills Community Hospital will help you remove this irritant. Simply wrestle the penny container into your car and deliver it to the hospital.
The Employees Activity Committee is collecting 25 miles of pennies in conjunction with its 25 years of community service.
They will turn the weighty coins in for folding green and use it to fund employee programs.
It makes cents to them.
Overheard
“The bad thing about political jokes is that they get elected.”--A student at Cal State Northridge