Where are the yellow
shopping carts?
Alpha Beta Markets I remember Alpha Beta. When I was little they had yellow shopping carts. Alpha Beta was sold to the Yucaipa Company a short time after this, which owned such chains as Boys' Markets, Food-4-Less, and Viva Markets. (If you remember in the movie E.T., the creature ate some potato salad purchased at the Boys' Market just before he got drunk!) Through the power of this chain, they were able to buy the trade marks of such defunct brands as Carnation Fresh Milk (not the canned stuff, which is made by Nestle) and Van de Kamp's Bakery (not frozen fish, which is made by Aurora Foods). Yucaipa bought the Ralphs Grocery Company. Alpha Beta, Boys', and Viva shortly became either Ralphs or Food-4-Less. Ralphs was bought by the Kroger Company (see Market Basket in this list.)
Angels Building Supply I think their problem was that they kept all of their stock outdoors. Not a good place to keep plywood. Oh, they had good prices and good quality. It was just a lousy place to go shopping in winter!
Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway My dad retired from Santa Fe some fifteen years ago. While there is still a Santa Fe Railroad, it is now Burlington Northern-Santa Fe. This happened in 1996 when the Burlington Northern, which itself was also an amalgamation of the Burlington Route (Chicago, Burlington, & Quincy), Northern Pacific, and Great Northern railroads, merged with Santa Fe. Pretty soon, when kids hear the song from The Harvey Girls, "On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe," no one will know what the song is about, unless they bear down and watch the movie!
Barbara Ann Bakeries Their main bakery was in San Bernardino. I loved their Honey V Bread (though I never knew whether it was "Honey Vee" or "Honey 'Five'"), which was a multigrain bread with sesame seeds on top. Barbara Ann Bakeries was owned by Langendorf.
Look at the family on the cover of the stamp book. What a way
to spend the day!
Blue Chip Stamps Children today are missing something I relished in my childhood: Saving trading stamps! Trading stamps were given by discount department stores (except dime stores and really cheap discount stores), drug stores, supermarkets, gas stations. If I remember right, you were supposed to get one trading stamp for every dime spent. There were 1,100 trading stamps in a book. A book of stamps would purchase about twelve bucks worth of goods. I remember what it said on every stamp: "Cash Value, One Mill," meaning that I could supposedly take my book of trading stamps to the Blue Chip Stamp Redemption Center and get $1.10. Stamps cost money. Stores began eliminating stamps when the price to give the stamps went up and so, like Double Stamp Tuesdays at the Signal Gas Stations, Blue Chip Stamps faded away. They were chiefly in California. For those of you who have been asking if I remember S&H Green Stamps: Yes, I do. My family didn't have that much to do with them? We could get Blue Chip Stamps at Stater Brothers, which is where my family did most of its shopping. S&H Green Stamps still exist. I was at a supermarket in the Deep South not too long ago and noticed that they still give Green Stamps. You can also click onto this link and, by buying through certain internet shopping sites, you can get S&H Green Points, which work similar to the stamps.
Builders' Emporium This was a pretty good building supply store. My parents bought from them all the time (when they weren't going to Angels). Builders' Emporium was sold to Wickes and the stores became Ole's, which also soon went out of business.
Burger ChefI'm not sure but I think Burger Chef had charcoal broiled hamburgers long before Burger King. The chain was family run for a long time and then it was taken over by General Foods. General Foods (which was later bought by Philip Morris and merged with the Kraft Cheese Company, then ceased to exist) sold the company and it eventually wound up in the hands of Hardee's (we don't have any of those in Southern California; presently, both Hardee's and Carl's Jr. have the same Happy Star trademark), which was taken over by Carl Karcher Enterprises, at which time Hardee's seemed to resemble Carl's Jr., a chain which originated in Downtown Los Angeles (as a hot dog cart) and headquartered in Anaheim and some stores have Green Burrito outlets in them. (Aren't these corporate things fun?) I remember that in the early seventies a new Burger Chef opened across the street from San Bernardino Valley College (a couple of blocks south of Fedco) and they filmed a TV commercial there. It soon closed down. I don't remember any Burger Chefs staying around after that. Later, I attended college at Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville. They had Burger Chef; one of my professors always had the child's meal for lunch. (This was 1976 and 1977.) In the early 1980s, I was stationed at Fort Dix, New Jersey. I went to the beach at Toms River and they had a Burger Chef there on U.S. Hwy. 9. I later found out that New Jersey was the last good stronghold for Burger Chef and the Burger Chef in Cookeville was the last store to shut down in 1996.
The old Carnation Ice Cream Parlor, which also doesn't exist anymore, at Disneyland.
Carnation Dairies Growing up in the Los Angeles area, I thought Carnation Fresh Milk originated in Los Angeles. I mean, that's where the Carnation Evaporated Milk plant was and, at the time, they were the same company. Actually, they began in Washington State. I think every school district in California got some of its milk from Carnation in the 1960s. (Do you remember the four-piece paper cartons we used then? One piece was used for the sides; there was a top and a bottom; and there was an indented cover that was held in place with a staple.) Also, Carnation produced every milk-based product sold at Disneyland. Carnation was sold to Nestle in 1989 and would no longer produce fresh milk. In this area, Carnation Fresh Milk went to Adohr Farms, a small dairy in Santa Ana (formerly owned by the Southland Corporation). Nestle produces Carnation Nonfat Dry Milk, Carnation Instant Breakfast, Carnation Ice Cream, and several other products. At least Adohr Farms got the contract to sell milk at Disneyland! Carnation Fresh Milk is sold in the Los Angeles and San Diego areas in Ralphs and Food-4-Less supermarkets as one of their house brands (they pay Nestle for the rights to use the name).
Continental Trailways There was a time when you had a choice in bus riding. Trailways had a fleet of European buses which were supposed to be more comfortable than Greyhounds. Anyway, Greyhound bought the company and thus ended the competition. Do you remember when actor Claude Akins did their pitches for TV commercials?
Crown Books "If you paid full price, you didn't buy it at Crown Books." I remember that commercial. This was a great discount book chain where you could buy almost any book at a discount. I think the internet (such businesses as Barnes and Noble and Amazon.com knocked them out of business in 2001.
Disneyland Miniature Golf Am I the only person to remember this one? It was located at the corner of Cerritos Avenue and West Street (Cerritos Avenue has been knocked out because of recent expansion and West Street has been renamed). Anyway, the golf course was a miniature representation of Disneyland, complete with the Matterhorn. There was also a small adult golf course and a park for people who came to Disneyland with picnic lunches (it was called Disneyland Park, not to be confused with what they call Disneyland Park today, which is the entire Magic Kingdom.) The whole thing was gone during the early 1970s or late 1960s. For some reason, the miniature golf course is not mentioned on the Yesterland website (it's still worth checking out!)
England's Ice Cream Parlour Located on the site of a former
Farrell's in the Tyler Mall parking lot, England's carried on the tradition
of the property's former leaseholder. In the late 1980s it was razed to
create 75 more parking spaces for the Galleria at Tyler (formerly the Tyler
Mall.) By the way, Farrell's didn't go out of business. They just left
markets where they weren't doing very well.
F.W. Woolworth & Co. This was the original dime store. There are still a handful of dime stores around, just not around me in Riverside, California! Some which still exist include Mott's (in Texas) and Sprouse-Reitz (in the Southwest U.S.) Woolworth's also had stores in other countries. When my wife and I were newlyweds we loved to go to Woolworth's in either Tijuana or Juarez. We still have a few knickknacks in our home which bear a Mexican Woolworth's price tag. There are some Woolworth stores in places like the island of Cyprus and in Germany, but these aren't part of the old chain and are definitely not dime stores.
Fedco This was a membership department store. It was a lot like a military exchange. There were stores all around Los Angeles and a couple around San Diego. I usually shopped at the stores in San Bernardino and Ontario. And I still have my lifetime membership card!
FedMart FedMart was a smaller all-in-one department store. Most of the stores were on sites formerly occupied by either White Front or Two Guys. FedMart had stores in California, Arizona, and Texas.
flake.com Most everything on this list is either something from a long time ago or something which lasted for a long time but no longer exists. This was a website I loved! It was a spinoff of Flake Magazine, which is all about cereal, mostly the stuff that doesn't exist anymore. On one of my Macintosh computers I have a wallpaper made from this flake.com's home page. It's a shelf with several different kinds of cereal. There are other cereal websites you might like to try (such as the Cereal Box Archive). If your computer has a lot of memory, try quisp.com. If they don't sell Quaker Quisp cereal in a supermarket near you, I think you can probably buy it on the website. Click on the link at the beginning of this paragraph and, please report to me if there is something besides a dead link or a broker trying to sell the page. This is the link that doesn't work. See my own gallery of defunct cereal boxes!
Funny Face Drink Mix OK, so in 1969 we weren't quite so culturally sensitive as we are now. Pillsbury tried to cut into the profits of Kool Aid with their own presweetened drink mix, Funny Face. Each package of Funny Face made two quarts with cold water, but no sugar was needed. Since Funny Face was sweetened with cyclamates, it didn't take much and so the package weighed little more than a similar package of unsweetened Kool Aid. Kool Aid also came presweetened?I don't know which came first. Let's see if I can remember all the original flavors… Goofy Grape, Chinese Cherry, Loud Mouth Lime, Lefty Lemon, Injun Orange, and Freckle Faced Strawberry. There were pictures of the character on the front of the packages. Because the characters were demeaning to their related ethnic groups, Chinese Cherry later became Choo Choo Cherry and Injun Orange became Jolly Olly Orange (who was obese) and lemon and lime were combined to make Lefty Lemon-Lime. It sounds to me like there was, except in the case of railroad worker Choo Choo Cherry, a demographical group who was being made fun of in all of the characters! Goofy Grape (mental illness), Chinese Cherry (Asians), Loud Mouth Lime (Jews), Lefty Lemon (left-handed people), Injun Orange (American Indians), Freckle Faced Strawberry, Jolly Olly Orange (fat people), and Lefty Lemon-Lime (the exclusion of groups formerly recognized). That wasn't what ceased production of Funny Face, though. Cyclamates were banned by the FDA and Funny Face was off the market.
Gemco Like Fedco, this was a membership department store. But it had connections to the Lucky Stores supermarket chain (which is also on this list.) Gemco wasn't that special, just cheap. I also remember when I was stationed in the Army at Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base there was a chain there called Memco, which honored my Gemco card. Somewhere, I still have that lifetime membership card from Gemco. Lucky's had a deal that I could turn in my old Gemco card and get a dozen eggs. I didn't think it was worth it. After all, the card is good for a LIFETIME!
The Giant by Ralphs In the mid 1980s it seemed that club
stores were really big. The Ralphs Grocery Company tried to capitalize
on their own version of a club store (without using a club card) with their
chain, The Giant. The trouble was the prices were no different than Ralphs.
They were just big, fancy (as well as EXPENSIVE) stores. They soon went
out of business.
Read my story
on BoomerBaby.com.Hoagy's Petting Zoo and Pet Shop This was a pet shop which encouraged browsing! Located near the Rohr Aircraft plant (now even it belongs to a different company!) in Riverside, Hoagy's sold exotic animals and exhibited them for the price of the food patrons fed them. How I wish this were around today for my daughters!
Home Base Originally known as the Home Club, this chain sold building supplies. I never did much with them. Supposedly, it was the Home Depot chain which drove them out of business.
"America's
Largest"
Home Savings [of America] (Los Angeles) Home Savings was a bank that made you feel good about your money. They would always have sincere spokesmen for their commercials. Harry Von Zell did their commercials when I was little and when he died George Fenneman had the honors. Maybe when Mr. Fenneman died in the mid 1990s, the spirit died in Home Savings. George Fenneman had been one of the best known, best loved, and most widely believed announcers of radio and television. He was best known as Groucho Marx's announcer on his quiz show, You Bet Your Life. He was also the one on the Dragnet radio program who said, "Ladies and gentlemen, the story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent..." (the show had two announcers.) Fenneman had a wonderful life. Born in Beijing, China, he had seen almost everything there was to see in the world, yet he had a humble spirit about him. The Ahmanson Theatre in the Los Angeles County Music Center is named for the founder of Home Savings. Home Savings was bought by Washington Mutual in 1998.
J.J. Newberry & Co. Like T.,G.,&Y., this company was absorbed by McCrory in the 1980s.
"Where
Bambi goes nothing grows!"
Japanese Village and Deer Park Made famous by the comedy team of Hudson and Landry in the audio sketch, "Ajax Liquor Store," this amusement park was located across the street from the Nabisco plant in Buena Park, California.
Long Beach State Football To satisfy my parents wish for me to be close to them in Rialto, in 1977 I transferred from Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, Tennessee, to California State University, Long Beach. Long Beach State had a football team, which meant, as a music major, I spent many of my Saturday nights (before I suddenly dropped out of school without telling anyone) playing with the Big Brown Music Machine, the 49er Marching Band, from Cal State Long Beach for football games, which were played during that time at Anaheim Stadium (now Edison International Field). This was before the Los Angeles Rams moved down from the Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles' Exposition Park, so, when they made the baseball diamond into a football gridiron, one side of the field had no seats, just a fence with a clear view of the Orange Freeway (SR 57). Later Cal State Long Beach played their home games at Veterans' Stadium in Long Beach, but the student body really wasn't that interested in football and it faded away in 1991. The same thing happened at Cal State Fullerton.
Los Angeles Herald-Examiner There was a time when Los Angeles had two great newspapers. (Some people like the Daily News, except that you can't get it here in Riverside.) The Herald-Examiner was a Hearst Newspaper. It wasn't as thick as the Los Angeles Times, but it seemed to have more comic strips. The Times was a morning paper while the Herald-Examiner was an afternoon paper. I guess more people like getting their papers in the morning, so they shut down about 1988.
"That's
Lucky for you!"
Lucky Stores Stephanie Edwards was their spokeswoman for a long time and before her, Doug Llewelyn, of People's Court fame, did their commercials. They never doubled coupons. They only promised low prices without gimmicks. The company which originally owned Lucky Stores, Inc., went bankrupt over its losses from the Gemco/Memco chains, which went out of business in 1987. Stores Inc. sold the chain to American Stores, which also owned Alpha Beta (it also owns the Jewel chain in the midwest and the Acme chain on the other coast). Alpha Beta was then sold to the Yucaipa Company. In 1999 American Stores was bought by Albertsons. Later that year most of the former Lucky Stores became Albertsons. Their television and radio commercials explained that the two store chains were merging ("It's a wedding made in heaven"). No, one just took over the other one. There are no more Lucky Stores.
McMahan's Furniture They were taken over by a furniture chain headquartered in North Carolina, which got out of California in 2000.
Marineland of the PacificRemember the old TV show, Sea Hunt with Lloyd Bridges starring as Mike Nelson? One of the credits at the end of that program acknowledged Marineland of the Pacific for the use of their tank. Marineland was what we had before Sea World opened in San Diego. It was small and it was sure close to us in the Los Angeles area (off the end of the Harbor Freeway "on the beautiful Palos Verdes Peninsula.") In the late 1970s and into the 1980s, Marineland came into hard times. Now this was a serious site for ocean study. It just seemed soft of ridiculous when the Hanna-Barbera cartoon company purchased the park in the late 1970s (and I love Hanna-Barbera cartoons!) when the main attractions were the people who paraded around in the Scooby-Doo and Fred Flintstone costumes. In the late 1980s, Anheuser-Busch (the beer company, who owns Sea World) purchased Marineland and, figuring 100 miles is too close to have competing ocean parks, closed Marineland shortly thereafter. Thankfully, folks in nearby Long Beach opened the Aquarium of the Pacific a few years ago. (No Scooby-Doo, except on the lunch box which may appear on a child's lunch box, who is visiting with his school class!)
Market Basket Owned by the Kroger Company, Market Basket was a very prominent supermarket chain in the Los Angeles area for many years. I believe they went out of business in the late 1970s/ early 1980s. They were famous for their peanut butter and Brookdale Ice Cream parlors (in-store). There was also a Market Basket chain in the Los Angeles area in the late 1980s. None of the stores of the new Market Basket chain made it out to this area, but if you have any info about this, e-mail it to me!
"We give S&H
Green Stamps" (This was the Sun City, CA, store.)
Mayfair Markets This Los Angeles based supermarket chain was part of the Arden-Mayfair Company, which produced Arden AJ "All Jersey" Milk. To tell you how nutritional thoughts have changed in the past 35 years, AJ Milk was said to be better for you because it had more lactose, more cholesterol, and more milkfat (these thoughts still pervade throughout Asia). Most Mayfair Markets shut down in the early 1980s. (The Vons Market in the Riverside Plaza in Riverside is a former Mayfair.) There was a Mayfair Market in West Hollywood I remember visiting in the mid 1990s but it is now a Whole Foods Market. "Get more, get more, get more for your money at Mayfair Markets!"
Does anyone remember the price on the tag?
I thought my dad would like this picture.
Minnie Pearl's Fried Chicken and Minnie Pearl's Roast Beef These two short-lived fast food outlets were all over the country. The chicken was the best and the roast beef was better than Arby's! But poor management sent their profits right into the toilet. The country and western singer found other ways to invest her fortune before her death .
Mirafone Corporation I am a proud owner of a Mirafone tuba. Pitched in CC, it is a large bored, five valved, medium sized tuba. It was built in Germany and reworked at a factory in Los Angeles to meet American tubists' needs. When they first started sending these tubas to the United States, the factory was located in a factory near Downtown Los Angeles. Then they moved up the road to 8484 San Fernando Road in Sun Valley. Then they moved to Santa Clarita, near Magic Mountain. Then they moved to San Antonio, Texas. Eventually, the Texas outfit (a different company, a firm from the Netherlands that specializes in making percussion) began importing other instruments than Mirafones (such as Meinl-Westons and VMIs) and by 1994, no longer handled Mirafone musical instruments. They still make Miraphone tubas (note the different spelling) and they still make fine instruments. But today they are shipped directly by the manufacturer to music stores which stock tubas as common practice. (In most stores tubas must be special ordered. It can take up to 18 months to secure a brand-new tuba. No one in his or her right mind would buy a tuba this way, unless, say you want a custom built Hirsbrunner.)
This is the
last Monkey Ward ad as seen in many U.S. newspapers.
Montgomery Ward "Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back." Do you know where that saying originated? Monkey Ward's. Oh, how we loved the place! Their catalog was a lot thicker than the one from Rears and Sawbuck, but the models weren't as glamorous. It went out of print with the Christmas catalog in 1985. Rears and Sawbuck followed suit in 1993. A lot of the kids I grew up with worked at the Ward's at Central City Mall (now the Carousel Mall) in San Bernardino. One girl, Lynda Denny (she worked in the candy counter), died in a traffic accident on 8/15/72, shortly after that mall opened. By the way, do you know what the department store is in the movie Gremlins? Monkey Ward! Check it out the next time you watch it! Hey, Sears catalog fans! Sears in Canada still has a mail order catalog and they will deliver to the United States. Click on this link for service!
Mother's Pride Soda Pop Before two liter plastic soda pop jugs came out around 1982, the biggest containers were the 26 or 30 ounce glass bottles. I can still remember going to Lucky's and buying a 30 ounce bottle of Lady Lee Cola (Lady Lee was the house brand of soda at Lucky Stores) and it was to be divided equally by all five members of my family. There was a brand which had a larger size: Mother's Pride. Produced by National Beverages of Vernon, California, I think it probably had 36 ounces. It was a weird shaped bottle and the deposit on it was a nickel. My mom would never let me buy soda when I rode my bike for errands when I was little. It was too dangerous with glass bottles.
NFL Football in Los Angeles I find it difficult, as someone native to the Los Angeles area and still gleaning from living here, to get excited about the San Diego Chargers. We may have Arena Football and we had XFL Football for the one season it lasted, but we can't get a real professional team to be here. I have been slightly disappointed since 1995.
Naugle's This is one of the few things on this website I haven't researched. Please tell me if I am wrong… This chain is out of business in Southern California but they might be in business somewhere else! The first Naugle's drive-thru I remember was placed in the downtown section of my hometown, Colton, California, when I was in high school. About six years earlier, the city fathers had a wonderful idea of redeveloping the town. First all the businesses were told that a 12-square block area was going to be leveled. Panic could be sensed. Regardless of who owned the property, everything was to be razed. Larsen's Drug Store and Rexall Hub City Drugs formed a coalition to keep running their business in Colton while the construction was going on. The two stores merged and stayed in business through the construction, even though they eventually had to move. Here's the point: Everyone was told to leave and they would be invited back. Except for the ones that relocated only a short distance, no one came back. Laughton's Colton Dodge (car dealership) wound up going out of business before the demolition because Old Man Laughton died of a heart attack (he was only 56!) The New Colton Movie Theater (a Spanish language cinema whose specialty was Cantinflas films) closed, never to return. If one goes to Downtown Colton now, one sees a lot of parking lots. Now you know why! Anyway, Naugle's was one of the first businesses to locate (out of the blue) to Downtown Colton. I think there was another outlet in Fullerton, but the rest were somewhere in Illinois (and yes, Illinoisians, I know the s isn't pronounced!) In the 1980s Naugle's and Del Taco merged. One had to give and it was Naugle's. There is neither a Del Taco nor a Naugle's on Valley Boulevard where that the first Naugle's I saw was. It's a privately run fast food place now.
Ole's This was a great hardware store. When my wife first arrived to this country from her homeland she bought most everything for her new apartment in L.A. from Ole's. Many Ole's outlets were former Builders' Emporiums.
The layout of the Ontario Motor Speedway (my high school band always
sat at Turn 20).
Ontario Motor Speedway (OMS) There was a time some world class Indy 500 type and NASCAR races were held in this area. Opened in 1972, the racetrack at Ontario was a huge monstrosity with all kinds of exciting car races. The Colton High School Band played for the California 500, held the Sunday before Labor Day. The race track closed in the early 1980s. If you get a chance to see the movie, Evel Knievel, starring George Hamilton, one of the jumps was done at the Ontario race track, preceded by the Fontana High School Steeler Marching Band playing the "Star-Spangled Banner."
Oscar's I'll fudge a little bit here. Most everything on here is something which someone from Riverside and San Bernardino, who is my age or older, can relate to. Oscar's was a restaurant chain in San Diego. I don't even think they made it as far north as Solana Beach or Del Mar (maybe they were in Orange County, but I forget). Anyway, Oscar's was owned by Foodmaker, Inc., which also owned Jack-in-the-Box drive thrus. Oscar's was like Denny's (with Jack-in-the-Box hamburgers) with CARHOP service. I think they went out of business in the 1960s. I'm sure a lot of people came from up here to visit San Diego and ate at Oscar's!
Pan American World Airways (PanAm)I only flew PanAm once, when I was being transferred out of Berlin, Germany, in the Army. When Berlin was a walled city, only three airlines, one each from the three occupying nations, was allowed to operate from West Berlin's Tegel Field. The Americans had PanAm, while the French had Air France, and the British had British Airways. What this meant in Berlin was that people who worked for PanAm, who were stationed in West Berlin, received some privileges not received elsewhere, such as PX and Military Commissary. It was a terrorist bomb which not only crash landed a 747 at Lockerbie, Scotland, but also the entire airline. For the remaining five years of occupation in Berlin, American Airlines took PanAm's place. PanAm had such a neat history. For over 30 years they had a similar relationship with the United States Navy on the island of Guam (as they had with the United States Army in Berlin). Even after restrictions to travel to Guam (without military permission) ended in 1962, PanAm continued to serve Guam for many more years. Click on the link above to study more about PanAm's history! The PanAm Airline that exists today is not the original company and you can also read about this on the website.
PeopleExpress Would you like to fly from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey, for under $50? Of course, you would! During the 1980s, PeopleExpress introduced a whole new way to fly. There were only two or three destinations on the entire airline (I think the others were Miami and Pittsburgh). There were no reservations, except for their flights to London from Newark, thus it was known as GREYHOUND AIRLINES and the PeopleExpress Terminal at Newark looked like a bus station! Depending on when you flew, your fare could be cheap, super cheap, or nearly free. When I was stationed at Fort Dix, I flew to Los Angeles from Newark to see my future wife and paid $49 because I left at 2:00 a.m. There was no guarantee I was going to get back. Evening flights were a little more expensive and day flights ran either $129 or $149. Fares were collected by flight attendants in the sky (theoretically eliminating some of the taxes). Food was not given, it was sold. A cup of coffee cost about $3.00. A sweet roll to go with it was about $5.00. Meals ran about $15 and were not quite as good as other airline meals. Passengers were encouraged to bring a sack lunch and a thermos. The airline went out of business about two or three years after it started and was taken over by Continental. When I lived in Indonesia and Guam I used to fly on Continental a lot, as they are the only airline between Bali and Guam (and the only U.S. airline serving Indonesia.) On one of my trips on that route I saw the inspection plate near one of the rear lavatories of the airplane and noted that it had been originally owned by PeopleExpress!
The Pike (NuPike)South of the Long Beach Convention Center there used to be sort of a miniature Coney Island with the biggest ride being "The Cyclone." The Pike was really a dumpy place, though my mom said she had a lot of fun there when she was a teenager (this was before Disneyland!) The All-Western Band Review terminated in the middle of the midway of The Pike. Part of the original site is occupied by the Aquarium of the Pacific.
Pup 'n' Taco What an interesting combination: hot dogs and tacos!
Their romantic commercial of a boyfriend and a girlfriend eating a hot
dog at both ends made television history. Most Pup 'n' Taco outlets became
Taco Bells in the early 1980s. I never understood why they never
sold a hot dog in a hard taco shell… I mean that's what it sounded like
from the name of the store!
Radio Aahs Airing locally on KPLS,
830 on the AM dial, Radio Aahs was a commercial radio network in
which all of the programming was done by children (supervised by adults).
Headquartered in Minneapolis, there was a lot of advertising from such
companies as General Mills, Pillsbury, and Malt-O-Meal, all of which are
based in that area. Airing 24 hours a day, adults loved to listen
to the station, too. I was overseas when the network went blank,
so I don't know exactly what happened. It's replacement network,
Radio
Disney, is on different frequencies and does not have the innocense
which made Radio Aahs so special. I think it was only on the air
between 1993 and 1997!
Retired San Francisco Cable Cars at Knott's Berry Farm Back when admission to Knott's Berry Farm was free (the only rides were the big train, the mine train, the stage coach, and pack mules) old cable cars were used to transport people to their cars. I don't remember if parking was free or not but I think it cost a quarter to ride the cable car, maybe fifty cents.
Wow, what a difference 40 years makes! (This picture was taken
in 1961.) This is now the site of the Moreno Valley Mall.
Riverside International Raceway (RIR) Located just to the west of what is now the Moreno Valley Mall in what was then the unincorporated community of Sunnymead (now in the city of Moreno Valley), the Riverside Raceway was where the Riverside 500 NASCAR race was held every year until about 1979 (if I remember correctly.) The parade for the Riverside 500 went around the Tyler Mall in Riverside, some 10-12 miles to the west. My high school band never played for the race during the time I was in school, but we took the sweepstakes trophy (for best band; it's better than first place) in the parade every year.
Riverside's Osteopathic Hospital (that's the way it's written on my birth certificate) I was born there early in the morning of Saturday, August 10, 1957, sometime during the 1:00 hour (I found out with my daughters that hospitals doesn't always supply the correct birth time for birth certificates!) Unlike Riverside General Hospital (the former Riverside County Hospital at the corner of Harrison Street and Magnolia Avenue, at which there is now a Lowe's Hardware Store), the building for the Osteopathic Hospital is still there. If memory serves me well, Osteopathic closed about 1960 or 1961 and Riverside County used it for something or other. It's been everything from a secretarial school to an office complex. There is a counseling center on the site now. (Located somewhere on the west side of Brockton Avenue, near Tenth Street.)
Robert Hall Every town had one. It was a store that sold notihing but plain suits for men and women. Men's suits always came with an extra pair of pants. I think Robert Hall went out of business when people got out of the habit of wearing suits for doing everything. They could now buy fewer suits, but required higher quality than the cheap suits from Robert Hall's!
S.S. Kresge Co. This might be hard to believe but Kmart began as a spinoff of Kresge's. Kresge's was a typical dime store. I think they had one in every town over a certain population level. We didn't have one in Colton but we could go to one in Riverside or San Bernardino. Anyway, Kmart proved to be such a hit that the dime stores closed down and the S.S. Kresge Company changed its name to the Kmart Corporation. F.W. Woolworth tried the same thing with a chain called Woolco but that offshoot went out of business in the late 1970s.
Sage's Complete Shopping I can still tell you where all their stores were located: The main store was located at the corner of E Street and Base Line in San Bernardino (building is now occupied by the San Bernardino Adult School); another store was located at the corner of Highland Avenue and Sierra Way in San Bernardino (now occupied by the Grocery Outlet); a third store in San Bernardino was located at the corner of Del Rosa Avenue and Highland Avenue (I think there's an Albertsons supermarket there now); the Redlands store was located on East Redlands Boulevard (now occupied by an Albertsons supermarket); there was a store in Rialto at the corner of Foothill Boulevard (Route 66) and Acacia Avenue (building is has been vacant for some time); the Downtown Riverside store was near the corner of Main Street and Fifth Street (building razed); and there was another store in Riverside at Hardman Center on the corner of California Avenue and Arlington Avenue (now occupied by an Albertsons supermarket). Except for the smaller stores in Riverside (both stores in Riverside were small), Sage's was a place where you could buy almost anything. In Rialto and San Bernardino they had one of the most specialized toy stores anywhere (in a separate building). Until 1968 they gave their own trading stamps. These were replaced by Blue Chip Stamps. Sage's went out of business after the death of owner Milton Sage in the early 1970s. My mom reminds me that Sage's in Rialto had a cookie lady in the bakery department and she would give me a cookie every time I went there (I must have been about 2 or 3 and I don't remember it at all, but I'm putting this here for you, Mom!)
Security Pacific National Bank This was one of Bank of America's first major bank acquisitions in the 1980s. I never have cared much for BofA.
Shasta Flavored Colas! They came in Shasta Vanilla Cola, Chocolate Cola, Lemon Cola, and, of course, Cherry Cola. Everyone makes cherry cola these days, but I really do miss the other flavors. Haven't seen these since about 1971. "It hasta be Shasta!"
Signal Gas Stations I am an old-time radio fanatic! My favorite show was The Whistler, which was sponsored by Signal Gasoline. I was not around when that show was on originally. But I do remember Signal. They were absorbed by Humble Refining (Enco gas stations on the West Coast, including here, and Esso stations back east.) Humble became Exxon in the early 1970s (it's still called Esso outside the U.S.) The Whistler can still be heard on KNX, 1070 on the AM dial, in Los Angeles at 9:30 p.m., Wednesday nights. I believe this 50 kilowatt station has a pretty far reach, even in summer. CLICK HERE FOR A LINK TO LISTEN TO LAST NIGHT'S KNX DRAMA HOUR! (Requires RealPlayer.)
Smith's Meat Company Located at the corner of E Street and Fairway Drive in San Bernardino, this was a full scale meat processing plant. From 1959 to 1961 I lived on the premises of the Victoria Guernsey Dairy at the corner of Ninth Street and Waterman Avenue in San Bernardino. When a cow wasn't being productive one of my dad's jobs was to take the critter to the meat packing house to sell it for dog food. Now I was only two or three years old when I saw my first cow slaughtered but I'll never forget it. No, I didn't swear off meat. I don't remember if the incident really bothered me at any time in my life. This is strange because I usually have a pretty weak stomach for gory things. (But it could be because this was an animal getting hurt and not a human being. I am also not an animal rights activist!)
Standard Brands Paint Stores I think the Standard Brands Company is still in business, even though the stores are gone. They still make paint for other stores. However, nothing could compare with Standard Brands when it came to such items as paints, markers, varnishes, glue, and masking tape. I used to think it was the only store where you could buy those items. Now that it's no longer here I know where to get these things!
Sunnymead, Moreno, Edgemont, and a few other small towns to the east of Riverside These are the communities which merged together in December 1984 to incorporate into the city of Moreno Valley. (When I was in school, Moreno Valley was just the name of the high school in Sunnymead!) I lived in Sunnymead sporatically as a baby (from about 1957-59, near the Riverside International Raceway) but I never lived in Moreno Valley. The same thing happened to the communities of Alta Loma, Cucamonga, and Etiwanda, when Rancho Cucamonga was incorporated, but those communities still retain their original names.
T.,G.,&Y. This Oklahoma City-based dime store chain was probably the best. In the 1980s they were absorbed by McCrory, which also took J.J. Newberry.
Thom McAn Shoes OK, so you can buy them now at Kmart. These aren't the same shoes I used to get at the Thom McAn shoe stores. They had nice shoes. Kmart just bought the rights to the brand and sort of brought it back. The last Thom McAn shoes I bought (when the store in Riverside was going out of business in 1994) were an expensive pair of lightweight handmade Italian shoes ($200 marked down to $75!) The shoes you get now at Kmart are heavy, mass-produced things from a factory in China (if you split a box open, you can even read their address, phone number, and e-mail!)
This ad predates
the freestanding T atop the stores I remember.
Thriftimart (not to be confused with a store chain in Texas called "Thrifty Mart") This was the retail chain of the famous Smart and Final wholesale chain. Smart and Final is open to the public and does not require a membership card. It seemed pointless to have two chains which can serve the same public, so in the early 1980s Thriftimart went out of business.
Thrifty Drug and Discount Stores You can still get Thrifty Ice Cream at Rite-Aid Drug Stores, the chain which absorbed the former Thrifty's. I don't know what happened. All of a sudden there were no more Thrifty's! When I was little I can remember the old fashioned drug store soda fountain at the Thrifty Drug Store at the corner of Chicago Avenue and Eighth Street (now University Avenue) in Riverside. Rite-Aid bought a lot of famous chains from all over the country, such as Revco and Thrift Drug. I wish they would take a hint from Safeway and give the old names back to the stores they took over!
The Treasury This was a mega-store, owned by J.C. Penney, which also included a supermarket. I knew of two stores: in Riverside at the Tyler Street turnoff on the Riverside Freeway (SR 91), in what is now Target; and in Buena Park. This only existed in the mid 1970s. In the early 1980s, when I was in the 298th U.S. Army Band (Berlin Brigade), the band was on a trip in Tournai, Belgium, and I went to a store there which was almost a carbon copy of the old Treasury (and most items had a J.C. Penney house brand.)
Two Guys This New Jersey-based discount department store chain came to California in the late 1960s/ early 1970s to fill the void filled by the loss of White Front. They did a pretty good job for the few years they were around. The whole chain went out of business in the early 1980s.
Van de Kamp's Restaurants The Van de Kamp family was involved in several areas of food. There was the Van de Kamp's Bakery. Do you remember that the woman who stocked the Van de Kamp's bakery shelves had a very elaborate Dutch costume? There was the frozen fish, which was probably the same as what was served at Van de Kamp's Restaurants. There was really nothing special about a Van de Kamp's Restaurant except for the big windmill on the roof. Some of these buildings still exist in the Los Angeles area and many still retain the original windmills.
Victoria Guernsey Dairy I lived at their farm in San Bernardino at the corner of Waterman Avenue and Ninth Street from about 1959 to 1961. My dad drove trucks for the dairy. He took me on a lot of trips with him. I can remember riding to Covina to the Vita Pakt Orange Juice plant with him in a tanker truck, which Victoria Guernsey would fill in their own bottles. There are still some Victoria Guernsey Milk Stores in San Bernardino and Rialto but none of these really have anything to do with the old company, which also had a bigger farm on Base Line in San Bernardino.
W.T. Grant Company Does anyone remember going to Grant's. I sure do! You could buy almost anything there and, like other dime stores, you could have lunch there. The specialty: A hot dog cooked on a set of rollers onto which butter had been melting. Today's special: 79 cents, served with an iced Coke in a paper cone, placed into a metal holder. "There are more than a thousand Grant stores to serve you coast to coast! Save the most at the W.T. Grant store neighbor you!"
White Front What made White Front so impressive was its entrance (at most of the stores). It was like a glass brick version of the Hollywood Bowl! I seem to remember that White Front went out of business in the late 1960s. It was White Front where I saw my first in-home video system. This was a complicated thing, costing something like $2,000 (in 1967!) Many of the White Front stores evolved from Two Guys to FedMart to Target. The White Front store in Riverside (at the corner of La Sierra and Magnolia Avenues) became a Builders Square. When that chain went out of business it has been nothing. I don't know, though. The building looks pretty good. Maybe there's some kind of governmental underground operation going on there.
Zodys Department Stores I really only remember going to
this store when the store on Tyler Street in Riverside closed down in 1987,
along with the rest of the chain. They had cheap stuff. I bought
some sports shirts and a shower curtain, which are long since gone and
forgotten.
