WEST HILLS : Man Relives His Glory Days of 1950s at Home

Sock hops and hot rods. Rumblers wearing leather and girls in tight sweaters.

Ronald Main never got over it.

The 51-year-old building contractor comes home each night to a private museum of 1950s kitsch, where he can woo his “teen angel” to the croons of Elvis and Buddy Holly, and relive the glorious time when he was a high school wrestling star and self-proclaimed juvenile delinquent.

“I was one of the studs in high school because I grew up fast and I was tough,” said Main, who still wears his hair in a modified pompadour. “I stole a lot of cars just to go on joy rides.”

Entering Main’s home on a West Hills cul-de-sac is like stepping into a ‘50s wonderland.

One end of the family room was reconstructed from a bankrupt soda shop piece by piece, including the soda fountain, the spinning bar stools and copper trim.

Next to it, at a vintage diner table, Main and his wife, Vanessa, sip homemade malts as the jukebox cranks out such tunes as “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?” by the Shirelles or “Transfusion” by Nervous Norvus.

Opposite the soda fountain is a couch made from the back end of a ’57 Chevy.

“That’s where you can go about your business of necking,” Main said, “without getting in trouble.”

Three pinball machines (newer models because they’re more fun), antique scales and cash registers, stuffed animals (Vanessa’s) and posters from “Attack of the 50-Foot Woman,” “Dragstrip Girl,” “King of the Rocket Men” and other movies line the walls.

“Sometimes it kind of closes in on you,” said Vanessa Main, 39. “But it makes him happy, so I get into it. And he calls me his ‘teen angel.’ That makes me feel great.”

Main started collecting memorabilia about 10 years ago after divorcing the woman who had been his sweetheart from Mt. Whitney High School in Visalia and marrying Vanessa.

It was watching his own children and their generation grow up that Main says helped turn him back to the days of his youth.

“It was such a simpler time,” Main said. “We liked girls and we liked cars. There were fights, but it wasn’t like the violence now. All you have to do is watch the old movies to see. The kids today would have eaten us alive.”

Main’s latest endeavor is to publish a catalogue of obscure drag racing and science fiction videos, such as “Hot Rod Herman,” “Eat My Dust” and the “Zombies of the Stratosphere” series, which he transfers from film himself.

Watching the movies apparently is not enough, however. Each month, Main races his souped-up 1929 Ford roadster against other hot rods in the desert at El Mirage, a favorite drag-racing spot for decades.

“There’s a whole group of us that goes out there,” Main said. “Nothing has changed about it since the ‘50s, except that we’re all a lot older.”