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OJAI MAGAZINE | SUMMER 2021
“GONG!!! BONG!!! GONG!!!” went the old church bell. Would this bother you, say, around midnight?
TO OL AT E
LOOK BACK IN OJAI with Drew Mashburn Contributed on behalf of the Ojai Valley Museum
B
ack in about 1964 my buddies and I were hoping it might. We were mischievous young teenagers just out havin’ a bit of fun. We had snuck into the Ojai Presbyterian Church’s bell tower from its former back door. We ran like jackrabbits after committing our dastardly deed! It wasn’t the first time we’d pulled this stunt. It was the third. We’d clanged the bell earlier in the evenings on our first two attempts, not quite achieving the results we were
E B TO aiming for. Now at this later time, we hid ourselves a short distance away and waited in anticipation. We had succeeded … an Ojai Police cruiser came to investigate, then quickly departed.
We were never found out. I’m just hopin’ the statute of limitations has taken full effect now that I’m sharing this peace-and-quiet infraction in print, and a few other, let’s say, a tad lessthan-legal activities. I hate to have to admit it, but I began my life on the not-so-Little-Angel-side before 1964. When I was a kid in the 1950s, my parents owned a home that backed up to the main baseball diamond at Sarzotti Park. A few old-timers might
