An Early Trip to California

Traveling Boy’s Memory Lane Invites all writers to share their stories to the world. As long as websites in the internet are accessible, these stories will be your footprint of your life adventures. They may be happy, sad, playful, religious, political, narrative, poetic, etc. The more creative and the more honest, the better. Years … centuries from now, some alien ship will find this website and will wonder what mankind was all about. Your articles will answer a lot of their questions.

Article and pictures by guest writer Sharon Heck

My first trip to California was on a Michigan State University (MSU) student train to the 1956 Rose Bowl football game. It was December 1955 and I had saved my money to pay for the trip, which included the train ride on reclining seats, an inexpensive hotel room in Los Angeles, transportation to Pasadena for the Rose Parade, and a ticket plus transportation to the Rose Bowl game.

The train ride took several days as we were shunted off to side tracks for many hours near Chicago, so that we wouldn’t interfere with regularly scheduled trains. We slept in our reclining seats when it became dark outside, and the lights were dimmed. There was a dining car where we could purchase food, but I think we brought some food with us. A great deal of the whole experience was spent going to California and returning from California on the train. I do remember the beauty of Union Station from which we were bussed to the Grant Hotel. It later became a resident hotel and might not even exist today.

There were extra tours offered, so we went to Disneyland one day. The park had opened that year and wasn’t completed. I recall a large ship restaurant which advertised a certain type of tuna fish. I also remember the Golden Horseshoe Saloon which is still there. It is three-quarters in size to a real western saloon and had a great stage show which included a comedian, singers, and cancan dancers. There was a show in a revolving building which showcased the history of the use of electricity in our lives. The tuna ship was gone within a few years, and the Park has changed a great deal since 1955. We did ride the E-ticket rides of the day and that was very exciting.

One of our group had relatives in the Los Angeles area and they drove us to Griffith Park one day. We didn’t go to the observatory, we just drove around the area. It was extremely lush and beautiful, and had great views of the city.

January 1, 1956, was on a Sunday that year, so the Rose Parade and the football game were on Monday, January 2, 1956. No parade or football game was allowed on a Sunday, and this is still true today. We were transported very early that Monday to Pasadena, and found places on the street to view the parade. I took a great many slide pictures of the floats, and unfortunately, there was a blond ponytail in most of them. We were behind several layers of people, and even my height wasn’t enough to compensate. It became a family joke when I showed my slides that we saw lots of blond ponytails. The floats were very magnificent and the Rose Parade was a true highlight of the trip.

MSU played UCLA in the Rose Bowl game that Monday afternoon. The game was tied 14 to 14 very near the end of the 4th quarter. Dave Kaiser kicked a field goal for MSU with 7 seconds left on the clock to win the game 17 to 14. He was a backup kicker and it was his first field goal that year. There were late penalties and bedlam was happening on the field and in the stands. The stands emptied onto the field with the win and the goalpost was torn down. Goalposts were made of wood in those days and I still have a small piece of wood from that goalpost. The student train was filled again, and a very happy, victorious group of MSU students returned to the campus. My first trip to California was a huge success and left me wanting more.