Carnett: Taking a trip back to the old Eastside neighborhood

My brother, Bill, and I took a journey down memory lane the other day.

We visited our “old neighborhood” on Costa Mesa’s Eastside.

Our family moved into theFairway Drive home in December 1952, right after the house was built. At the time, just the houses on our side of the street were completed. Homes on the other side were still being framed. We played in them, and avidly collected the detritus of home construction.

I remained in that house for 12 years, before joining the Army in 1964. Bill joined the Air Force in 1966 after living on Fairway for 14 years. Our sister, Judi, left in 1971, after 19 years.

Mom and Dad lived there together for 54 years until Dad’s death in 2006. Mom became the last original resident of the neighborhood, and moved in 2007.

The original Fairway Drive ran for a block between Del Mar and Monte Vista avenues. Thirty-eight homes were initially constructed, and two were later added in a vacant lot at the south end of the street.

I’m now the only member of my 1952 household of five who lives in Costa Mesa. I’ve been here 65 years.

Brother Bill, who’s lived in San Diego County 40-plus years, drives up for lunch every two or three months. Last week he and I ate at the Harborside Restaurant, inside the Balboa Pavilion building on Newport Bay. Our family has a history there. Our parents and grandparents socialized at the Pavilion.

We lived on Balboa Island until I was 7.

Bill picked me up at my home the other day, and we headed for the Island. On the way, we took a detour down Fairway. We turned off Del Mar and cruised down the block in Bill’s big truck as slowly as possible, stopping several times.

We were two old geezers driving at glacial speed. Residents must have thought us lost associates of a Denny’s early bird dinner club.

The old street doesn’t look like it did in 1952. For one thing, in ‘52, I was taller than most trees on the block! Now, many of those trees are 50 feet and taller.

More than half of the original 40 homes on the block have either been dramatically remodeled or torn down altogether and replaced by gaudy new structures. Some seem disproportionately large when compared to their lots.

Bill and I glanced at every house as we crept down the street, calling out names of former residents. It was amazing how many we remembered — names we hadn’t thought of in decades, like Christy Cullen, Rigby Myers, Patty Suddendorf, Warren Dusseau, Joanne Kirkpatrick, Tommy Barnett, David Dinger, Karen Bruns, Don Stipp, Gary Heinz, Tommy Thompson, Bruce Cotton, Reggie Daniger, Jack Potter and Annabel … oh, what was her last name?

As Bill and I cruised the street, a couple of dozen cars lined the curbs giving it a narrow, claustrophobic feel. In ‘52, it seemed we lived on a broad boulevard the size of a small airport landing strip.

The vast majority of families then had only one car, and most had stay-at-home moms; we were, after all, members of the “Leave It To Beaver” generation. Most cars on the block were parked in driveways. The occasional car on the street was likely a visitor.

For years, we played baseball in the street in front of my house. More than once fly balls sailed through windows. My bedroom window, in fact, was violated a couple of times.

Home plate was a block of wood in the middle of the street. First base was my parents’ mailbox. Second base was a T-shirt positioned in the street, and third was our neighbor’s mailbox across the street.

The Carnetts surged from being a one-car family in 1960 to a four-car family in 1963. My mom needed a car for work, and my brother and I required vehicles for school.

My first car, a 10-year-old Ford, cost me $250.

The Carnetts — and many others on Fairway Drive — were living the American Dream.

And we knew it!

JIM CARNETT, who lives in Costa Mesa, worked for Orange Coast College for 37 years.