What’s in Your Closet?

BY STEVEN J. MOSS

Growing up with three sisters in 1960s California, family vacations were dominated by road trips to lakes, forests, and the beach. We’d often stop at roadside attractions, places that featured oddly twisted trees, life size fiberglass dinosaurs, and gigantic Redwoods you could drive through.

Confusion Hill, in Leggett, opened in 1949, and continues to operate. My daughter, Sara, and I dropped by earlier this year; it was largely as I remembered it. According to the orange-yellow brochure I found in my closet, “A magnetic current flows through the area strong enough to actually magnetize or demagnetize a soft rod depending on the direction in which the rod is held.” It's a mildly amusing place whose hype exceeds its delivery, which is part, maybe most, of the entertainment.

Winchester Mystery House opened as a tourist attraction in San Jose in 1922. When we visited it decades ago its main feature was its opulent, sprawl- ing architecture, stairs that went nowhere, and a vaguely spooky legend revolving around its owner, Sarah Winchester, the widow of firearms magnate William Wirt Winchester. Today it tries harder to draw crowds, with haunted house type tours and events, especially on Halloween. From a kid’s perspective it was slightly more interesting than the model home tours my parents liked to take at popup Southern California suburbs. Still, I kept the souvenir photographs.

We made an annual pilgrimage to San Diego, flying PSA Airlines – “PSA gives you a lift!” – from Los Angeles to stay with my grandparents for a week. Traveling was half the fun, at least for me, given the mini-skirted, pillboxhatted, lipsticked stewardesses. My grandma, Sara, for whom my daughter is named, had a set menu of activities and meals that my sisters and I relished: her award-winning spaghetti, baloney sandwiches, hamburgers, and a fruit inflicted Jell-O dessert that required us to shout “abracadabra!” for the mold to come out right. A highlight was the San Diego Zoo, where I picked up a mini viewfinder that features poorly photographed and mounted images of a Nile Hippopotamus, sea lions, macaws, and other creatures. Good times. Tell us what’s in your closet or garage: editor@potreroview.net.