10 More Letters
Santa Cruz City Hall Can Raze Historical Buildings to a New Level
(Political cartoon by Charlie Fritz of Alamo, Calif., a member of the Class of '54)
Additional Letters to City Hall/Sentinel Newspaper from Class of '54
Barbara (McCombs) McFadden, Oakland, Calif., Class of '54American Graffiti was based upon California's wondrous drive-in restaurants, darned few of which remain. How we all remained slim despite those fourth meals of burgers, fries and shakes on Friday and Saturday nights after games, movies or dances is a metabolic mystery. The few remaining icons of that time -- when our hearts were young and gay -- should be preserved, especially now. (Husband Chuck McFadden was in the SCHS Class of 1955)
Gerhard "Jerry" Fuerst, Kalamazoo, Mich., SCHS Class of '54
Although not a local resident, I have maintained a lively and continuous interest in your community since my days as a German exchange student at Santa Cruz High School almost 50 years ago. I recall going often to the Cross Roads with my new American friends in 1952-53 to enjoy a hamburger, an ice cream soda, a strawberry sundae (still my favorite), or an apple pie a la mode. Those were the days when hamburgers were large and juicy, cooked to order and came with all the trimmings. It was delicious fare, served by charming carhops.
Nancy (Cummings) Jellison, Santa Cruz, Calif., Class of '54
Probably more than most people who grew up in Santa Cruz in the '50s, I enjoyed reading the Dec. 16 history about the Cross Roads because the first job I ever had was as a carhop there. A lot of teenagers in the '50s worked at our two drive-ins because they offered year-round employment whereas the other main employer of teens, the Boardwalk, only had seasonal jobs. I only worked at the Cross Roads one summer but my late husband (Darrell Jellison, SCHS Class of 1952) and I went to the Cross Roads frequently as customers as did most young people of the era.
Charlie Fritz, Alamo, Calif., Class of '54
Some of the fondest memories of my youth in Santa Cruz, starting in 1952 when I received my driver's license, to 1958 when I graduated from college, are the drive-in restaurants -– Spivey's Five-Spot and the Cross Roads. They were the center of our auto-oriented social life where you went to meet friends and check out the cars. The former is long gone, and while it now houses a liquor store, the old Cross Roads building should, I strongly believe, be preserved as a historical landmark due to the importance of drive-ins some 50 years ago. It would also be appropriate to the historical aspects of the Boardwalk and surrounding area. It comes down, in my view, to the spot that the actor Michael Keaton is doing on the History Channel in reference to the importance of preserving our "main streets" in the U.S. This building is a part of Santa Cruz history that should be preserved for future generations. This is of particular significance given the buildings lost in the 1989 earthquake. During a recent visit at our vacation home in Santa Cruz County by my wife's niece, husband and 13-year-old son, we made a trip to the Boardwalk and skateboard park. As we sat in the bleachers watching their son on his skateboard, I thought how appropriate it would be to see the Cross Roads building restored as a 1950s' museum so today's youth could share memories from my era.
Ruth (Roinestad) Yoder, San Jose, Calif., Class of '54
Having grown up in Fonzie's '50s and being fortunate enough to live in Santa Cruz, I would like to add my vote in favor of keeping the Cross Roads building as a piece of history. Drive-ins were truly unique. They were the places to be and to be seen. My husband and I live in San Jose, but a few years back we bought a vacation place off East Cliff Drive.
Paul Heaney, Lodi, Calif., Class of '54
In reading your Jan. 16, 2002, page 1 article, Bringing back the Diner, I was struck by the quote taken from a letter to the city written by Bob Sherbourne of Brookings, Ore., who in 1951 "sat in a foxhole in Korea...trying to imagine I was at the Cross Roads." I've read excerpts from many of the letters to the editor supporting preservation of the drive-in building, but one group of customers seems to be missing -- the veteran. Back in the '50s, every young man was liable for the draft up to age 26 under the Universal Military Training act. Many of us fulfilled our military obligation right after high school. The two local drive-ins -- the Cross Roads and Spivey's 5-Spot -- served as gathering places after we were discharged and were becoming reacquainted with civilian life. It was like starting over in many cases since so many high school buddies had gone off to college, had married or had moved away because of a lack of decent jobs. There always has been a closeness among those who grew up in the '50s. My class -- the Santa Cruz High Class of 1954 -- has its own private web site with over 110 participating classmates. And in 2002 we started our third straight year of monthly get-togethers in Santa Cruz. As of our January 2002 get-together, 73 members of the Class of '54 have attended one or more of our alternating lunches and dinners -- 36 from Santa Cruz County, 27 from the rest of California, and 10 from other states. We usually get 15 to 25 attendees, and at last September's dinner, after the horrible 9-11 events, I looked around our table and realized that every male there from the Class of '54 had served in the military, representing every branch -- the Marines, Army, Navy and Air Force. (Except for the few career military types, none of us particularly wanted to go into the service but we did because it was our duty.) My wife (the former Carole Scofield, SCHS Class of 1956) and I hope you preserve the Cross Roads as a memorial to a wonderful era in which to grow up in Santa Cruz.
Lorraine "Lefty" (Folk) Voight, Santa Cruz, Calif., Class of '54
May I add another little anecdote to your growing list of stories about the 1950s and the teenage cruisin'-the-drag, drive-in culture of that decade? My classmate Rose (Wall) Reynolds of Aptos started working as a carhop at Spivey's 5-Spot when she was 15 years old. Everybody knew Rose and Rose knew everyone. We knew we could go to Rose and find out who was cruisin' the drag that evening and also who was out with whom that night. She kept tabs on everyone's boyfriend and girlfriend who came in there. If you were cheating on your boyfriend or girlfriend, you wouldn't dare show up at Spivey's when Rose was working. Of course it was easier to keep track of people then because Santa Cruz County wasn't so heavy populated as it is now. I can remember when there were no traffic jams, no parking meters and only one stop signal. Santa Cruz wasn't living in the Dark Ages before the university arrived, however. I had to laugh after reading an article last December about Santa Cruz opening its "first" teen center. Believe it or not, Santa Cruz had a teen center back in the '50s. We called it The Snafu – a place where we could hang out with our friends and have a good time. It was opened in the 1952-53 school year on the Santa Cruz High campus – also by the city recreation department. But when the main Santa Cruz High building was closed because of seismic concerns in the spring of 1953, all available on-campus buildings had to be used for classrooms and The Snafu was closed. I have a newspaper clipping with photos of some teens playing ping-pong at the center from The Sentinel to prove it existed. I guess neither the city nor The Sentinel did its research homework about the real "first" teen center. That seems to be the case with the Cross Roads Drive-In, too. It's difficult to believe that no one at City Hall knew that Lighthouse Liquors had once been a drive-in restaurant, especially since John Filice, who owned the liquor store property when the city bought it, had once been a dishwasher at the Cross Roads during his youth. I bet John -- we knew him as "Punky" -- told someone. Perhaps if the city had done its homework before putting together the plans for Depot Park, it would have learned that the liquor store had an interesting past, worthy of saving for future generations as a symbol of a never-to-be-repeated era. Yes, Santa Cruz was a small, tight-knit community in the 1950s. You might be interested in knowing that John Filice's older brother, Chuck, was also a member of the class of '54 as was Chuck's wife, Shirley Nunes. The Filices reside in Salinas.
Rod Jensen, Aptos, Calif., Class of '54
How many Sentinel readers remember when any straightaway on a quiet Santa Cruz County road doubled as a drag strip ... the drive-in movie theater was known as The Passion Pit ... guys tried to persuade their dates to accompany them out to West Cliff Drive to "watch the submarine races" before their evening was over? How many remember when teens tooling their parents wheels and hot-rodders alike nightly cruised the drag between Spivey's Five-Spot and the Cross Roads, with additional runs on Beach Street in the summer? Those halcyon days of the Fifties are gone forever, but they should not go forsaken. If you "remember when," please join 1950s' Santa Cruz High students from throughout the U.S. who want to preserve one of the last remaining icons of that decade -- the Cross Roads Drive-In. Write to the Santa Cruz City Council and this newspaper and insist that the former drive-in, which later housed Lighthouse Liquors, be made part of the new natural history museum complex in Depot Park. About 50 of your Santa Cruz High contemporaries, from the Classes of 1949 through 1960, already have written to City Hall (and The Sentinel), asking that the Cross Roads be spared from the wrecking ball. Incidentally, late-1940s' students probably recall the Five-Spot as Bosley's Drive-In while early-1960s' teens probably remember the Cross Roads as Danny's Drive-In.
(Mr. Jensen's letter is the first published by the Sentinel -- June 29, 2002, eight months after the local blatt received its first letter backing the Cross Roads. It's on-line at: Jensen Letter, titled "Save Cross Roads Drive-In.)
Diana (Lage) Dexter, Concord, Calif., Richmond, Calif., High Class of '58
(Diana is a cousin of the author of these pages.)
I only lived in Santa Cruz for a short time, 1947-1949, but I was a frequent visitor to your delightful city for many years because my aunt and uncle, Louise and Leonard Klempnauer, operated the Cross Roads Drive-In, which my cousin Len informs me you plan to tear down. I read his Save Our Happy Days article in your local newspaper's on-line edition and would like to add that the Cross Roads not only served as a popular teenage hangout of the 1950s but also served as a popular diner for families of that era. I bet many of your residents who ate at the Cross Roads may not even remember the drive-in because they were small children during the '50s. They came with their parents and ate inside -- not in their cars like the teenagers. I should know that as well as anyone because I worked summers as a waitress at the Cross Roads while attending Richmond High School. It's no wonder that parents of that day brought their children to the Cross Roads because the drive-in was truly family-run. My late brother and I both worked there summers along side our cousins Len and Marcia Klempnauer; my mother worked there as a waitress when we first moved to Santa Cruz from Kansas City; and our grandmother, Verda Stubbs, who was elected president of the California State Grandmothers Club in the 1950s while living in Santa Cruz, worked there as the day manager for the first couple of years the Cross Roads was in business. I've lived in the East Bay Area since 1949, and I can think of no other building that was a drive-in restaurant in the '50s that still exists on our side of the bay. Please "Save the Cross Roads" as a 1950s' museum not only for future generations of Santa Cruzans but also for future generations from other parts of our great state.
San Jose Mercury Joins the Fray
Leigh Weimers, dean of the three-dot columnists in Northern California, wrote a piece on May 8, 2002, on efforts to Save the Cross Roads. It is on the next page -- page 11 -- as is a letter endorsing preservation of the Cross Roads written by Mrs. Sharmon Nash, a Santa Cruz High history teacher from 1951 to 1985.Yahoo Quick Search
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