This movie typifies a part of my childhood in Mt. Shasta at Shasta Springs where my father first took me at age 5 to work for 6 weeks time on building the Amphitheater in up on McCloud Ave. in Mt. Shasta City.
I was left to my own resources pretty much along with several other boys 5 years old to 12 years old with mixed results.
Shasta Springs started out I believe as a resort around the turn of the century around 1900 and President Theodore Roosevelt actually stayed there. The train came up along the Sacramento River and they put in some kind of Tram system so people who wanted to stay in Shasta Springs could go up the about 1000 feet in elevation to where Shasta Springs is. Interstate 5 borders Shasta Springs between Dunsmuir and the city of Mt. Shasta by the way now.
So, as my Dad did electrical work wiring up the Amphitheater during the day, we boys were doing things like walking down the trail that crosses the stream many times to the railroad tracks far below alongside of the Sacramento River. I greatly enjoyed this freedom of having no adult supervision and getting to hang out with mostly boys older than myself in my church who were from all over the U.S. and just visiting Shasta Springs for the summer then.
Likely to set so many boys loose from ages 5 to 12 years old wouldn't be done now but in the 1950s this was pretty normal as by 4 years old you were either loyal and obedient to adults or they didn't trust you at all. And since I and the boys left in Shasta Springs without adult supervision were all relatively trusted we did pretty much anything we wanted to during the day when our parents were doing various things for our church in the Mt. Shasta area.
In 1953 when I was 5 years old it took about 3 days at least to get to Mt. Shasta by car from San Diego where we lived then in El Cajon where I had just gone to Kindergarten that year. There were no freeways then except for likely the Harbor Freeway or sometimes it was called the Pasadena Freeway which was the first freeway for rich people in Pasadena to travel to work in downtown Los Angeles sometime in the 1930s I guess. So, by the 1950s freeways were starting to be built almost everywhere in Los Angeles county I guess.
Interstate 5 came likely by the late 1950s or early 1960s and included the Grapevine ( a curvy road from Los Angeles to Lebec over the coastal range then and then this also included finally a freeway from Redding to Mt. Shasta and points north too.
So, if you have ever seen Stand By Me(1986) the movie, this was kind of my experience along the Sacramento River and railroad tracks from Shasta Springs down towards Mossbrae falls where we often visited as boys because it was beautiful and on very hot August days we might wade or swim next to Mossbrae falls then from when I was 5 1953 to 1960 when Kennedy became president and I was about 12 years old. IN the fall of 1963 when I was 15 he was assassinated which was an extremely scary time for the U.S. and world then too.
Before Interstate 5 it took at least a day to get from San Diego just to Lebec without Interstate 5. It took another day to drive up Highway 99 from Lebec to Redding. And after spending the night in a hotel around Redding it took another 5 to 6 hours to get from Redding to Mt. Shasta on extremely curvy roads before the Interstate 5 freeway system was put in.
Box office: $52.3 million
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