The Linda Jones Archive: Crier in the Wilderness by Chuck Jones, Part 6

Note from Linda: At the time of this article, February 7, 1957, the lead-in stated the following: “Chuck Jones has been Art Director of the Crier from its infancy, and herein tells you how come. He and Dottie dwell in a fabulous glass-and-stone aerie up in Hollywood Knolls, and Little Linda is all grown up and married.”  I was, as stated in the article, seven years old in 1944. There was no cafeteria at Valley View School in those days (is there now?), so we all carried our lunch boxes. My lunch box was a big, black industrial size box that held wonderful surprises my mother sent each day…leftover summer squash, carrot sticks, milk (a staple), peanut butter, lettuce and mayonnaise sandwiches (which I love, still), cold lamb chop, potato chips, orange, apple, apricot, celery (with cream cheese)…and often a little note of encouragement, too… she was pretty great… Now, here is part VI… and we’ll explore something else next week.

[PART VI] Why Hills?

            The success of the Crier has been of course due to the talent of these people, but I suspect that it could only flourish in a specialized community with a built in rapport between readers, in this case, perhaps a need for three dimensionality. What is it that drives people to the hills? Seclusion? Some hillside communities are so tightly inhabited that the roof of one house supports part of the foundation of another. The conceit of looking down on one’s neighbors? Hardly. Many hill residers’ homes crouch at the bottom of ravines, or back firmly into box canyons. Economy? The cheaper the hillside lot is, the steeper it is likely to be, and the costlier it is to prepare for building. The simple life? Floods, fires, poison oak, gophers, jackrabbits, landslides, transportation difficulties, RFD, black widows and oak blight.

            I return inexorably to the feeling Dottie and I have. A love of space and an acceptance of a three-dimensional world, a world in which the work and fun of climbing is equal to the joy and freedom of descending, where it is better to look up at a neighbor’s porch than flatly at your neighbor’s hedge, where a picture window makes sense because it frames a picture, where the roof-tops in the morning tell you there has been a frost, where you can look down on a bird in flight, where you can tell hillsiders from people by the fact that they read the CANYON CRIER.

[Thank you for accompanying me on this little venture… come back next week to see what I have discovered to share with you.]

The Linda Jones Archive: Crier in the Wilderness by Chuck Jones, Part 4

Note from Linda: At the time of this article, February 7, 1957, the lead-in stated the following: “Chuck Jones has been Art Director of the Crier from its infancy, and herein tells you how come. He and Dottie dwell in a fabulous glass-and-stone aerie up in Hollywood Knolls, and Little Linda is all grown up and married.”  I was, as stated in the article, seven years old in 1944. I well remember my father’s “war warden” hard hat…with a webbing inside that fascinated me…but he wouldn’t let me play with it. He went out almost every night, from our blacked out home, with his huge flashlight and his hard hat and a first aid kit slung over his chest. The searchlights interspersed the stars…and they were not for movie openings, but searching for enemy aircraft. Here is Part IV.[PART IV] The Oddments of War

            Thus she joined the carpool and the “Canyon Crier” became a factor in our lives. We were at about this time promoted to a kind of restricted B sticker for our gasoline ration I was working on a project to camouflage Signal Hill rather a thankless job since the oil wells could only be disguised as something that looked like another military objective like a ship yard, an ammunition dump or an air-field. I think our final suggestion was to build two other fake Signal Hillses and hope for the best, or to make a gigantic tent big enough to cover all of Long Beach. At any rate we managed to carry on, although I occasionally had to employ the steps, dare the dog, and the Rhus diversiloba (poison oak).

            It was through the tiny pages of the Crier that we were informed of the activities of Civilian Defense. Dan Duryea, as I remember it, was Senior Warden in our parts. Ken Harris was block Warden. Kent Winthers was Junior Warden and I was Fire Watcher, since we were almost the sole residents of Passmore Drive at that time. The Finkel house, now owned and beautifully remodeled by Hal and Margo Findlay, was then empty and the only other house was occupied, I believe, by a schizophrenic who thought he was a German spy but never came outdoors long enough to find out. He it was who had bought the confused Doberman thinking him to be a turn=coat (or turn-pelt). The three of us then were the task force that manned Operation Passmore, and even though in the giant logistics of war such minutia are often overlooked, yet it is true that we kept Passmore Drive remarkably free of fire-bombs.

[See you next week, with Part V]