Pete and Laz

Pete and Laz
Yeah, Pete it's rough...but it's a runner.

Monday, January 14, 2013

More 'Time Travel'

An acquaintance of mine who owns a  fast food restaurant and is also a Real Estate agent, sent me some old pics of the town of Rancho Cordova via e-mail awhile back. Rancho Cordova is the town I attended High School in .'Rancho' sits along Highway 50 about 15 minutes out of Sacramento. In the old days it was a gas stop and motel location for people on their way to Lake Tahoe. When my family arrived in 1964 it still had farms, orchards, and hops fields nearby. All this was beginning to fade away of course. By this time the aerospace industry was going strong and rocket motors for the US space program were being built nearby.The two local Air Force bases were going strong, the Viet Nam war was 10 years from being gone...
Otherwise, life was kinda like 'Mayberry' of the 'The Andy Griffith Show' around here.

I've arranged these roughly in chronological order....(These were obtained from the local Chamber of Commerce...have no idea who took them)

A '49 or '50 Ford convertible....


Local cowboy...

Nice hat's...

Gonna see if I can ID this country road....


The 'Sharp Shop', now gone. Where you could get your lawnmower repaired,chainsaw blade touched-up, or pick up parts for your  mini-bike...

Have to see if I can ID this little spot as well...might still be standing.

Art Linkletter again...

Local shopping center, before several rehabs that have occurred over the years...Bought my first fishing pole in a store here.

Folsom Blvd. or 'Old Highway 50' , before it was widened and straightened, and the nearby Freeway completed.

My Alma Mater, Cordova High School

Folsom Blvd. in the seventies it looks like... 


This is a picture I took in the seventies. That is Grant Smith, an old friend, when he was younger, and getting crazy...I've run this pic before, and will do so again I'm sure. Grant sold me a Norton Commando 850 that I hope to get back on the road soon. He's hanging from the Marquee of the 'Thunderbird Drive-in Theatre', which unfortunately was torn down. 

Added a link to the Rancho Cordova wikipedia page------>Rancho History

















4 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Me too, wish I'd taken more classes in History. I just started reading a book I found at a local flea market about Perth. Believe it might be titled 'Vanishing Perth', anyway the local historical society put it out and it has some great pics and stories from back in the day...

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  2. Love those old town looks before they got "modernized". There's still a lot of these small towns out in the sticks that look the way they did 60-70 years back.

    Teri and me went to a winery in Mason which is about 100 miles from here and had a drive around; small town café where some of the locals were eating, most were in that mossy oak camo as either a fashion statement or it was hunting season.

    Town still had that small town look to it.

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  3. When I retire in a few years I'd like to do a lot of exploring by bike, and see more of the old stuff left. In California there are still a lot of old towns that haven't changed much. The ones that are far from freeways at least. Checking out the local cafes and such...and maybe finding that 'old' bike.

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