Ridge Route Memories

* Thanks for the article “Ridge Route’s Scholar,” Oct. 13.

This brings back old memories, as my family traveled that way in the winter of 1916, moving from Van Nuys to a farm eight miles west of Tulare. [I recall] going through the Newhall Tunnel, through Saugus to the Ridge Route, going up the grade to Sandberg’s in a Model T Ford.

My dad had to turn around and back up, as gas would not run into the carburetor from the tank under the front seat.

My mother and aunt had to get out and push to get through the mud.

(We made yearly trips to Burbank to visit relatives, taking over eight hours to make the trip.)

The last trip I remember was in about 1928, in a 1926 Model T roadster.

We stopped at Sandberg’s for a hamburger and a dish of homemade ice cream, which the waitress served first. She told us it wouldn’t melt, which it didn’t as it was mostly cornstarch.

Going down the Grapevine to Bakersfield we had to stop and back up to get rid of the tumbleweeds that were dragging beneath the car.

Thanks for the new freeway. Progress--well maybe.

HOLLIS T. FORBES

Granada Hills