1964: Goldwater in the Grove and the Horseshoe Throws a Party

Goldwater Came Knocking: Lemon Grove got its first visit from a presidential candidate when Barry Goldwater and Mrs. Goldwater, flanked by famed New York City columnist Walter Winchell, roared into town on their “car horn caravan.”

Local coordinators, Tom and Dona Clabby, Mr. and Mrs. Charlie Brown, and Mr. and Mrs. Warren Parks had traveled with the caravan from Oceanside to various county stops, culminating in the rally outside Goldwater Headquarters at 7959 Broadway (later, Purple Turtle; today, House2Home Furniture).

“Goldwater was a straight talker, no guff, a Westerner and a practical money man,” mused the Clabbys recently. “A lot of us [supporters] were young with small children and we wanted someone who would save the country from crime, budget overruns and social decay. He appealed to a lot of Californians—Reagan, for one. We wouldn't vote for him today, but at the time, he was an alternative to Eastern bigwigs like Rockefeller.”

Many will recall the famous, anti-Goldwater “daisy girl” TV commercial created for Lyndon Baines Johnson by ad man Tony Schwartz. When the daisy morphed into a nuclear explosion, the Goldwater candidacy blew up.

On Goldwater's day in Lemon Grove, 100 people showed up to hear him say, “I'm not a warmonger. I'm a peacemonger. Unless we stay strong, we can back ourselves into war.”

His message worked. The local committee signed up dozens of volunteers for a door-to-door campaign blitz on March 29.

Subsequently, Viet Nam consumed LBJ, Watergate consumed Nixon, Iranian hostages and gas prices consumed Carter, bimbo eruptions consumed Clinton—but Goldwater gradually morphed into the grand old man of the GOP, a symbol of rugged individualism and integrity, the big daddy you could turn to for sage advice. Though a staunch Republican, Goldwater heralded the third party players to come (Perot, Nader, et al).

And Walter Winchell?  He joined the Goldwater caravan in LA, where he'd attended a celebration for the judge who sent the three kidnappers of Frank Sinatra Jr. to the slammer in 1963.

Winchell had tracked the case in his column. Despite years of acrimony with the senior Sinatra, Winchell's sympathy for the family's problems with stalkers and would-be kidnappers ultimately healed old wounds.  

Tech Note: If your child were kidnapped, you'd call the cops on your cell phone. But in 1963, Sinatra communicated with cops and kidnappers from phone booths, prompting him to keep a roll of dimes in his pocket for the rest of his life.

Horseshoe Tavern Mobbed: The Horseshoe Tavern, 7664 Broadway (today, Dirk's Nite Club) drew a star-studded throng of 1,000 revelers when its owners, Mr. and Mrs. Ted Fetters, threw a grand opening party for what would become one of the town's most popular watering holes.  

Parking attendants turned away 50 carloads of merrymakers, who then crossed the street to park at Mayfair Department Store and rejoin the bacchanal.

In the crowd were Regis Philbin, then starring in his own show on Channel 10, Judge Luther Hussey of trial court fame, William Talman, then co-starring as the grouchy D.A. on “Perry Mason,” Bob Sinne, the legendary thoroughbred trainer, and politicos of all stripes.

Welding the Fetters to their guests and to the tavern's equine theme was a love of horse breeding and racing. 

The famous rearing stallion on the roof spoke to Lemon Grove's long tradition of rodeos and horse culture, while the horseshoe sign lured the faithful to quaff in celebration of their pioneer roots. But both stallion and horseshoe were casualties of a 1990 ordinance banning roof-mounted signs.  

The stallion vanished into the sunset, but new owner Dirk Westerhout mounted the horseshoe over the dance floor and changed the bistro's name to Dirk's Niteclub.  

The Old Pro and the Rookies: Max Goodwin, editor of the Lemon Grove Review, gave a workshop for Mrs. Massey's sixth graders at Mount Vernon Elementary on how to write a concise news story about a robbery.  

The “hold-up” was acted out by the students, and Max ran the best reportage in the Review. We're sharing two, starting with Steve Franco's terse, confession-style piece headlined “I Was a 6th Grade Con Artist:”

The time was 4:30 a.m. The day was July 8, 1963. The place was Main Street in Del Mar. I'm a robber. I prefer to keep my name unknown. 

I'm at Aker's Malt Shop. There are two girls down at the corner of Main Street by the school. I saw them. I know them. One was Marjorie Jones. The other was Mary Caruthers. Mary was carrying a purse. I saw her put a new dollar bill in it. Then I walked down to them and the next thing I had her purse and I was on the lam.

Here is Tim Harlow's just-the-facts-ma'am version headlined “Purse Snatcher Gets Away:”

A robber weighing 100 pounds robbed Marjorie Jones, age 11, of a $1 at the corner of Broadway and Main Streets in Del Mar. Marjorie Jones with her friends Mary Caruthers and Peter Robinson were headed for Aker's Malt Shop at 300 Main Street.

Her parents are Mr. and Mrs. Tom Jones, who live at 4627 Central Ave., Oceanside.

The robber dumped the purse, took the money and fled. Marjorie Jones and her friends were not hurt.

Bowlero Bandit Blotto: In the Bowlero parking lot on Broadway, Thomas Marks, 7936 Lester, was in his cups. He'd downed five beers, a number that would grow to nine as the night wore on.

Pie-eyed but still dexterous, Marks removed the carburetors from a 1959 Buick owned by auto parts dealer Arni Laxdal, Golden Avenue, and a 1956 Cadillac owned by G.N. Cook, National City, and placed them carefully next to each car. He then got into his 1949 Ford, started the engine, but, stewed to the gills, slumped over the wheel with the motor running.

At 2:30 a.m. Marks was roused by a Sheriff's deputy, who proceeded to book him for attempted robbery. But Laxdal and Cook, in fits of laughter over the situation, refused to press charges. Marks was charged only with drunkenness in a public place. No word on how long it took to reinstall the carburetors.