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This is later with Lee Matthews,
the Lee Matthews Podcast more what you Hear

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weekday afternoons on the Drive. So
I'm going to have Chris Epping on again.

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Last time we had him on it
was for his volume Happened right here.

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His newest study is where he stretches
across thirty four cities that compromised the

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oc lost landmarks of Orange County.
Let's start, Chris. Where is Orange

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County? Hey, thanks for having
me. Good to hear your voice again.

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Orange County is just south of La
County. In fact, in eighteen

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eighty nine they decided to call themselves
Orange County to kind of get out from

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the shadow of La County, which
even at that point was sort of looming

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over pretty heavily and getting a lot
of credit for things. And I always

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felt that Orange County on its own, being just south of LA had a

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lot of things culturally that were super
interesting that people were unaware of, whether

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you grew up here or live here
or not, you know, involving some

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of the biggest things on the planet. So I figured I would write this

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book to kind of set the record
straight. You're a big fan of some

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of this antique pop culture stuff.
You've written several books about it already,

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including it happened right here in Roadside
Baseball. I have I love identifying precise

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locations of where pop culture history happened. In this case, there are literally

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hundreds of them around Orange County.
And the good thing was as well,

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I got to speak to people that
helped shape those landmarks, people like Steve

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Martin told me an amazing story about
a little club where his stand up career

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started, called the Golden Bear in
Huntington Beach, and so to unpack that

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place through his eyes was really a
thrill. Yeah, that's kind of what

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inspired him, that whole Magic Mountain
entertainment stand up comedy scene there. Well,

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he's from Orange County. He worked
at Knottsbury Farm, he worked at

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Disneyland. He really is. You
know, people don't realize Steve Martin,

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Will Ferrell, some very funny people
came out of Orange County and he you

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know, he in particular in the
early nine eighteen seventies, he told me

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that he had a revelation, this
particular the Golden Bear, where he literally

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took all three hundred people, marched
them up and out of the club,

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took them across the street, had
them all bend down behind a row of

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hedges in front of a restaurant,
and the next couple that stepped out of

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the restaurant, he commanded everyone to
stand up, scream, scare the couple,

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and then he marched them back into
the club. And he said to

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me, that night he realized you
could break rules, you could break the

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wall, you could do things that
were unexpected. So he really kind of,

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you know, looked at Orange County
as a place where his career took

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a whole different shape. He also
added that the shocked looked on the owner's

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faces when he marched people back into
this he had marched out three hundred live

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checks that hadn't been paid yet lost
Landmarks of Orange County. Chris Epting is

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with us. Chris Epting is the
author of forty five books about to pop

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culture. Now, what was it
about Orange County? Is it the weather?

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Is that what kind of spawned a
lot of these attractions? I think

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it's weather, and I think there
was a lot of open space. The

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book also deals with places like Lion
Country, Safari, the California Alligator Farm,

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the Japanese Deer Park, wide roaming
places where animals could roam free.

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Look a lot of it is inspired
by Disneyland and Knots Buried Farm, Walter

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Not and Walt Disney both really I
think gave people the idea that an Orange

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County essentially anything was possible to try, at least once, and so it

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gave way to kind of a lot
of crazy tourist attractions wax museums, plane

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museums, car museums, and things
that Los Angeles didn't have and still doesn't

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have. So Orange County became a
tourist mechod going all the way back to

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the nineteen forties. I am old
enough to have gone through Lion Country.

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If you don't know what it was. If you don't know what it is,

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oh my god, you were allowed
to drive down into this area in

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your car where there were lions and
elephants and zebras, and yes, sometimes

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they jump up on the hood of
your car. And yes, people were

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rolling down their windows to take pictures
and getting mauled. What could go wrong?

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Listen? I remember I went there
in nineteen seventy four, visiting California.

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My father turned my mother and said, there are no rules here.

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All the animals co mingled together.
It was crazy, but somehow it worked

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and that's on the cover of the
book. Line. So far, the

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most famous animal there was Fraser,
nicknamed the Sensuous Lion because he sired thirty

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five cubs. Wow. And as
I learned, he is still there.

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There's a housing development on the site
today, but Fraser rests peacefully under a

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California live oak tree on the property. He never left, so he's still

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there today. It's called Lost Landmarks
of Orange County and Chris Epting is the

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author. Did it also have a
little to do with the expanding use of

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the freedom the automobile was giving us
at about this time, this late fifties

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early sixties. Yeah, once,
once the trains were being phased out,

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a lot more people, you know, Route sixty six was becoming popular.

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That brought people to say California.
So yeah, there were a lot of

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reasons. As car culture expanded,
Orange County was sort of the wild West.

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It was easy to go to Los
Angeles, Hollywood and all that,

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but Orange County, just an hour
away back then, was this sort of

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uncharted territory that had all these great
gifts along with the most beautiful beaches,

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mountain ranges, things that again you
just couldn't find in LA that at least

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were uncrowded down in Orange County back
then. I was about to say,

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because you could as a family vacation, it was if you drove. It

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was fairly inexpensive at the time,
and you could get some beach time in

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absolutely and you could go to Disneyland
one day, you could go to the

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Alligator from another day. There were
so many things to do, and none

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of the owners were really in competition
because they knew that people would build in

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an extra day or two. It's
sort of like a rising tide, all

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ships rise. They realized that everybody
benefited from opening these places because people just

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made more time to spend in Orange
County honey back then, and they still

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do. Lost Landmarks of Orange County. Chris Epting is the author. He's

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put it together along with other pop
culture books like Roadside Baseball It Happened right

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here as well. Has it backed
off in recent years? Have there been

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other attractions that have kind of stolen
maybe some of the some of the fun

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away from Orange County? Yeah,
I mean things like Universal City and Yeah,

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obviously, and as the county has
become developed you don't have a lot

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of the open space opportunities you used
to have. There's still plenty to do

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in Orange County. There's still a
lot of wild, unexplored territory, but

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you know, it's also become a
lot more populated. There are more than

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three million people in Orange County now. So obviously time marches on. And

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that's why I wrote this book because
again, so many of the places are

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every place in that book is gone, and it's not wasn't just all theme

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parks and such. I learned about
a German pow camp in World War Two

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in a little town called Garden Grove, where the German soldiers in World War

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Two would be forced to pick oranges
all day. That was their work detail.

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And after the war, one hundred
of those soldiers moved back to Orange

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County because they loved so much and
brought their families back here to raise them.

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So again, there were a lot
of surprises in this book well as

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well, to speak to whether you
grew up here or not, just speak

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to American cultural things that were taking
force back then lost landmarks of Orange County.

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Chris Epting, you mentioned Root sixty
six, which is something we and

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Oklahoma are very proud of and are
trying to save the culture of which as

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much as we can, not only
save and preserve the old attractions, but

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come up with even new attractions,
and we're working to do that as we

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can. So I would wonder what
you would do with a journey down Root

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sixty six. It's been done by
a lot of people, but I think

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your thoroughness would lend a different view. I love it, and I listen.

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Your town obviously has done a lot
and continues to do a lot.

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I recently spent a night at the
Wigwam Hotel, which is out in San

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Bernardino, California, part of the
Roots experience, been there since nineteen forty

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nine. There are still gems out
there to be discovered. They are not

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lost, thank goodness. And you
know, again, you just have to

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look. I've written a lot about
it. There are some other fine writers

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and photographers who continue to detail and
describe roadside Americana and it's again, it's

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out there if you want to find
it. Maybe not as much as it

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used to be, but you know
what, it makes it that much more

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special when you do spend a night
in a wigwa Oh, it does and

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as far as Route sixty six is
concerned, there's this peculiar sub industry going

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on where many German tourists fly into
Chicago. Rent Harley Davidson are some other

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motorcycle and ride Route sixty six on
the motorcycle. So you stop at these

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attractions and quite often you hear people
speaking in Bavarian German. It's like the

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mother Road will never get tired.
You know. It's so evocative and it

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speaks to that moment in time where
cars were freeing up, you know,

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the ability to actually travel, get
your family on the road, and stop

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at all these great little kitchen roadside
attractions and things. And I think that

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there's always going to be a charm
associated with that, especially the farther away

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we get from it, you know, we miss it, or if you

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never experienced it, it seems exotic
today. What used to be commonplace is

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today very exotic and almost dream like
to a lot of people. I think

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because most of the time we're flying
over it. But lost landmarks of Orange

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County will make you want to go
and see these attractions, restaurants, theaters,

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music venues, theme parks. Chris
Epting, I thank you for bringing

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us yet another great book of things
that we need to go look at.

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Lee, I appreciate the time.
Good to talk to you again. Thank

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you, Thanks for listening to Later
with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast,

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and remember to listen to The Drive
Live weekday afternoons from five to seven

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