Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to Yeah, this is where it gets strange...

freaky Sunday
Robert — (archived)

Well, SDAI-Tech1, I have to apologize for doubting you. The detail of your recollections is almost overwhelming, and I've spent hours travelling down memory lane on the Net, checking out the Google map for places I lived and places I remembered, and chasing down things I haven't thought about in years.

I'm not that old, and if the last time you saw the park was 1973, there might possibly have been some overlap. My family moved north in 1965, and though I returned many times to other parts of Long Beach where I had relatives, I don't recall ever going back to the old neighborhood.

The answer to the riddle: Bluegill trout. Tiny fish indeed. They weren't grunion, which are saltwater fish. That's another connection to Long Beach: The annual "grunion runs", when millions of the little guys clogged the shorelines and flouresced at night. There is even a Web site: grunion.org. My grandmother lived near the ocean in the Naples district (so named because it's a bunch of manmade islands resembling the Italian city), so I spent a lot of time at the shore, as we all called it.

Wade was indeed mayor. My Dad worked for the city as Chief Deputy City Auditor, and I vaguely recall being introduced to various high mucky-mucks over the years, probably including the Mayor. Dad used to take me down to City Hall when he worked on weekends, and we'd go there to watch parades from a second story window. I just discovered in this morning's Google crawl that they've torn down the old City Hall and replaced it with a generic sterile office tower. Ditto the old City Auditorium, where my Dad used his city keyring to get us ringside seats to the fireworks displays on the Fourth. I remember them both as grand old buildings in the classical style, and it's sad to find out that places you remember fondly from childhood no longer exist.

I could go on forever confirming your recollections. Simpler to say that I don't remember Copper Penny or Park Pantry or "Pup'nTaco" restaurants. Everything else I do indeed remember, and most of them sparked chains of recollections. Like, you mention Buffum's, and I remembered that my mother was a fashion model for them in the early '50s. The old photos depict her as anticipating Jackie Kennedy by several years.

It's been a trip and a treat and a trip down memory lane, Tech. Who'da thought, eh?

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