They Were The GOOD Old Days

I CALLED THE SAN FERNANDO VALLEY MY HOME...

My family moved to the San Fernando Valley in the late 50's and we landed on Riverside Drive in Toluca Lake...  

This video is just about from that era of the mid 50's...

We were just a mile down from Bob's Big Boy and the King's Arms and that wonderful 

Food Giant (you can see it in the above video) with the cheap a tasty ice cream counter out by their back door...

Today where that market used to be

 stands huge media towers...

We spent a few years in an apartment there and then my Dad made the commitment and in 1958 he hauled our family way, way out

 in the country to Northridge...

I

It was a cool house at 8942 Garden Grove Avenue...

It was just several blocks from Lindley and Nordhoff and the later site of Cupids Hot Dogs... 

But back then we were on the far end 

of the populated part of the Valley...

Much of Chatsworth remained small ranches and orange groves...

They stayed in that house until 1969 

when they moved up to the sunny Seattle area...

By then I was out on my own and working at
KHJ-TV in Hollywood...

But I still look back to those idyllic days in the 60's when living in the Valley was a pleasure...Really a pleasure and TREASURE that not all of us appreciated at the time...

A wonderful place to spend some time on Facebook is this group...
Plus they have a new museum out in Chatsworth that looks great...
https://www.facebook.com/groups/valleyrelics/

Found these wonderful pictures from a 1964 article in The Valley Times...Reporter flew over The Valley and took some pixs from the blimp...

You need to see these...They are wonderful...Plus most shots of the streets and freeways show hardly any traffic compared to what it is now like in SoCal...

http://www.valleytimes.org/valley-by-blimp/

More history about the Valley here:    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Fernando_Valley

I have heaps of memories about this place 

but I will get to those in future bloggies...

So enjoy the article and hanker back with me to those splendiferous days 

of wonder and merriment in The San Fernando Valley, my home...

Adios Valley Folk...