Playing Chicken with an Iron Horse - Fred Rosenblum

This book is a gritty time machine into 1950s and 60s El Cajon, San Diego, Los Angeles, where urchins pelt a 'little red Austin Healey' with loquats, panic at a floating turd in De Anza Cove, suffer a father's practical joke in 'The Hotel Cecil,'  toss revenge eggs at houses and school, and relish in mostly hidden sexual energy.