Bakersfield Square Dance Fiesta

Thursday March 19, 1992

We're up and packed and ready to leave at 11 a.m. for our trailer trip to Bakersfield Square Dance Fiesta. We meet Robbie and Dolores for lunch at Bob's on Sepulveda where we pig out on fried chicken dinner. The trip is fine, 2-1/2 hours even though our speed dropped to 30 mph at times coming over the ridge route.

The Fiesta is held at the fairgrounds. We find a great camping area for our group. We rope off a large area for our group of 16 RVs. It should be great fun once everyone arrives by tomorrow night. We have 6 large tables for our Saturday night potluck. By 10 p.m. there are 4 RVs. We all go for a walk after our BBQ steak dinner outside.

We go to bed and watch TV about 10:30. It begins to rain at 4 a.m.

How well I remember the Bob's Big Boy Restaurant on Sepulveda Blvd in Mission Hills. It was my first experience with dining out. When my brother and I were very small we would go to the drive-in where we would all roll down our window to give our order to the waitress. My parents always had a Big Boy hamburger, my brother and I had a grilled cheese sandwich with fries and a cherry coke. The waitress brought each of us a tray that hooked onto the window opening. When my brother and I were much older we finally got to go inside the restaurant. What a treat! I remember the large green vinyl booth seating next to the counter where the cooks prepared the food. I remember how we each got a Big Boy comic book which we read cover to cover and then worked on the puzzles at the back. Finally, we colored the picture in the comic book with the box of crayons we were given by the waitress. It was a rare treat for us to go to a restaurant. Later when I was in high school, the Bob's Big Boy Restaurant in Panorama City on Van Nuys Blvd was our teen hangout after the football games.

The Bakersfield Fiesta still goes on every March at the Kern County Fairgrounds. For Mom and Frank, their square dancing club was about much more than dancing, although they did enjoy that. It was also a social club and a camping club. Several members had RVs and they would get together several times every year to camp together. 16 RVs is a big group!

The "ridge route" Mom refers to is the common nickname for Interstate 5 that connects Southern California with Northern California. Near Gormon is the Tejon Pass, which sometimes gets snow and wind. North of Gorman is a steep descent to the small town of Grapevine, basically a truck stop, and a few miles north, Highway 99 intersects Interstate 5 and heads for 30 miles towards Bakersfield.

Bob's Big Boy Restaurant

Thursday August 15, 1991

We all sleep in a bit. After breakfast we drive to Kaiser for my appointment with Dr. Bienstock. He is pleased with my progress and will schedule my surgery for early October. That means I'll be in find shape for Thanksgiving and Christmas Holidays.

After lunch at Bob's (Big Boy) we take the children home to Palmdale. We have a nice visit with Deb, then go to see Paul, Judy and Taylor. Taylor is growing so fast and is quite animated now. She coos and blows bubbles. Paul is still enthralled. Judy is still not relaxed with her.

When Mom found out she had ovarian cancer, she agreed to participate in a study to compare chemo first followed by surgery, or surgery first followed by chemo, to see which method of treatment had better success. By draw it was decided she would have chemo first. By October she would have had 6 months of chemo treatments and then would have her ovaries and uterus removed.

From the time my brother and I were little, our big treat on Saturday night was to go to Bob's Big Boy drive-in, where my parents ordered the classic Big Boy hamburger and my brother and I ordered grilled cheese sandwiches with fries. We all had cherry cokes. When my brother and I were older we actually got to go inside the restaurant. Each of us was given a Big Boy comic book where we solved puzzles and read comics of the adventures of Big Boy while waiting for our food. Bob's Big Boy Restaurant was established in 1936. The Burbank restaurant built in 1949 is the oldest remaining Bob's Big Boy Restaurant and was designated a California Point of Historical Interest in 1993. It has a table where The Beatles dined and sat while on tour in California during 1965. Movie stars like Bob Hope, Mickey Rooney, and Debbie Reynolds were regulars there in the 1950s.