Carnett: Recalling Costa Mesa during the 1950s

Remember when the great celebrities of our civilization made supermarket guest appearances?

By the mid-20th century, even obscure whistle-stops like Costa Mesa attracted its share of cultural icons.

Sure, Costa Mesa didn’t have the name recognition of Downey, La Mirada or Glendora, but there were thousands of us living on “Goat Hill” in the 1950s. As kids, our moms each week bought the staples of life from Dick’s Market or Stater Bros. or Weigand’s.

Without South Coast Plaza, the Segerstrom Center for the Arts or the Lab, grocery stores and churches were our gathering places.

We had but one movie house in town in the ‘50s — the Mesa Theater at Newport Boulevard and 19th Street — and it was packed with a thousand kids every Saturday afternoon, at 25 cents a pop.

Now, my wife Hedy and I attend matinees in Costa Mesa featuring stadium seating and air-conditioned luxury, with a half-dozen other retirees, at $10 each.

Lots of kids lived in Costa Mesa in the ‘50s. It seemed every household had three or four of them. Our block was a kid sanctuary.

One Saturday morning in the late spring or summer of 1956, when I was 11, my brother, Bill, and I rode our bikes from our Fairway Drive residence in the Eastside to Dick’s Market at the corner of Newport Boulevard and 23rd Street.

Dick’s was a place we knew well. A forerunner of big supermarkets, Dick’s was relatively compact. But we purchased all our groceries there.

I also stopped by Dick’s a couple of times a week while on my paper route. I’d buy a Milky Way or Big Hunk and read the sports mags.

On that particular Saturday morning in ‘56, we were at Dick’s to meet Oscar Mayer’s corporate spokesperson, Little Oscar. Little Oscar, whose real name was George Molchan, piloted the ultra-cool, 22-foot-long, 10-foot high Wienermobile.

As I waited in line to shake his hand and receive my coveted plastic hot dog-shaped Magic Wiener Whistle, I was thrilled just to be in the same parking lot with him.

It seemed every kid in our neighborhood possessed, and used, a Magic Wiener Whistle that following week.

The Dodgers moved from Brooklyn to L.A. before the 1958 season. I was a 13-year-old student at Rea Junior High in Costa Mesa, and I became a huge fan.

One day in the summer of ‘58, after seeing an ad in the Globe-Herald (a predecessor to the Daily Pilot), my brother and I rode our bikes to the brand new All-American Market on 19th Street to meet first baseman Gil Hodges and procure an autographed picture.

The strapping Hodges was an authentic American hero. An eight-time All-Star, Hodges was a lifetime .273 hitter. And he was one of the smoothest fielding first basemen in Major League history. He died in 1972 at 47.

He deserves to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. That’s my firm belief!

I looked upon Gil that day with awe and wonder. He held court in front of the store entrance. Dozens of us surrounded him. He answered questions, signed gloves and balls, and handed out his mugshot featuring that crooked, slightly shy Gil Hodges smile.

In fact, for the next several weeks I sat nightly on our bathroom counter with Hodges’ 8x10 in my hand, trying to mimic that smile in the mirror. Whatever I became in life, I wanted to live it flashing a Gil Hodges smile.

After 90 minutes of glad-handing, a Dodgers’ handler came up and tapped Hodges on the elbow.

“Uh, time to go, Gil,” he said.

Gil said goodbye to us then ambled with the PR guy across the parking lot to his car. As Hodges got in, he lit a cigarette.

What! My hero smokes? It took me weeks to process that one.

I once saw John Wayne at Sears in Costa Mesa and talked with Vincent Price, Stan Kenton and Dizzy Gillespie at Orange Coast College.

But nothing ever topped the thrill of meeting Little Oscar and Gil Hodges.

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