I feel abandoned! I was born and raised in Trona. But we left when my father died. I was 11 yrs old and had finished the fifth grade. My family lived there for 25 years. Two older brothers and a sister graduated from Trona High School. I lived and breathed Trona High where both of my brothers played varsity football.
Now I am an orphan! I didn’t graduate from Trona High, so I have no class to belong to. It is where I walked barefoot in the sand, where the asphalt curled under our toes and the windstorms blinded us but never sent us back indoors. Where I walked to school every day with my dog Lassie who stayed outside the school yard and waited for me to return. Where I passed the homes of my teachers who invited us in for Kool-Aid and cookies.
We had big yards, alleys between the houses and we knew everyone on our street and down the alley.
There was scary Bobby Jones who always beat up the younger boys on the street, there was “Big Mary” that we all fantasized about and “Little Bill” and his brother Skipper who lived across the street (I was “Big Bill”).
We lived on Lupine street where, in the company owned town, the big shots lived. You were assigned your house, you didn’t pick it. We went to the open air movie theater at the town center, got banana splits at the counter in the drug store and paid for things at the grocery store with company script (not dollars).
If you didn’t have a car, you left town on the Trona Stages, our bus company. If you weren’t married, you lived in the bungalows across from the town center.
I roamed the desert fearlessly, escaping rattlesnakes, capturing desert turtles that became pets, discovering old mine shafts hidden in the tumbleweeds. I’m not sure if I owned any long pants or even shoes! The priest at our church, then located near the center of town, just rolled his eyes when we altar boys showed up barefoot and in short pants to serve at Mass.
My favorite time was the summer when we would go to the huge pool at Valley Wells. Most of the town was there almost every day. It was where we escaped the crippling heat and became human beings again (there was NO such thing as air conditioning then. Just useless water coolers that were only effective if you stood directly in front of it).
My Dad had a massive heart attack earlier in the year of 1952.. He retired as the President of Trona Railroad in June of 1952. He died the night we moved from Trona. I was 11 yrs old.
My two brothers, Michael (1950), Bruce (1952) and sister Elizabeth (1945) who graduated from Trona High are deceased now, but my sister Eileen, 88 yrs old is still around. Probably the last living member of her class of 1951. I don’t think she will be attending any reunions!
So that leaves me. A Tronan without a home! A lost soul whose identity is like a ghost living in a world that exists only in another universe.
Oh, except we moved to Santa Monica, the jewel of all beach communities in California, if not the world. I spent my teen years in a place that I could not afford to live in today! But it also has its memories.
I live today in San Clemente, CA and have done so for the past 46 years. My recollections of Trona have faded somewhat over the years (I’m 80 yrs old) and I suspect it does not match my childhood memories that are so idyllic.
But I am still a Tronan in my bones. It is the wellspring from which I come and defines me by a childhood that could not have been more perfect.
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Hi Bill,
My name is Tina Maxwell. The other Gentleman in the picture looks like my Uncle Lyle Corbridge who also worked for the Trona RR. Do you know what year this picture was taken? Also do you know the other Gentleman’s name.
Best Regards,
Tina Maxwell
Thanks Pat for your comments. Funny that the one thing you remember about my Dad was his temper! I guess it was no secret that he could be explosive. But he was also incredibly kind and caring.
Obviously you also grew up with saintly old Fr. Boucher. My father was not Catholic but his wife and children were so he pressured the AP&CC to build a church for Catholics and pressured Bishop Buddy of San Diego to send a pastor.
Yes, it was Billy Ray who lived across the street from us. But you may remember others on the street, Bobby McCullough (my best friend), Mike & Eddie Semansky (sp?), the doctor’s sons, Micky Colefax, whose father became the president of American Potash & Chemical Company.
As young as I was when we left Trona, the streets, the buildings, the places and people seem to be indelibly ingrained in my memory. They last, because they are such good memories of a time and place of “A Perfect Childhood “!
I appreciated getting the background that your father was a prime mover in getting a Catholic church built and staffed. We certainly were at the very ends of Bishop Buddy’s San Diego Diocese, I remember he came up to Trona for a confirmation when I was about 12 and we had several age groups in that ceremony. Your end of Lupine Street was sort of an executive row as I recall. If you can make the next big Trona reunion in 2022, your might even see the Semansky boys, who are also honorary THS alums as they went on to prep school and I think to Georgetown afterwards. I think your brother Mike may have been closer in age to my brother Tom who was in the class of 48.
Bill:
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your “A Perfect Childhood” piece. Your words caused a gust of good and positive memories of my living and growing up in Trona. Like you, Trona added to my having a “perfect childhood.” Also like you, I left Trona before graduating with the class of 1960. We lived in Argus/Trona from the Spring of 1950 to the Spring of 1956. You are almost exactly a year older than me. You were born April 6, 1941 and I was born April 5, 1942. You left Trona when you were 11 (1952) and I left Trona when I just turned 14 (1956). Many parallels. Trona has always had a sweet spot in my heart for many reasons. Because of my affinity for Trona and the desert, I returned to Trona last month on a “road trip.” Like Thomas Wolfe’s character in his book “You Can’t Go Home Again” George Webber, I certainly could see the change. It did not change my view of the wonderful people, the wonderful safe community, or all the fun I had growing up there. My love for baseball started there and continues to this day. Bill, thank you for posting your article.
Bill Robinson made some great Comments. I think my Fellow class of 60 member Bill Ray (Little Bill) could update some of the stories. We were also members of the Catholic minority group in Trona and my father Tom Dunne who interacted a lot with the railroad on behalf of Westend Chemical Co. had many stories of Bills day who was a prime mover who made Trona what it was in the best days of old. He was famous for his temper as I recall one of my dads stories. I think Bill will always be able to say he was in the class of “59.
I can say he is in a nice place now in San Clemente; my parents went to nearby Oceanside for retirement.
Pat Dunne
THS ’60
Bill:
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your “A Perfect Childhood” piece. Your words caused a gust of good and positive memories of my living and growing up in Trona. Like you, Trona added to my having a “perfect childhood.” Also like you, I left Trona before graduating with the class of 1960. We lived in Argus/Trona from the Spring of 1950 to the Spring of 1956. You are almost exactly a year older than me. You were born April 6, 1941 and I was born April 5, 1942. You left Trona when you were 11 (1952) and I left Trona when I just turned 14 (1956). Many parallels. Trona has always had a sweet spot in my heart for many reasons. Because of my affinity for Trona and the desert, I returned to Trona last month on a “road trip.” Like Thomas Wolfe’s character in his book “You Can’t Go Home Again” George Webber, I certainly could see the change. It did not change my view of the wonderful people, the wonderful safe community, or all the fun I had growing up there. My love for baseball started there and continues to this day. Bill, thank you for posting your article.
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