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Showing posts from July 16, 2009

Growing Up in Granada Hills

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The following post was written by guest blogger Gabby Hyman, former Granada Hills resident and author of the short story collection Knives and Forks . Read more at his page, Dr. Bob's Nightmare . The Hearts of Soul “If you ain’t got no money, ain’t nobody calls you honey,” - Bo Diddley. Granada Hills High School still stands at the north end of Zelzah Avenue, the same street where the first oil well in the San Fernando Valley was drilled in 1916. Granada Hills had been home to the Sunshine Ranch, where farmers tended well-manicured orange groves and grew apricots, walnuts and beans. In 1959, the same year my family moved to California, that Soviet shoe-thumping demon Nikita Khrushchev visited Granada Hills. He had wanted to go to Disneyland, but U.S. security forces were concerned for his welfare, so they chauffeured him instead to witness suburban splendor on Sophia Drive. You'd hardly find a whiter place to live. Driving up and down our block on Gaviota Avenue, you'd