Ken Kramer: I would guess, and you understand it's just a guess, that most of us don't give much thought to our Interstate Highway System.

Just the 8, the 805, the 5, and so on.

Steve Welborn: I believe the way we say "the" in front of our freeways is a curiosity to this area.

Ken: We do, we say "the" before the number.

While there are some interesting interstate items and fascinating freeway facts about San Diego this time, including, did this burial in 1941 change the route of Highway 94?

Wow, a few weeks ago we told you about San Diego's trembling signposts, but who knew there were so many?

You found them and other very cool things you've sent in.

A return visit with the San Diegan who was a sensationally popular child singer.

Ken: Time Magazine, Look Magazine, TV Guide; you're a major star as a kid.

Gayla Peevey: I still can't believe it, it was so long ago.

Ken: And this.

announcer: He pitched the first no-hitter in a World Series and the second perfect game in the history of the Major Leagues.

Ken: A little baseball quiz for you, and more stories too, all of them true about San Diego.

announcer: Ken Kramer's "About San Diego," the history and people of the area we call home.

Here's Ken Kramer.

Ken: Hello.

Thanks for being here.

If your week has been crazy, and I rather suspect it has, just sit back and let me tell you some stories about San Diego.

Just let go and let's go.

We've got some favorite stories in our broadcast this time, and also, to begin, some myths and some facts about our interstate freeway system.

No kidding, just watch.

announcer: 5 o'clock, USA.

Ken: It was the mid 1950s, and in San Diego and all around the country, there was a major push to ease traffic congestion.

announcer: By 1956 there were more than 65 million cars on our roads with 90 million forecast by 1975.

Ken: Companies like General Motors and Portland Cement lobbied congress and the public, saying, "We need a better system."

announcer: Spacious roads and divided lanes where free-flowing traffic can save time, tires, gas, as well as lives.

Ken: A multi-billion dollar network of freeways, faster and more modern than the highways we had come to know.

Ken: The new Interstates would have their own numbers, but like other highways, they'd still be odd numbers for north and south and even for east and west.

Came the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, and construction of the Interstate System began, and with it, some myths like, every few miles there must be straight segments without curves that are long enough to land military aircraft on.

I always heard that.

It isn't so and never was.

But a lot of what is true has to do with funding.

Steve: An example would be the 15 Freeway.

A portion of that freeway north of the 8 is federally funded, and that is Interstate 15.

South of the 8 is not federally funded, and that is State Route 15.

Ken: Steve Welborn is with Caltrans in San Diego.

See what he's talking about?

Look at the sign.

Going north it has that red, white, and blue interstate symbol; southbound, it's the state highway sign.

Here's the 805's what we call it, right?

"The" 805?

More about that "the" thing in a minute, but you know the 805 is named for Jacob Dekema, considered by both fans and critics to be the father of San Diego's freeway system.

Where Adams Avenue crosses over, that bridge is named for contractor and freeway builder Roscoe Hazard, and where the 805 crosses over Mission Valley, that interchange and the big span is named for former California State Senator Jack Schrade.

The 805 runs from near the border to Sorrento Valley, fully contained within San Diego County.

Steve: The 805 is specific only to San Diego.

In fact, when it opened in the '70s, they allowed a bike day on the bridge.

Kids from all over the city came and rode their bikes down some very steep inclines going down into the bridge.

There were a few injuries here and there.

Ken: Well, and so why, you might wonder, do we call the 805 an interstate?

Doesn't go through any other state.

Gotta be a mistake, right?

Steve: No, whether it's named an interstate freeway or a state route has to do with the way that it's federally funded, not whether it goes from state to state.

One example would be the interstate in Hawaii.

It's federally funded, but it doesn't go to any other state.

Ken: And finally, remember that "the" way of speaking?

How we call this "the" 805 or this "the" 8?

It seems to be something that's kind of a regional habit, Steve says.

Steve: I am from San Diego originally, and I've always said, "The 805, the 5."

I did spend time in Northern California; they do not say it.

They simply say, "5, 508."

It's definitely special to this region.

Ken: So, the next time you're travelling on, you know, the 805, that's a little something in passing about San Diego.

Ken: If you like to take road trips, and who doesn't, you might have noticed that from time to time that a road you're on has a particular designation.

What's that about?

Here's the answer.

Ken: Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, and here is something you might not have seen, but it's worth a look.

It's a blue star memorial, blue star.

To understand this story, you have to know a little bit about blue star highway signs.

You ever seen them?

They're all over the country.

Here's one in Washington along Interstate 90.

Here's another we caught in DeRidder, Louisiana.

Highways 27, 112, and 171 meet up there.

In California Interstate 5, south of Tracy, there's a memorial designating it as a blue star highway.

In fact, in San Diego Interstates 5, 8, other roads in the county too have been named blue star highways.

So, where's the blue star come from?

Well, go back, World War II, you'd see these service flags, they were called.

The blue star meant you had a family member in the service in wartime.

However many stars you displayed on your service flag, that's how many were in the military.

If there was a gold star, that meant you lost a family member.

So, after the war, a group called the National Council of State Gardening Clubs started beautifying roadways and putting up these blue star markers to honor veterans.

First on a few highways and then more and more, and now 70,000 miles of road are designated as blue star highways.

Or here, Lindo Lake in Lakeside, right around a grove of pepper trees out there on the lawn all by itself is a little memorial marker that if you didn't know it was there, you could miss reading that it marks that spot as a blue star byway.

If you travel around the country, you find them at places like roadside rest stops.

Here's one at a veteran's park in Medford, Oregon.

But the truth is, there are now so many blue star roadways, hundreds, that nobody is sure anymore where all the highway markers are, let alone the byways.

Some people try to find them, catalogue them, document their exact latitude and longitude and condition.

There are websites devoted to keeping track of them and ensuring they're in good shape and continue to pay tribute to the veterans they honor.

Which brings us back here, Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery out on Point Loma, where there is what's called a blue star memorial.

Not on a highway or a byway, no mention of that on this one.

No need, not here.

This blue star monument stands alone as a tribute to veterans and something well worth noting about San Diego.

Ken: Okay, a favorite now.

This has to do with the 8 when you're driving east toward the Imperial Valley or west toward San Diego.

When engineers were laying out that route years and years ago, they came upon something very interesting, and it is a story about San Diego; watch.

Ken: Way out east of Pine Valley, you'd never guess it was there, not right along Interstate 8.

Ken: But here's something hardly anybody ever notices.

I mean, why would you?

The fence that borders the eastbound lanes of the freeway, just as straight as can be until you get to this point, and then suddenly it turns.

Ken: No, the Interstate doesn't turn; just the fence, like they were trying to make a little room for something they found alongside the road, and here it is.

The grave marker of Mr. Amos Buckman, who died more than a hundred years ago.

He was the biggest promoter this area ever had.

What attracted him was the carbonated water just bubbling out of the ground.

Sure it had an orangish color, but that was just the minerals, you see.

He built a spa, and people came.

Even put it in bottles, Buckman Springs Water, it was called.

Shake before opening.

Anyway, with time, Amos Buckman died and was buried nearby peacefully, at least until the freeway builders came along and ran straight into his grave.

I don't know what he'd think about what did or mostly didn't end up developing around his beloved springs, or what he'd say about his marker that nobody ever really sees, but here's to Amos Buckman, whose headstone turned, if not many heads, at least a freeway fence, and that's worth a story about San Diego.

Ken: And one more that we get comments about all the time.

I used to hear about this when I was a student at San Diego State.

Could it possibly be true that a freeway was actually routed around the grave of Polish royalty?

Let's find out.

Ken: Greenwood Memorial Park, and we're looking for something, hoping to prove or disprove a story that's been around for years, a story about, of all things, the College Avenue offramp from Eastbound Highway 94, where it is said before the freeway was built, there was something international and unusual.

Ken: In fact, you used to be able to see a house right here, two flagpoles, one flying an American flag and one a Polish flag, and the story was there was a Polish princess buried right on this spot.

Ken: Well, here's a picture of the house at what was back then 6810 Broadway in Lemon Grove.

But come on, a Polish princess really did live here?

Seth Mallios: It is true.

Ken: Seth Mallios is an author and chair of the Anthropology Department at San Diego State.

He knows, as they say, where the bodies are buried.

Seth: She was the daughter of Michael and Carolina Sledzinski.

They were the original prince and princess, and then she was the princess Filomena Sledzinski.

Ken: And yes, he says, when the princess, then known by her married name Wojciechowski, died, her body was buried right there on the property.

And for years, that sparked all kinds of stories about the grave and the freeway.

Seth: Especially because there's a certain bend in the 94, and it makes it seem like either that was going around somebody or was deliberately put in there.

Ken: But look, notes from 1965, a body moved from 6810 Broadway to Greenwood.

And in fact, it is here, not by a freeway, that she lies today.

A princess by Papal decree and a story for the ages about San Diego.

♪♪♪ Ken: It may be baseball season or not, but we've got a baseball quiz coming up about San Diego in a minute here.

See if you know the answer.

Just before that though, there are some places where the game of baseball has been played in San Diego that might surprise you.

Now, if you've been in San Diego for a while, you're going to know some of them, but I bet you don't know them all.

Wanna see?

Just follow the bouncing ball.

Ken: Take a walk with me here.

You know what used to be right here at the corner of Fourth and A?

Hey!

Ken: Way back then, they had a ball playing baseball.

Same thing at 6th and C. Two downtown ballparks in 1871, and actually there was a third one too.

Not bad for a city of only 2,500 back then.

Of course, longtime San Diegans will remember Lane Field, downtown corner of Broadway and Pacific Highway.

The Minor League Padres won a couple of championships there.

Couple of decades ago they put a plaque on the northwest corner to commemorate that baseball park and the story of one Padre who hit a baseball all the way to Los Angeles.

Ken: Well, actually he hit it across the street into a moving railroad boxcar that ended up in Los Angeles, but time and San Diego baseball rolled on, and from 1958 to '67 the Padres left downtown for Westgate Park.

Maybe you remember its intimate seating for 8,500 fans.

Then the Padres assumed a Major League role at San Diego Stadium, playing their first game in 1969 in the place that came to be called Qualcomm.

So, in a sense now, baseball has come full circle in 133 years, back downtown to where those two very early ballparks were.

And remember I said there was a third?

Guess where it was?

Downtown, believe it or not, right on J Street.

Just a slow roller from Petco Park.

Proving that over time, while some things change, other things truly remain the same about San Diego.

Ken: Here's a quiz about San Diego, some baseball history in particular with a San Diego twist.

See if you know.

It's the year 1956. announcer: Yankee Stadium for the fifth game, with the Yanks and Dodgers tied up two games apiece.

Ken: Well, you say, that's a long time ago.

But what happened on that October day made history and is unforgettable.

announcer: He strikes him out!

Ken: And with that final strike, it was a perfect game, the pitcher allowing no runs, no hits, no errors, no base runners at all.

announcer: He pitched the first no-hitter in the World Series and the second perfect game in the history of the Major Leagues.

Ken: But do you know from Point Loma High School, who was he?

Bullet Bob Turley?

Roger Craig?

Or Don Larsen?

It was Don Larsen, who at Point Loma High was better known as a basketball player and could have been a scholarship athlete playing that sport, but caught the attention of a baseball scout, went on to be a Yankees pitcher, and into history, and if you knew that, you know a little baseball and a lot about San Diego.

♪♪♪ Ken: Time to meet someone now.

If you don't recognize her name, I can just about guarantee you will recognize her music from years ago when she was a little girl because of one song in particular.

When we first met her on the show a few years back, she was an absolute delight, the most gentle soul, so modest about her accomplishments, and so willing to talk about her remarkable life and the journey that brought her eventually to San Diego.

Ken: See this picture here, this little girl?

You go back to the 1950s, she was a singing sensation.

♪ I wish I was a whisker on the Easter bunny's chin.

♪ Ken: Great big voice, she'd knock these novelty songs right out of the park.

♪ In Upsy Down Town the sky is in the sea.

♪ ♪ The sea is where the sky should be.

♪ Ken: The Cinderella sweetheart of live TV, Gayla Peevey was her name, and in late 1953, Gayla sang THE song.

♪ I want a hippopotamus for Christmas.

♪ ♪ Only a hippopotamus will do.

♪ ♪ Don't want a doll, no dinky Tinkertoy, I want a ♪ ♪ hippopotamus to play with and enjoy.

♪ Ken: You know that song?

It made her a superstar at age 10, put her on the charts with Tony Bennett, Liberace, and The Four Lads.

Ken: Time Magazine, Look Magazine, TV Guide; you're a major star as a kid.

Gayla: I still can't believe it, it was so long ago.

Ken: And decades later now, guess who ended up making her home in San Diego?

It's Gayla Peevey, the little girl who sang that memorable hippo holiday song.

Gayla: It has even become, they call it a classic, Christmas classic now.

"I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas."

Ken: Raised in Ponca City, Oklahoma, as a kid she just loved to sing, at home, at church, in community groups.

Well, she was discovered, did a home show, her name in lights, and then television in Oklahoma City on programs like "Sooner," "Shindig," and the "Chuck Wagon Gang."

Gayla: But they just put me in front of a camera, and I sang "Walking My Baby Back Home" and "Red, Red Robin" and a couple of songs.

Ken: As it happens, the station manager knew a record producer who arranged a contract with Columbia Records.

♪ I felt so bad when Mommy scolded me the other day.

♪ Ken: She starts working with Mitch Miller, and she's just a kid after all.

Looking back, she says, "It was fun, mostly."

Gayla: There were things about it that were not fun.

You know, when your face is recognized everywhere in public and you can't go out as a kid to the roller rink without getting mobbed or to a movie or shopping or to school.

Ken: Well, then she sings THE song.

"I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas."

Gayla: And it was introduced on "The Ed Sullivan Show," so I got to sing it for the first time on "The Ed Sullivan Show."

♪ Mom says the hippo would eat me up, but then ♪ ♪ teacher says the hippo is a vegetarian.

♪ Ken: It's "The Ed Sullivan Show," millions of people watching, and it's all live, no do-overs.

Gayla: Even though I was only ten, I really understood what a big deal that was.

♪ And hippopotamuses like me too!

♪ Ken: The hippo song turns out to be a big hit, and in Oklahoma City-- Gayla: They ran this big campaign with the zoo and the newspaper to get me a hippopotamus for Christmas.

Ken: Kids sent in nickels and dimes, and on Christmas Eve of 1953 Gayla was presented with a living, breathing Nile hippo.

Gayla: They also made a big deal about that my mother said, "How are we gonna keep a hippo in our garage?

You know, this is just not gonna be possible."

I ended up donating Mathilda, was her name, to the Oklahoma City Zoo.

Ken: Little Gayla Peevey had become a star, but it wasn't a normal life in Oklahoma.

She had no privacy, and her parents knew it.

Gayla: They made the decision to take me out of show business and move somewhere where I could, you know, nobody knew me, I could just go to school and be a regular kid.

Ken: That place turned out to be San Diego, where she went to Grossmont and then to Hoover High.

She made a few recordings in her teenage years under the name of Jamie Horton, and the hippo song, well, you only heard it very rarely.

Gayla: But then for some reason, about ten or fifteen years ago, that song came back with a vengeance.

It was rediscovered big-time.

Ken: Now it seems everywhere, there's a hip, hip, hooray of goodies inspired by it.

Gayla: You know, they have all kinds of merchandise too with my voice, with my recording in it.

♪ I want a hippopotamus-- ♪ Ken: And you know something?

Sixty-five years later, Gayla still loves that song.

You can tell.

♪ I want a hippopotamus for Christmas.

♪ ♪ Only a hippopotamus will do.

♪ Ken: These days she enjoys living in San Diego, sings in church, and now and again is honored for the remarkable contribution to music she made so early in her life.

She is happy.

Gayla: I think that it's like God saying to me, "You know what?

You may not have had a big career where you're getting a retirement party with all the, you know, celebration and everything, but this is something that's worth celebrating."

Ken: Indeed, she and that song have made millions of people happy too.

Year after year, Gayla Peevey is forever young in our minds and such a treasure about San Diego.

♪ And hippopotamuses like me too ♪ ♪ Do-do-do-do!

♪♪ [Gayla laughing] ♪♪♪ Ken: We get a lot of mail to this show, email and otherwise, for which we are very grateful.

And sometimes you include some things we can show on the show.

Maybe it's something you've found in a scrapbook or down in your mom's trunk in the basement somewhere.

Whatever it is, we love to set aside a couple of minutes to show some of these things on the air, and that time is now.

Here we go.

Ken: Remember our story about the street in National City that leads into Pepper Park with the funny name, Goesno Place, it's called?

And that really is its name if you look on older maps, but you couldn't prove it because the street sign had been torn down?

Well, look.

George Schneider sent this, it's a photo taken July the 6th, 1985.

His wife Jeanie Smith at the corner of 32nd and Goesno Place.

♪ Come on over baby, whole lot of shaking going on.

♪ Ken: Oh my gosh, the vibrating pole of Paradise Hills; remember Skip Thompson said, "Doesn't matter wind or calm, this thing just shakes back and forth 24 hours a day.

Skip Thompson: Ken, this is July 2nd, about, oh, three months from the start of watching it.

Ken: Well, it must have triggered an earthquake, because we started getting messages about similar shaking poles all over town.

This one on Milton Street in Bay Park from Erica Knowles.

Vicky Miller found one at 30th and Madison.

Mark Sterrick discovered another one at Market and Third, and you notice they all look the same.

They're poles for what used to be bus signs, I think, but whatever they were, something about them still seems to resonate.

Misprints in stone for the ages.

You found a "traffic sig-n-nal" and a "storn draim."

Here's one Margie Burton found in the 200 block of Barbara Avenue in "Solano Beach."

And houses on this street in Mission Hills caught Owen Western's attention.

He snapped a cool picture 40 years ago.

Okay, love this from Ken Wagner, 1926 First Responders in Escondido, the volunteer fire department, including Karl Peterson, Chief of Volunteers.

Wanna show you this, it's a picture of a picture-taker named Russell Lee who, under contract with the Office of War Information's Farm Security Administration spent a lot of time documenting government buildings and other things in 1940s wartime San Diego.

Here are some sailors bussed to Mission Beach, there to ride the roller coaster or to try out the bumper cars at Belmont Park, maybe even have their fortune told.

Russell Lee's photographs became a time capsule treasure curated by the Library of Congress.

Couple more; long before we started calling ourselves America's Finest City, America's Finest Entertainment Centre was under construction.

It would become Tower Bowl, if you remember that on Broadway, and here are some real estate ads chalked onto a fence.

A little under $3,000 for a home with a view on 3/4 of an acre 7 minutes from downtown.

A five-room home on a big lot, $2,650.

Such was the San Diego Mr. Lee saw in the early 1940s.

From the San Diego Union, 1942 radio listing, see there Agnes White on KFI?

Agnes White: Now, in this large frying pan here on the stove, I have five tablespoons of chardonnay.

Ken: Agnes did America's first cooking show, later performed under the radio name of Betty Crocker.

She ended up making her home in valley center.

And finally, from Melody Lewis, go see the Aztecs, it'll cost you a dollar and a quarter, but they won 20-13 in 1954.

It was a so-so year for the team though, it wasn't ranked in any of the "poles."

Skip: Look at that baby go.

♪ A whole lot of shaking going on.

♪♪ Ken: And that's it for this time, another front porch edition, because as we record this show, we're all still being very careful about coronavirus and its various variants.

But we can get together like this every week and celebrate our history and the wonderful people of our county, and I do hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Reminder, these stories, information about them, behind the scenes pictures, so much more at kenkramertv.com.

See you next time.

Until then and as always, thank you for watching and for caring about San Diego.

Bye-bye.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ announcer: We're running out of roads.

We didn't dream big enough.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ CC by Aberdeen Captioning www.aberdeen.io 1-800-688-6621 announcer: Support for this program comes from the KPBS Explore Local Content Fund, supporting new ideas and programs for San Diego.