The Naked Truth About Streaking in the Foothills

“Streaking” -- it was a new word that popped up in 1974, and you had to say the “eyes” had it what with persons running around in public in their “birthday suits.”

Actually, what started “streaking,” no one really knows (Lady Godiva may have had something to do with it) as the activity became a national fad that year with some astonished

looks. The La Cañada Flintridge -- Foothill area also had its moments of seeing nudity on the run. Maybe, they had nothing else to do. These brave and abashed teenagers, but there was one catch in participating. You would be arrested for violating the law if caught. I never heard of anyone being arrested locally.

The one thing about “streaking” was that it happened suddenly out of the blue, and then they were gone. However on one occasion, a security man at La Cañada High did thwart a couple of would-be streakers as they moved out to “perform.” They ended up in the principal’s office for a 15-

minute advice lecture, and that was that.

The definition of “streaking” was “a person moving swiftly though a crowd in the all-together.” There were incidents at La Cañada High School, which spilled over into the west side of town and into the Montrose Shopping Park.

On one Monday shortly after noon, two male students in the raw emerged from the LCHS boys’ gym amid the cheers of encouragement from their classmates. The story goes that the pair, suddenly having afterthoughts about streaking, were then pushed out of the gym door by some of their peers. The incident didn’t last long as school authorities stepped in.

On that same day, there was an unconfirmed report that five LCHS students were planning to “streak” at the Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy. On another occasion-during a lunch

period at LCHS, a nude motorcyclist drove around the campus and was finally apprehended by sheriff’s deputies who had been called to the school.

0ne Saturday evening at the former Albertson’s market here at 2243 Foothill Blvd., shoppers and employees couldn’t believe their eyes as a youth ran through the store, dressed in absolutely nothing.

That incident was picked up by the radio media throughout Southern California, moving the store management to post a “streaking prohibited” notice on its marquee. And the Montrose business district was also targeted as a band of teenagers in the buff “streaked” through Hale’s men’s store and Pam’s ladies’ store at mid-day.

The “streaking” craze seemed to burn itself out during that year. It had now become history.

(Don Mazen, a longtime local journalist, is the author of The History of La Cañada Flintridge.)

20051117361L0QF8(LA)Don Mazen