Name: Marilyn Ross ~~~~~~~~~~ Tue-Dec 11, 2007, 5:02 pm - HHS Time
Maiden: Wisham
Class: 1956
City & State: Garden Grove, Ca
No E-mail
Message: I also lived on 134th st East of Prairie in the early 60's. It was LA County but we had a Hawthorne mailing address. We still thought of ourselves as living in Hawthorne.

Name: Mike Stallings ~~~~~~~~~~ Tue-Dec 11, 2007, 4:10 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1974
City & State: Torrance,CA.
E-mail
Message: Using the names of tracts is a new popular thing both cities and counties are doing now. The tract North of El Camino, where I work, is no longer Lawndale, but El Camino Village. My parents still live in Holly Glen and use that name for the city, instead of Hawthorne, on their mailing address.

Name: Neil Andersen ~~~~~~~~~~ Tue-Dec 11, 2007, 3:22 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1962
City & State: Dallas, OR
E-mail
Message: Who is Felton Avenue named after/for?

Name: Howard "Paco" Duran ~~~~~~~~~~ Tue-Dec 11, 2007, 2:49 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1961
City & State: Lake Forest
E-mail
Message: When I was just a Pac, I remember that my part of town was not considered part of Hawthorne but, part of LA. 5167 W 134th St.

Name: Mike Effler ~~~~~~~~~~ Tue-Dec 11, 2007, 2:02 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1967
City & State: El Segundo, CA
E-mail
Message: Those cities all have City of Los Angeles services...... police, fire, etc.

Name: Ray Castillo ~~~~~~~~~~ Tue-Dec 11, 2007, 1:23 pm - HHS Time
No E-mail
Message: Wikipedia is close to correct. The actual boundry line was Felton Avenue. I grew-up on 119th Place and Tahoe. We were the first house east of the 405 freeway. Felton was the next street east of us. Everybody east of Felton was in Hawthorne, everyone west was in Del Aire.

Name: Sharon MacDonald ~~~~~~~~~~ Tue-Dec 11, 2007, 1:17 pm - HHS Time
Maiden: Badger
Class: 1963
City & State: Bruceville, Texas
E-mail
Message: When my older son was a toddler, my mother nailed the crossed wooden stand of the Christmas tree to the living room floor. She also used a piece of wire attached to the drapery rod to make the tree stand straight. Her grandson wasn't about to get crushed by a falling tree. Fast forward to after Christmas. Mom goes to the store and dad decides to un-decorate the tree while watching football on TV. Sees the wire and gets it off (thinks, ha - she didn't remind me about that!). At half-time, dad decides to wrestle the tree to the curb. Goes to pick it up with what seemed like the appropriate amount of effort, and (as he said each time this story was retold) thought he was going to give himself a hernia! Upon closer observation, he discovered the heads of the nails driven flush into the wood. When finally removed they were measured and found to be about 4 inches long.

Name: Armand Vaquer ~~~~~~~~~~ Tue-Dec 11, 2007, 12:41 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1972
City & State: Tarzana, CA
E-mail
Message: Mary is right in her answer to Jim's trivia question. Those communities are all part of the City of Los Angeles. But, they were once their own cities before L.A. gobbled them up. Van Nuys City Hall still stands. Regarding Del Aire, our friends live near Del Aire park (i.e., the Hawthorne portion). I've never seen anyone use Del Aire as their city/community name, always Hawthorne.

Name: Mary Ann Martin ~~~~~~~~~~ Tue-Dec 11, 2007, 11:28 am - HHS Time
Maiden: Walton
Class: 1961
City & State: Nashville AR
E-mail
Message: Jim - are these towns part of the City of Los Angeles?

Name: John Crotty ~~~~~~~~~~ Tue-Dec 11, 2007, 9:24 am - HHS Time
No E-mail
Message: We grew up in Del Aire and my brother stills lives there. We used 90250 then and he still does. That's Hawthorne's zip code..we also used Hawthorne as our mailing address, not Del aire...another mystery for Cougartown!?!?

Name: jim sloey ~~~~~~~~~~ Tue-Dec 11, 2007, 8:56 am - HHS Time
Class: 1966
City & State: solvang
No E-mail
Message: Del aire is in fact an unincoporated area of Los Angeles County not part of a city per se. But here is a little trivia I think is interesting. What do Venice, Van Nuys, San Pedro and Westchester all have in common?

Name: John Baker ~~~~~~~~~~ Tue-Dec 11, 2007, 8:28 am - HHS Time
Class: 1962
City & State: Lomita, CA
E-mail
Message: HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my classmate, mother of my children, and "joined at the hip" friend, Joyce Savisky Chance. Have a great day, girl.

Name: Karen Kuehl ~~~~~~~~~~ Tue-Dec 11, 2007, 8:19 am - HHS Time
Maiden: Graham
Class: 1959
City & State: CA
E-mail
Message: I remember Mom buying packages of that white fiber glass to put on the tree. Wasn't it called angel hair? Really itchy stuff when the fibers got in your skin, but it was sure pretty on the tree.

Name: Jerry Miles ~~~~~~~~~~ Tue-Dec 11, 2007, 7:56 am - HHS Time
Class: 1966
City & State: Fair Oaks, CA
No E-mail
Message: Hey, guys. Del Aire has always been Del Aire, at least in my lifetime. But it has used an Inglewood mailing address and shares a zip code with part of Lennox. Several years back the post Office agreed to delivering mail that was addressed to Del Aire but it officially is still Inglewood. So sometimes a database lookup using Del Aire will fail and Inglewood will be successful. I hope that helps.

Name: Ingrid Larson ~~~~~~~~~~ Tue-Dec 11, 2007, 6:40 am - HHS Time
Maiden: LArson
Class: 1974
City & State: Formerly Del Aire
E-mail
Message: As a former resident of Del Aire (the corner of 118th Place and Judah) I can tell you that we used to have Inglewood listed as our mailing address. In fact the area was considered County Unincorporated; meaning it was part of Los Angeles County, but not part of any city. Regardless of the fact that it was outside the Inglewood city limits, all the mail was serviced through the Inglewood post office (zip 90304). I ended up living in another area of LA County that's unincorporated. My current mailing address lists Long Beach as the city, even though I'm outside the actual LB city limits. Hope that clears things up!

Name: Keith D. Jones ~~~~~~~~~~ Mon-Dec 10, 2007, 11:55 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1976
City & State: Las vegas
E-mail
Message: I remember my dad at Christmas would always meet up with the guys who picked up the trash and give them a bottle of whatever kind of Liquor he bought. The mailman and Helms Bakery guy too. Everyone really liked my dad. He was very friendly and talkative. With a name like Casey Jones he had to be. I remember back then the Christmas Carolers coming to our door. And, everyone walking around the neighborhood looking at the lights. 138st and the Zaccaglins always had the best decorated house. The smell in the air at Christmas back then was really neat too.

Name: Armand Vaquer ~~~~~~~~~~ Mon-Dec 10, 2007, 10:05 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1972
City & State: Tarzana, CA
E-mail
Message: We just noticed something odd. We received a Christmas card from a friend in the Del Aire section of Hawthorne, only the return address didn't say Hawthorne, it said DEL AIRE. What's going on? Has Del Aire split off from Hawthorne or something? First it's reconfiguring the pools at HHS and now this. Is nothing sacred?

Name: Marilyn Ross ~~~~~~~~~~ Mon-Dec 10, 2007, 6:21 pm - HHS Time
Maiden: Wisham
Class: 1956
City & State: Garden Grove, Ca
No E-mail
Message: I remember the white fiberglass lawns very well. I thought it was really cool.

Name: Bob Jensen ~~~~~~~~~~ Mon-Dec 10, 2007, 3:36 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1971
City & State: Los Angeles, Ca
E-mail
Message: John, the area you were thinking of was 144th place between Doty and Kornblum in Bodger Park. I had a Great-great Aunt that lived over there. One of her neighbors was a fellow who worked for an insulation company and got the idea of taking the white fiberglass and selling it during Christmas time to homeowners to decorate their lawns and bushes. He opened a seasonal store on Rosecrans at Kornblum and sold the fake snow along with many other holiday decorations made from fiberglass and white foam sheets. Many of the people who lived on his block purchased his products and there were about 10 houses in a row that had a very nice display. My parents also purchased many items from him and our house was decorated with snow, a snowman with a 300 watt spotlight and icicles but we were the only ones on the block so I guess we didn?t draw the crowds that Bear, Delaware does. I?ll try and find a photo of said isolated display.

Name: Clark Millman~~~~~~~~~~ Mon-Dec 10, 2007, 2:39 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1976
City & State: Torrance, CA
E-mail
Message: Not a Christmas memory but an observation my brother(Ray Millman 71) and I made as we drove by the campus this morning: I saw heavy construction equipment inside the pool area and my curisity was too high not to make my brother stop for a minute and let me find out what was going on! I talked to the construction crew and found out the pools are being reconfigured. There will no longer be a separate diving pool, it is being connected to the large swimming pool. Seems pretty stupid as I was a lifeguard at the pool in the summer of '78 and the idea of a separate diving pool was to keep divers from killing swimmers in the water! Had a great summer there in '78 with Chuck Kidwell (71) as the pool manager and Dave Fujinaka(75) and various other Cougs covering the lifeguard and swim instructor duties with me. Got the best tan of my life that summer. My favorite Christmas memory in Hawthorne was shopping for a Christmas tree usually in what was then a vacant lot between Boys market and Clarks Drugs. My friends and I would scout every tree on the lot and then position them into forts and hide from our parents.

Name: Karen Kuehl ~~~~~~~~~~ Mon-Dec 10, 2007, 12:51 pm - HHS Time
Maiden: Graham
Class: 1959
City & State: CA
E-mail
Message: Another memorable Christmas was when, on Christmas Eve, my dad's side of the family got together at our house in Hawthorne, with my many cousins. They all arrived early and brought their bathing suits, so I could take them to the beach! That was one warm holiday! I'm not sure if it was 58 or 59. Hope all you Cougars and friends have a very wonderful and safe Christmas and Happy New Year!

Name: Beverly Bierman ~~~~~~~~~~ Mon-Dec 10, 2007, 12:03 pm - HHS Time
City & State: Thousand Oaks, CA
E-mail
Message: RE: Christmas tree stories..1969 After Steve Bierman HHS71 got his driver's license at 16 he asked if he could get our Christmas tree that year. I agreed and gave him money and went off shopping with my next door neighbor. Later, when we came driving down our street, we saw through the rain, a leaning blob underneath the open garage door of my house. We parked on the street and stared at it for a minute when my neighbor asked if that could be our Christmas tree. I didn't think so but as we walked over toward it it did resemble a leaning large bush with needles. When I asked Steve what he was thinking he told me about this poor little mishapen thing who would never have found a home if he had not rescued it. In truth, I remember that bush/tree better than any other Christmas tree we ever had. The gift attached was the gift I received, to see for that brief moment, into his heart. And it was good.

Name: Sherry Ward ~~~~~~~~~~ Mon-Dec 10, 2007, 10:36 am - HHS Time
Maiden: Rout
Class: 1965
City & State: Maryville, Tn.
E-mail
Message: John, We lived at 3841 W. 118th Pl. One block over from the Wilson brothers. The last time I was in the neighborhood I drove by the old house and was shocked at just how small it was. Still looked cute though!

Name: Richard ~~~~~~~~~~ Mon-Dec 10, 2007, 8:59 am - HHS Time
Class: 1969
City & State: of LongBeach
No E-mail
Message: Most Memorable Childhood Christmas: The Christmas of 1963 was a difficult holiday for many military families, as the year before in October was the Cuban Missile Crisis, which started the nation on high alert, and continued on especially after the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 (remember all the ?duck, cover, hold? drills we were going through?). My father had been stationed away from home since October ?62, and with all likelihood would still be away Christmas 1963. Money for a military family was tight, especially with my dad living away from the family. The normal pre-Christmas activities were not taking place in our house hold, and I was in doubt that Santa was going to visit my sister (I was in 7th grade, and knew better). As we lived close to a high school that I passed every day to/from elementary school (Phoenix did not have intermediate schools at that time), I marveled at the ornately decorated tree in the admin building?s lobby. On the Friday before Christmas recess, I saw the custodians taking down the tree, and I just had to ask what was going to become of the tree. One of the custodians recognized me from the Scout Troop that his son was in, and knew of my father being away. He arranged for the tree to be delivered to our home, cut down (the school lobby was two stories tall), and set up in our home. Then, two miraculous things happened; on Christmas Eve, presents were left by our front door by some unknown Santa(s), and Christmas morning, with flight lag and all, my dad was home for Christmas.