CELESTINE DRIVE IN WHITTIER, CA

ACRES OF BOOKS, LONG BEACH

One morning I went with Dad and Marilyn down to Long Beach's Acres of Books.  It was a huge used book store with shelves to the ceiling, or so it seemed, and books stacked everywhere.  It was glorious.  Anyway, as the three or four of us were getting lost in the store, I remember ferreting through a stack of books on a table just down the aisle from my dad.  And I heard him utter as loud as he could in a quiet place, "Oh, my God I found it."  "It" was a reference to his grade school primer in which he had scrolled his name "Billy Walgenbach."  It was a book that had gotten away from him.  And here he was years later in a completely different town plucking a piece of his property and his history back from oblivion.  I remember being amazed at the serendipitous nature of it all.  How random and what luck he had. 

In 2007 I made several trips to that store to buy books for the kids at Garfield.  We were building a classroom library, but I wanted to provide them with books that I thought would be interesting.  I remember I gave a copy of Michael Jordan's autobiography to one kid and he was ecstatic, asking me "Sir, do I get to keep this?"  I said, "It is yours."

DAD'S OLD SCHOOL DESK

I remember how delighted Dad was when he brought home an old classroom desk chair that he used as a kid.  He loved things that reminded him of his childhood.  Maybe because he moved so much as a kid that his memory for things of his childhood was longing.

But as much as he loved this treasure, my mom was beside herself.  Why would he want old things?  What's he going to do with them?  Where are we going to store it?  It didn't last long.

HINSHAW'S: MOM'S FAVORITE PLACE TO SHOP

Hinshaw's was Mom's favorite place to shop even after the Santa Anita Fashion Plaza was built in 1974. But it was beloved by many in the neighborhood.