The 1970s, The San Fernando Valley and The Santa Monica Mountains
Horses and their girls….
Excerpt from beginning of Chapter Three.
3. HEADLESS HORSEMAN ROAD
A song we were singing ~ All the Nasties – By Elton John, Lyrics by Bernie Taupin
Canoga Avenue from Mulholland to Oxnard was overwhelmingly wild in the 1970s. It was only a two-lane avenue lined with some residential homes, farms, and empty fields. The enormous eucalyptus trees monstered along Canoga Avenue exalting the heart of Woodland Hills. We chased wild rabbits bareback where the city of Warner Center now suffocates the land.
Stealing pumpkins late at night from the many pumpkin patches was a scary treat for us kids around autumn. Now Kaiser Permanente stands tall over ghostly pumpkins which linger there only in my mind.
Ruff and I rode our horses after school which did not give us much time. We had to make it back home around dusk. This gave us a couple of hours to ride. We had it in our minds to visit down an old dirt road up near Canoga Ave., moving south towards Mulholland. We noticed this dirt road a few times on our rides up to Mulholland where it seemed endless trails awaited us, but now was not the time.
The dirt road branched off to the east and seemed a long one. The everyday valley trees mixed and mingled along the road with large rough trunks and heavy-handed branches. A small forest. We got off our horses to look around.
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