DESCRIPTION:
Music and lyrics -- John Malcolm Penn
© Radio Flyer Music
http://www.johnmalcolmpenn.com
August 15, 1954
My twenty inch two by four metal-wheeled skateboard aims down Hill Street from the Alamitos No.1 landmark towards certain doom.
Shell Hill (Hill Street) is now wussified into a divided affair with a landscaped meridian. For those of us who spent many an adrenaline drenched moment staging the latest vehicle at the landmark on the corner for the 300' vertical descent down the 22% grade. Various lengths of lumber and/or plywood with roller skates or baby carriage wheels, trikes, bikes, and later cars were ridden down at velocities that almost always exceeded design limits. A ride down Shell Hill's two stages usually meant a bailout at some point, though the Schwinn cruiser could make the complete ride...however, dental records say otherwise. This hill laughs at bicycle brakes. With the few ounces of common sense left in us, we knew enough to wrap and tie on old clothes for padding and lay a bandana inside our reversed baseball caps for helmets. In the teen driving years we'd spool up speed by running the stop sign at the top and hit the hill at 60 to 70mph and get air....great fun as long as the car was aligned. Come to think of it, this hill could be the birth of straight line hot rodding since the Model T club began modifying speedsters and roadsters to 'make the grade' when Model T's were new.
Though the road is now a sad fluff muffin of its former self, it remains the K2 of childhood dreams, along with the pleasant mix of winding dirt and paved roads where one could learn to drive properly amongst the discarded rigging clutter up to the top and the KNOB transmitter.
Shell Oil Company stuck with driller Frank Hays' belief that the oil lay a fair amount deeper than earlier 'dusters' or attempts by other outfits, and it paid off in a California gusher the likes of which had never been seen before. Soon there were so many derricks they were calling it 'porcupine hill'