1/29/2024 0 Comments Old backaroo in three rivers![]() Pat O’Connell’s gas station is still there, although they’re just a towing service and wrecker yard now. Danielle bought a few souvenirs and collected twigs to make a picture frame. Continuing on into town, I didn’t see the golf course clubhouse, but there seemed to be a new structure near the first hole. Our first stop was at the Supermarket and Drugstore. Even the map that I drew for A Matter of Justice had only minor errors in it: the gas station too far north by 100 yards, the first part of North Fork Drive too perpendicular to 198. I was amazed at how accurate most of my memories had been, especially considering that they were largely forged when I was ten or twelve. Three Rivers was amazingly similar to when I last visited, some 25 years ago. Some business have come and gone, but the buildings are unchanged. Other than these, we saw very little recent construction throughout the area. There was a new Holiday Inn Express on the right (quite an eyesore), and a new hotel and restaurant under construction on the left. The store was still there and looked like it was in business, but it was closed. It seemed that no query could stump him – with enough rummaging he would come up with whatever you needed, or a reasonable substitute. Harry seemed to have at least one of everything ever made. Across the street was the Three Rivers General Store, which we used to call Harry’s. The surface had been covered from shore to shore with so much debris – tree stumps, building materials, branches, anything that would float – that it looked as if you could walk across it.Ībove the lake we passed what used to be Metz’s Trailer Park, now some sort of cabin rentals. The houseboats looked the same, although I doubt that any of them are floating on plywood boxes full of empty Purex bottles any more! I recalled the spring of 1966, when flooding filled the lake to the brim, and water was running over the four feet of sandbags they’d added to the spillway. After so many years of going out on the boat at the old location, it still looks like it’s in the wrong place to me. Sometime in the mid ’70s they moved the marina down near the dam so that they could let the water drain lower in the fall (for flood control in the winter). Lake Kaweah was surprisingly low, considering that the spring melt had already begun. Beyond Bakersfield we took the cutoff through Porterville, drove through an A&W Root Beer stand for something to drink in Exeter, and stopped to peer into a cricket cage at a tackle shop in Lemon Cove. Francis dam disaster of 1928, although you couldn’t tell it now). We exchanged our Oldsmobile Alero for a Pontiac Grand Am at the Burbank Airport (the Alero went thump-thump-thump at freeway speeds) and then headed north, stopping for breakfast in Castaic (near the site of the St. Still on East Coast time, Danielle and I were up and out by 7:00 AM. Then it was off to the Glendale Hilton (Linda had already checked in) for a very early bedtime. We met up at Marjorie and Dean’s house at about 3:00 PM for a nice Easter dinner of Honey Baked Ham and smoked turkey. Danielle and I got free first class Delta ticket with SkyMiles, but had a connection in Atlanta. ![]() Disney no longer uses Delta, so Linda ended up with a United non-stop. Coupled with the late night before, Danielle was pretty much comatose until we got to the airport. We were up at 6:00 AM to head for the airport. It was amusing to see the changes that had been made to the names of popular movie stars since we saw it at the Shubert in L.A. They did a commendable job with their limited facility. Saturday evening Linda, Danielle, Nicole and I went to A Chorus Line at the Mark Two Theater. I say baskets, because she had her friend Megan staying over Friday night, and they both got an Easter basket on Saturday. To avoid any Easter morning angst, Danielle celebrated Easter with an egg hunt and baskets Saturday. I also conceived the idea of visiting my childhood summer haunts in Three Rivers, just below Sequoia National Park. Danielle and I decided to tag along, to visit grandparents. In April 2000 Linda was headed to Walt Disney Imagineering in California for meetings about the new Space Pavilion at Epcot.
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