What a week in my old home valley of the Santa Clara River.

Monday started with a couple of hundred folks showing up at the Acton Library to listen to and comment about the proposed California High Speed Rail system. Boy is that ever turning out the folks who are saying, “Keep out of Acton and Agua Dulce.” Do you think the Formerly Great State of California can get the message? Those state employees say a lot, but I’m not sure they have any ears.

Without a Santa Clarita City Council meeting on Tuesdays, there is little to be noted. The big event in Newhall might be the completion of work on Newhall Avenue that has been stopping traffic for months. To make up for the lack of a delay there, the folks have moved the delay to Lyons Avenue. Again.

Would that the red-light cameras could catch one of our City Council members turning after the light turns red. I thought I saw TimBen’s car making a late turn, but alas it wasn’t. Drats. Foiled again. Of course, the revenue enhancement from the cameras might be paying for the new paving jobs.

I attended the big dump meeting at Castaic Junction. What a great building the Castaic Union School District has for the district offices. I’d like to think my mother can see it from her vantage point in the heavens. They’ve come a long, long way since the one old school that was once the whole of the Castaic District. We can’t forget the steak we had at lunch. All the beef served came from the herd the district raised behind the school. It was a herd of some good-looking Hereford cattle.

Anyway, the dump meeting was really useless, since the Land Use Committee of the Castaic Area Town Council decided to pass the whole problem on to the whole Town Council. I still don’t know how they can vote in good conscience on the dump expansion, since most of the operating funds of the Castaic Area Town Council come from donations by the Chiquita Canyon Landfill – The Dump. I have the feeling that in the end, it will be called the Michael D. Antonovich and NASA Santa Susana Field Lab Memorial Chiquita Canyon Landfill.

Friday was a day of fun in Pico Canyon and Mentryville. One thing I discovered is that the signage for the buildings and such is a little wrong. Once again, I want folks to know the Felton School, the barn and the chicken house (if it was a chicken house) were all painted buff gray. So the sign at the barn that says, “The Red Barn,” is just plain wrong.

I did figure out why the back of the barn was open for so many years. It was a loading dock for wagon loads of stuff that was being shipped to the Pico oil field. I was behind the barn on Friday when I remembered the old guy who told me about that. He was the same guy who got 50 cents a week to water all of the eucalyptus trees in the canyon when they were but saplings.

Wasn’t yesterday a wonderful day? We had a cloudless sky and temperatures that were a mite warm but stayed out of the triple digits. The evening brought a cooling breeze and once again a near-perfect Southern California evening. In all my years in the hot and humid environs of the East Coast, I never forgot this weather and those fantastic summer nights.

I’ve been asked to prepare a presentation on restoring Mentryville in the manner I wrote about yesterday. I’m kind of excited. I used to tell the folks who worked for me that I hated long PowerPoint presentations. “If you can state the proposal in maybe five paragraphs…” Well, this is going to take a whole bunch of PowerPoint presentation pages. I can use some of that excellent Navy training.

Back in about 1974, I was sent to San Diego to attend instructor school. I learned how to develop a lesson plan, and I hand-drew charts and graphs for the mock class I had to teach. I spent a couple of days putting that lesson together. So far, I’ve got the main plan and some pictures for the Mentryville presentation. About two hours of my time has been taken so far.

As I was working on it, I remember the huge sign above the chalkboard in the classroom of that Navy school. One word: ENTHUSIASM.

I am enthused about the Mentryville project. I am not feeling the same about Cemex, or high-speed rail, or the expansion of The Dump.

Maybe that is because Mentryville will add something to our valley. The other three seem to tell us we want folks to pass through at high speed so they can’t see the dust or smell the chemical waste.

That is what I want the SCV to be noted for – Not. A place to pass through quickly before your eyes are filled with tears. Many of us are already crying. I hope someday the tears will be from the joy of watching Cemex leave, The Dump close down, and Jerry’s Train get sidetracked into oblivion.

Have a fantastic Sunday, my friends. Tomorrow we start a whole new week. Are you ready for a Monday?

Darryl Manzer grew up in the Pico Canyon oil town of Mentryville in the 1960s and attended Hart High School. After a career in the U.S. Navy he returned to live in the Santa Clarita Valley. He can be reached at dmanzer@scvhistory.com and his commentaries are archived at DManzer.com. Watch his walking tour of Mentryville [here].