YourHub.com \\ The Valley \\ Blogs \\ Family & Community \\ Community

Blog Entry 3 of 3 Empty Nest Full Heart

The empty nest is not empty at all! After dreading it for so long, I find that it actually opens my life to more friends, more fun, more self-awareness. And I have learned to enjoy some solitude, also. To my delight, both Tom and Becky come home often, with friends, boyfriends and girlfriends - all bright, articulate kids. So much is going on. This blog will let you in on the journey --new events, landmarks in our lives, memories of times past, and thoughts about my situation.

Blog Url: http://valleynews.com/~KarenFountain

Old Canoga Park was a little like Mayberry

e-mail to a friend | print this | link to this

Contributed by: Karen Fountain on 10/11/2008

For me, one little gift that occurs now and then is talking to a potential client and discovering that they have lived in the west San Fernando Valley as long as I have.

My parents moved to Canoga Park in 1956.

"Wow, you're moving waaay out there?" said neighbors from out Santa Monica neighborhood. I was only 6 years old at the time, but I have so many memories of that smaller, older town.

How nice to tell a new acquaintance that I started my insurance career in the old Canoga Park Sears Store, back when Fallbrook Mall was fairly new, and have them say, "I remember that!"

Fallbrook Mall was a long, outdoor mall back then, with Ontra Cafeteria, Rhea's Hardware, Sears, Crocker National Bank, and a great F.W. Woolworth's, complete with a lunch counter.

I remember my Dad taking the family to Ontra Cafeteria after my high school graduation for a celebratory meal. It was special and festive, and I remember it with a happy heart.

But before Fallbrook Mall, and neighboring Topanga Plaza were built, downtown Canoga Park was the place to shop. Sherman Way was the main drag for shopping. Canoga Toytown seemed huge and exciting, in a corner building that now seems so small.

I remember the old J.C. Penney store, mid-block near Owensmouth Avenue. It was a two-story store that, in my mind, had everything.

With four kids, my parents were on a tight budget, so I still remember clearly those personal landmarks that J.C. Penney occasioned - a green print swimsuit with a pleated skirt, a turquoise coat that I craved even though my mother wanted me to choose something more practical, and even a first bra.

And the shoe store. I'm not positive about the name, but it seems to me that it was "Hank's Shoes." Getting new shoes was a real occasion. We walked to school back then, a good five-mile hike, roundtrip. When the time came for my brothers or myself to tell our parents that we had worn a hole in the sole of our shoes, the answer was always the same, "Put some cardboard in it."

We knew the drill, but we always asked anyway.

So we traced our foot on several pieces of the cardboard that came from the laundry in my Dad's work shirts. We trimmed it and put it in the shoe, and if it was not during rainy times, it got the job done. It was only when our shoes were "really" worn out that we made the pilgrimage to Hank's Shoes.

It wasn't just the new shoes, so perfect and shiny. Sure it was special, getting a choice and having those rare, brand new shoes. But for my brothers and myself, the real mystique of Hank's Shoes was the x-ray machine in the corner.

Hank's had a device, probably common back then, where you could insert your foot and check the fit by seeing an x-ray of your foot within the shoe. How we envied any lucky kid that we saw, stepping up to use the machine! Not us, though.

Not only were we not allowed to use it, we weren't even allowed to stand near it.

In retrospect, my parents had the right idea, wanting to keep us safe from "all that radiation." How ironic, too, that we were growing up in the shadow of Rocketdyne, site of an uncontained partial nuclear meltdown in 1959.

Later, as an adult, I asked my parents about that meltdown, and found that they had no clue about the meltdown and the subsequent years of detrimental health after-effects. Fortunately, none of us seemed to be affected.

Our world was local, a little version of Mayberry. The new tract home we occupied was our world. We played with the kids on the street. The moms had Tupperware parties. The dads went to work. And going shopping meant going to "downtown" Canoga Park, to the stores on Sherman Way. It didn't get any better.

< Previous: 'The 'Thank You Wave'' | Next

[Report this as objectionable content.]

SUBMIT COMMENT

Rate the above blog