Santa Cruz and San Jose memories

My family moved from southern California to San Jose in 1962 when I was 2. I remember reading many years later that the population of San Jose at that time was 60,000. Quite a difference from the millions it is today. I remember looking down from Mount Hamilton sometime around then and seeing mostly trees covering the Santa Clara valley, prune plum trees on the west side of the valley and apricots on the east with a long narrow straight streets such as Alum Rock avenue cutting through them and the Bank of America building sticking up one of the few high spots that rose above the trees.

We would go on summer weekends occasionally to Santa Cruz to go to the beach and the boardwalk. I remember sitting in the shade under the band shell or under the boardwalk when it got too hot or wandering around the castle which was still at castle beach.

The boardwalk at that time had the Giant Dipper and Mad Mouse rollercoasters. I was too young or too short to go on them. I was always curious about what the Mad Mouse was like to ride. It was a cube shaped coaster and the cars did 90 degree turns when they came to the corners of the cube. It was replaced by a rather mild log flume ride before I every got a chance to ride it.

I think I mostly went on rides like the tilt-a-whirl, went in the fun house and played "skee-bowl". The fun house at that time had a giant slide, moving sidewalks, a rolling barrel you could walk through, a large disk that you sat on until centripetal force flung you off, and funhouse mirrors. Apparently the slide was built over what used to be an indoor pool.

I lusted after the big skee-bowl prizes such as the portable TV which took hundreds or thousands of tickets to win. I only ever saved up enough tickets to get the little toy prizes. The only one I remember was a miniature hurricane lamp about 3 inches high. I do wish I still had that one though.

I never got to go on the roller coasters when I was a kid but later on, when I went to college in Santa Cruz, I made it a personal ritual to go on the Giant Dipper about a dozen times in a row after my last final for each quarter.

The castle at castle beach was actually just a regular building made of stucco. Most of the times that we were there it was closed. I don't know what was in the rest of the building but the bottom floor had a snack bar and a recreation room with ping pong tables ad such.