Long ago when the sage-scented air rang with the clang of horseshoes pitched, droplets of condensation fell from the glasses of Old Fashioneds that tanned dentists, doctors, lawyers and factory owners held, their sandals splashed by children playing in nearby pools, when svelte housewives in crisp cotton shirtwaists cinched above their hips or bright floral two piece swimsuits and glossy nail polish lighted each others' cigarettes with shiny Dunhill lighters presented to them in 1943 and 1944 by dashing young B-29 pilots, Marine jgs and US Army platoon leaders on leave at the Coconut Grove, Victor Hugo's or theTop O' The Mark, when awakened spaniels and terriers barked at horses that whinied in the distance, fresh teen-aged girls bobbing safely in their saddles, as the silver voice of Vin Scully at Candlestick Park crackled from a transistor radio in the middle son's bedroom, when the brakes of a first string quarterback's Impala squeaked to a stop in the driveway and oldest sister leaped up from the old movie playing on the den television to pat her hair into place, run to the bathroom and wash and pat dry her face, re-apply her lipstick, gargle with Lavoris and, launched in the hallway to answer the door, checks the even fit of her violet short shorts and her modest MaidenForm, when the Autonetics engineer next door adjusts the dials of his ham radio connected ever so faintly with a retired geologist of his acquaintance in New Hebrides, when a bowlegged former gunsmith from Okemah, OK arrives in his battered '37 Pontiac pickup to call the square dances that night at the Barn and bashfully gulps and rings the doorbell of a petite redheaded widow telephone operator he met, at her secluded apartment across from Ranchtown, and when four boys with fishing rods and their day's catch careen down rhe Gulch, climb Richman Knoll to Cerritos, cut ithe blind turn up past where all the pretty girls live and ride down rhe shortcut to the Grandview cul-de-sac, rocket out for Valley View and join their little buddies whose moms are making reservations they probably don't need at Dal Rae for tonight and check the new cocktail dress with its scooped out top to show some golden Waikiki tan when their builder and plumbing contractor and steel mill owner husbands  walk in and with loopy grins, lock the doors behind them ..

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