1964: A Big Star, A Big Bust, and a Big Bet

Gregory Peck Comes to the Grove: Famed film star Gregory Peck, chair of the 1964 California Cancer Crusade, came to town to meet with local chair, Jack Durham, whose venerable Durham Insurance Agency was a mainstay in Lemon Grove from 1935 to 1973. Peck urged everyone to give to the $190,000 statewide goal, emphasizing that “nothing is too much trouble in this fight. 

Durham recalled, “We talked for a few minutes, shook hands and he left for more appearances around the county. Nice guy. I always liked his movies. And I liked movies, in general.”

In 1963 Peck won the Academy Award for his portrayal of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. A decade earlier, in 1953, Durham was helping his father, Ira Durham, to run Lemon Bowl Cinema-Dine on Federal Boulevard, an unusual drive-in where you paid 25 cents for the movie and carhops delivered your food on little electric carts. That same year, Peck and Audrey Hepburn starred in Roman Holiday, but that charming movie never came to any of Lemon Grove's three theaters. Today, Cinema-Dine is the site of Bob Baker Toyota.

Jack and Margaret Durham are alive and well in El Cajon. Their daughter, Lori, and her husband, Bob Bailey, run the iconic Food Factory on Broadway, the town's indispensable diner since 1973. You go, girl.

Mrs. Newhouse Arrests an Elephant: In 1964, the Lemon Grove Sheriff Substation at 3443 Main St., near our modern City Hall, was a tiny shop with a big mission. Lt. “Bus” Earnest, a 25-year veteran cop, oversaw the area from the San Diego city limit to El Cajon, from Vista to the border, and as far east as El Centro.  

Earnest was aided by 12 officers working various shifts, three detectives, a desk sergeant who doubled as a deputy, a juvenile officer—and Mrs. Norma Newhouse.

Mrs. N, as she was called, ran the place, often working alone Monday through Friday, from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. She typed, filed, filled out reports, took dictation, checked time cards, wrote schedules, swept and dusted, filled the coffee pot, emptied ashtrays, cleaned the bathroom, answered phones, served as dispatch, and dealt with the public ("walk-in business"). But that was just the tip of the big lemon.

Mrs. N babysat an average of two lost children a month, more during holidays. She safeguarded an average of six stolen bicycles a month stacked against her counter. She kept cardboard boxes, paper bags, and a couple of small cages on hand for assorted lost animals (garter snake, parrot, lizard, hamsters, chickens, rabbits, cats, dogs, and you-name-it).  

A little boy asked if she'd seen a blue or yellow parakeet “walking by,” then, when he couldn't recall his address, a deputy drove him around town until he spotted his house. But the pet birds stayed missing.

She counseled abused women:  One, covered in bruises, arrived asking for a deputy to arrest her husband, who'd been beating her up for 14 years. 

But the Academy Awar- winning call came from a small circus setting up near 69th Street (mainly fields in those days). An elephant was squashing its trainer against a trailer. Apparently Dumbo was cheesed off when his water pail was left empty.  

Mrs. N phoned for help, but with deputies fanned out over 2,000 square miles of East County and the desk sergeant out, she had no choice but to lock the office, jump in her car and go to the rescue.

She took out her compact and flashed the mirror in the sunlight at Dumbo, who shifted in surprise, giving the trainer a chance to slump to the ground and crawl away. Mrs. N said she used an old Girl Scout trick to make a citizen's arrest of an elephant for unlawfully detaining an innocent man. By then, a deputy arrived and took the trainer to the hospital. He recovered.

Mrs. N returned to the office only to be confronted by an angry man whose stolen car had been returned to him in filthy condition.

“Look at this upholstery!” he snapped. “Clean it up!”

In 1964, the average U.S. salary was $6,000 a year, or roughly $3 an hour. We're guessing that Mrs. N took home about $3,000, or $1.50 an hour. Though the Equal Pay for Equal Work law had been passed in 1963, it would be years before women gained parity in the workplace—and  Mrs. N's job defied description. 

Oh, she also had two children to raise.

Gender Gap: The County Civil Service Commission needed to expand from three to five members. But no two could be of the same sex. In writing the ballot statement, legal counsel Bertram McLees said, “No more than four can be the same sex, otherwise you would have five members no more than two who can be of the same sex.” So they did the math and settled for four. That would give them a hung jury on some votes. But what do we know.

Boney's Big Bet: Henry A. Boney, scion of the Boney's/Henry's/Sprouts supermarket chain, ran for supervisor of the Second District covering Lemon Grove and environs. He pitched his platform to the Lemon Grove Men's Club at the Horseshoe Tavern, 7664 Broadway. 

“The county has a $190,000 advertising budget and spends $92,000 in Los Angeles and Arizona,” he said. “What about the rest of the country? We took in $238 million tourist dollars in 1963. I'm betting that we could double it by investing in national markets.”

Boney said tourists didn't need schools, hospitals, or welfare, making their dollars “free money.” He further bet that dredging 10,000 acres in South Bay and transforming them into a giant industrial tract would lure manufacturing jobs and a larger military presence.

He lost the election, but the memory lingers on.