Woodland Hills, the place my parents moved my 2 sisters and I to in 1954.

We lived on a street a few blocks south of Ventura Blvd and a few blocks west of Toganga Canyon Rd. Our Aunt lived in Woodland Hills as well on a street up Topanga about 12 blocks and 1 block east of Topanga.

When my mom started working she took me and my sisters to our Aunts house every week day in the morning and pick us up after work. We'd leave for school from there, return after school and play until mom returned to take us home. During the summer me and my sisters would play all day around our Aunts house with the kids that lived on the street there.

At the time my Aunts house was pretty much the last street up Topanga that was developed. Just a couple unpaved roads up from the house was Mulholand Drive. The adventure was to hike up to Mulholand and look around. It was a dirt road where people would dump unwanted stuff... an old chair, matress, misc. house hold things. We could go up there and bust bottles on the rocks, be generally mischievous and not get noticed.

Fast forward to an all day surf with Bob Cooper and Dale Herd. Cooper the Morey-Pope shop foreman and Dale the shop salesman and I took a Saturday surf trip to the spot where Topanga Canyon meets the coast. A small point south of Malibu... Topanga point, or just Topanga. In 1967 Topanga was a private community and the only way you could surf the point was if you lived in one of the small houses on the point or were invited by someone that had a place there. We were invited, so we got to surf the place with just a couple others that happened to be there that day too.

The surf was small and inconsistent so after some time we decided to go off somewhere else for something better... if we could find it. Since home was back up the PCH that's the direction we headed and stopped where Mulholand Highway, the west end of Mulholand Dr. meets the coast...  Secos at Leo Carrillo State Beach.

Little did I know when I was 7 that Mulholand Dr. and Topanga Canyon road both end at  the Pacific Coast Highway and, there are surf spots where each road meets the coast. And 13 years later I would surf both spots in one day.

D.R.