When We Were Young With Our Corvettes - Chapter #15
Corvettes and the Pasadena Rose Parade – Chapter #15
I was based in Santa Ana but frequently made day trips to our office in Pasadena. And in those days, I’d take the Vette up the Santa Ana Freeway (I-5) and switch over to SR 110, one of the most beautiful stretches of old Route 66 in the country, the Arroyo Seco Parkway; better known as the Pasadena Freeway.
Built in 1940, connecting LA with Pasadena along the Arroyo Seco it was the very first freeway in California. Then by the early ‘60s many considered it outdated and dangerous, too many curves; too narrow and too dark at night so they avoided it. But with the top back on any warm, sunny day, the drive was pure heaven for me. The roadway remained mostly as it was when first opened, even with its colored passing lanes. The bridges and tunnels built during parkway construction kept all their architectural beauty, as did the four bridges built in the 1930s that crossed over the freeway and arroyo. The plantings in the median were lush, fragrant and colorful. The road was low-lying letting the pipes echo off the hillsides around every bend. So early in the morning of January 1, 1965, Heidi and I are on our way in the Vette to the Pasadena Rose Parade and we go this way.
That is one of two mistakes I make today. The parade starts promptly at 8:45 AM, but it won’t reach the intersection where we have bleacher seats on the sidewalk until 9:35. Everyone in LA County has taken my little route…..and now because we’re late, street parking is more difficult to find (and further away). We locate a spot and I think because I can see the very top of the old and beautiful City Hall dome, I’m sufficiently orientated. People are everywhere now all headed fast in the same general direction north to the parade route. We find our seats just as the Trumpeters (leading 136 separate parade participants) arrive.
You have to be present on Colorado Boulevard at a Rose Parade to truly experience the pageantry and excitement that pervades this event…the crowds, banners, dignitaries and stars, school marching bands, equestrian units, flowers, floats…all of it. Arnold Palmer is the Grand Marshal in this the 76th Tournament of Roses riding with Winnie in a rose covered car. Then Rex Allen, Montie Montana, and from the TV series “The Virginian”; James Drury, Doug McClure, Randy Boone, Lee J. Cobb, and Clu Gulager…all on horseback. It can be slow, with occasional breakdowns that stop the parade, people falling off floats as they jerk forward or stop, marchers fainting, majorettes dropping batons and horses bucking and cantering off course….all these things, but NEVER dull or boring. And soon, the parade turns north on Sierra Madre Blvd.and proceeds to Victory Park where it ends (the floats remain there for several days for public viewing).
We have lunch with our friends and as the crowds begin to thin, we head back to the Vette….one block, two bocks, three blocks looking back over my shoulder at the City Hall dome….all residential. Now panic….Heidi takes one street, I take another…several blocks….nothing….the Vette has to be stolen…we finally find a cop who asks just one simple question: “Where was it parked?”, and “In sight of the dome” would not be the right answer. He figures it out, puts us in the back of his cruiser and we go searching street by street, and there it sits just where we left it. Dumb. The cop just shakes his head and says “if it hadn’t been a Corvette, I’d let you find it yourself”. And with a big grin, he drives away.
And so do we, but not on the Pasadena Freeway.
I was based in Santa Ana but frequently made day trips to our office in Pasadena. And in those days, I’d take the Vette up the Santa Ana Freeway (I-5) and switch over to SR 110, one of the most beautiful stretches of old Route 66 in the country, the Arroyo Seco Parkway; better known as the Pasadena Freeway.
Built in 1940, connecting LA with Pasadena along the Arroyo Seco it was the very first freeway in California. Then by the early ‘60s many considered it outdated and dangerous, too many curves; too narrow and too dark at night so they avoided it. But with the top back on any warm, sunny day, the drive was pure heaven for me. The roadway remained mostly as it was when first opened, even with its colored passing lanes. The bridges and tunnels built during parkway construction kept all their architectural beauty, as did the four bridges built in the 1930s that crossed over the freeway and arroyo. The plantings in the median were lush, fragrant and colorful. The road was low-lying letting the pipes echo off the hillsides around every bend. So early in the morning of January 1, 1965, Heidi and I are on our way in the Vette to the Pasadena Rose Parade and we go this way.
That is one of two mistakes I make today. The parade starts promptly at 8:45 AM, but it won’t reach the intersection where we have bleacher seats on the sidewalk until 9:35. Everyone in LA County has taken my little route…..and now because we’re late, street parking is more difficult to find (and further away). We locate a spot and I think because I can see the very top of the old and beautiful City Hall dome, I’m sufficiently orientated. People are everywhere now all headed fast in the same general direction north to the parade route. We find our seats just as the Trumpeters (leading 136 separate parade participants) arrive.
You have to be present on Colorado Boulevard at a Rose Parade to truly experience the pageantry and excitement that pervades this event…the crowds, banners, dignitaries and stars, school marching bands, equestrian units, flowers, floats…all of it. Arnold Palmer is the Grand Marshal in this the 76th Tournament of Roses riding with Winnie in a rose covered car. Then Rex Allen, Montie Montana, and from the TV series “The Virginian”; James Drury, Doug McClure, Randy Boone, Lee J. Cobb, and Clu Gulager…all on horseback. It can be slow, with occasional breakdowns that stop the parade, people falling off floats as they jerk forward or stop, marchers fainting, majorettes dropping batons and horses bucking and cantering off course….all these things, but NEVER dull or boring. And soon, the parade turns north on Sierra Madre Blvd.and proceeds to Victory Park where it ends (the floats remain there for several days for public viewing).
We have lunch with our friends and as the crowds begin to thin, we head back to the Vette….one block, two bocks, three blocks looking back over my shoulder at the City Hall dome….all residential. Now panic….Heidi takes one street, I take another…several blocks….nothing….the Vette has to be stolen…we finally find a cop who asks just one simple question: “Where was it parked?”, and “In sight of the dome” would not be the right answer. He figures it out, puts us in the back of his cruiser and we go searching street by street, and there it sits just where we left it. Dumb. The cop just shakes his head and says “if it hadn’t been a Corvette, I’d let you find it yourself”. And with a big grin, he drives away.
And so do we, but not on the Pasadena Freeway.
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