Royal Oaks Elementary School, Duarte, CA

I attended this elementary school in the 4th and 6th grades.  But I spent a lot of time here in recreation in the years following.  For instance, all of the locals used to gather on the field for large football games.  I used to play basketball on the asphalt courts with Stuart Greene, Steve Schibstead, Jim Flores and other locals.  I used to play 2 on 2 over-the-line here with my brothers and my dad before his retirement in 1976.  He used to walk down the bike trail in retirement to the donut shop at Huntington and Mt. Olive, get a coffee, a donut, and the LA Times before he subscribed to the paper and had it delivered somewhere near his porch.  He was a journalist at heart.  And I should know since at every city he visited he would stop and get one copy of each of the local papers.  As a kid I didn't completely understand it.  But he needed to read about the San Diego Padres or the San Francisco Giants or the local business in San Luis Obispo as we stayed over night there or were just passing through to some other destination.  Most of all he enjoyed reading different authors and mine them for exquisite and unique headlines, phrases, sentences, word combinations, and metaphors.  He also wanted to stop at the catholic church to pray and devote an hour of remembrance to his mom, dad, and sister.

Students had to wait outside the gate until the janitors came by at 7am or so, maybe 7:15am, to open the front gate.  We weren't allowed on campus until then.  And what is funny is that I still remember one kid by the name of Theodore.  That's the name he gave.  I thought in my head, "Oh, you mean, Ted" but it was always good practice in those days to keep your mouth shut.  In fact, it's still a good practice.  There were other kids in the neighborhood.  There was Roy Bach.

It was on the benches behind that backstop where I got to know Eric Bergquist when he was in elementary and I was probably in junior high school.  It was also there on the asphalt tether pole circles where I met Alfonso Madrigal in the 4th grade.  It was as that backstop and baseball diamond where my brothers, my dad, and I played 2 on 2 over-the-line.  It was the perfect diamond for that because the fence off to the right was within home-run range for kids our age and we had fun aiming for it regularly until it got to be no achievement at all.  My dad who had bad knees for many years used to run around the bases favoring his knees.  But he made the effort and pressed on through his pain.  He was a competitor and he loved his sons.

For my own part, I loved the experiences at this school from my acting as shepherd in a Christmas tableau to being a member of the choir to being selected to go to the March Air Force Base in Riverside with Steve Schibstead to meeting Mr. Gallagher, John Simpson, Richard or John Kirby who played the horn or trumpet to all of the other kids I met there.  And though I exited in the first round of the school's spelling bee on the word physcist, it was Tammy Sleigh who walked away champion of that contest.  Then years later right out of high school the two of would work together at Steamboat Fried Chicken, owned by Hagop "Jack" Douzadjian.  See his business card, logo, and local advertising in the high school's yearbook.

This black, wrought-iron fence is disheartening.  It's unncessary.  But the city uses it to send a message to "Keep Out."  Okay, I can respect private property, but is this public school private property?  Doesn't matter.  It's still property, and the city council and its administrative body gets to protect what property the home owners have conceded to them through and been taxed for the privilege.  Prior to this gulag type fence there existed a simple chainlink fence with the usual holes and bent lower portions where kids snuck under.  That image reminds me of Kevin Moore who passed five years ago now in 2011.  I have a Kevin Moore memory to share.  We were kids, and he and I made plans to sneak into the strawberry field, north of Royal Oaks between Tocino and Greenbank.  So after dark one night, he and I, flashlight and plastic baggies in hand, made our way through an opening in the fence, more of an archway, where the culdesac of Conata butts against the field.  We found our way to the middle of the field, knelt down in a row, and began plucking.  Fast.  It was a mess. We really couldn't see too well. We kept the flashlight low to the ground to avoid being spotted by neighbors or a patrol car. We filled our bags with crushed, torn strawberries that weren't really worth the trouble.

There was one other memory with Kevin.  It was when we were staying at the Virginia Lake campground in the High Sierra.  It was the early 80s, '82 maybe.  We were kind of bored with fishing and we were not too keen on going hiking with the other guys.  So he and I found a riding stable and rented horses for an hour.  It was terrific.  We did ride those horses or maybe they rode us, they seemed to be quite energetic riding up in the meadows of the High Sierras.  It was great.  Another great memory with Kevin Moore.  Kevin and I weren't the closest of friends though our brothers were very close.  In fact, Kevin's brother, Pat, his wife worked with my brother in the County.  So there's that. We lived only two blocks away from the Moores.  My sisters went out on dates with a couple of Kevin's brothers.  I mention this because I don't really want this history to get lost.  If no one mentions it or describes it then all of those beautiful memories, experiences, the heroes and those times are lost.  It's a lot easier to lose things than it is to keep them.  Hence this blog.

North Hollywood Sears at the Valley Plaza, 1950-Something

The photo is lifted from this page at Clovis Images. I originally thought that this was Eastland Shopping Center in Covina right off of the 10 Freeway. The only information I found attached to this picture was Los Angeles and 1950s era.  That's it.  No street names, no name of specific cities in the greater Los Angeles area.  Nothing.

And because I had originally thought that it was the Eastland Shopping Center in Covina, I just assumed, for a short time, that the foothills seen through the smog in the background were the San Gabriel Mountain Range. If that were the case, then I could not place the street or lane in the foreground.  And the sign Valley Plaza made me think that it was an El Monte store because Valley Boulevard runs through El Monte.  And true to that assumption there actually was a Sears store in El Monte.  See below.  Alas, it's not El Monte either. As my third choice I thought that it was the West Covina Plaza.  That went nowhere once I realized that the West Covina Plaza wasn't built until 1975, and those cars in the parking are not 1975 models. So after realizing that it wasn't Eastland, it wasn't West Covina Plaza, nor El Monte Shopping Center I was at a loss.  I was not familiar with that Valley Plaza, so there was no way I could recognize it.

According to this writer, that Sears Valley Plaza was located in North Hollywood at Victory Blvd. and Laurel Canyon.


Thinking initially that the above North Hollywood Sears was either Eastland, West Covina Plaza, or El Monte, I plucked this black and white picture below from WestCovinaLaPuenteBaldwinPark's website to compare the differences. This picture came with a more specific caption.  It reads "Sears came to El Monte in or around 1958.  It was located on Peck Road between Stewart and Sitka Street." Okay, I never entered that store.  Comparing its structure and design to the N. Hollywood store above and observing the noticeable differences, it put to rest any of my original suspcions that the above store was an El Monte Sears.  This El Monte Sears appears quite modern by comparison.

A friend writes

Yup.  Went there once as a kid.  My dad bought a lawnmower at Pasadena, but they had none in stock, except the floor model so they sent him there.  I remember them giving him some kind of a discount for having to make the trip.  I remember it being something akind to a long journey to a different world.  I could harldy believe people lived anywhere else than Pasadena, and that they would also have a Sears.  A trip to Orange County was almost world travel to me.

And in case you haven't had enough San Fernando nostalia, then check this site out.  And if you get really, really bored, these pictures of an era long ago of the expansive San Fernando Valley can surprise you.