Sebastopol & Sawmilling in the 1950's

My first memories of Sebastopol come with one blinking stop light hanging in the middle of town at the Hwy 12 & 116 intersection ….. Blinking red towards Santa Rosa & yellow for folks coming from San Francisco on their way to the Russian River. Picture a slower paced world in the 1950’s when driving to Santa Rosa with your Mom; riding in the rear window or standing on the floorboard with your hands on the dashboard. Mom & I waved at every car that we passed…. And they waved back. Imagine a traffic policeman who knew everybody & their cars in Sebastopol and hunted folks down as they shopped to warn them that their parking meter had expired because he did not want to write a ticket. Remember a time when if one was lucky enough to have a party-line phone as your only immediate form of communication, the only thing your Mom would request was, “be home in time for dinner” and a time when there was a morning AND an afternoon mail delivery on Saturdays. Step back into the 1950’s when “Blue Suede Shoes” was playing on your first transistor radio and see Sebastopol through the eyes of a left-handed, dyslexic, ADD kid with size 12 tennis shoes as he tries to make sense of all the changes in technology ……..some people in town even had T.V.’s. I was blessed with an incredible childhood playing around & under an old sawmill; a dream world for a budding gear-head with pyrotechnic aspirations.