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Tom Brody (1969)
This is to respond to the question from Sue Ferreira, "It's Wednesday time for Question #5. What do you miss most about San Leandro, that's not there any more, besides Pacific High??" That is a perfect question because I regularly take fond nostalgic drives on East 14th Street. Every month my wife and I drive from Alameda to Chabot Park, and we always park on Lake Chabot Road near the marina. After doing our ten mile walk around the lake, I drive back home by way of East 14th Street, and I always say, "This is the land that time forgot." I say this because I'm glad that it is still substantially the same as during the 1960's (Music Unlimited is still there, hey ! hey ! hey !). The East 14th Street that we grew up with is much the same (and not overrun with Staryucks and not overrun with Apple computer stores).
What do I miss?
(1) Pring's;
(2) The house where I first kissed a girl. This house was on Davis Street near the intersection with Orchard Avenue. Her initials are A.A. The house was torn down and replaced with a Boy Scouts of America building;
(3) The building on Estudillo where my father had his medical practice. The building has been converted to an apartment house;
(4) The fast food place (Jack In The Box, or Wendy's, or Burger King, or Red Barn, can't remember) on East 14th Street, where my rock'n'roll band played, during a battle of the bands concert. For this event, the judges pulled up an automobile, and listened to each band. We played a song by Moby Grape. The place was somewhere between O'Reilly Auto and Harry's Hofbrau. But this particular fast-food place is gone;
(5) BAL THEATER. I think that it now used for live events, and not much for movies. At the BAL MOVIE THEATER, I saw these movies: Spy Who Came In From the Cold; Thunderball; and John Goldfarb Please Come Home. I went to one or two of these movies with a boy from my rock'n'roll band, Jerry Brown.
(6) OUTDOOR DRIVE-IN MOVIE THEATER at BAYFAIR MALL. At this movie theater, I saw the Dumbo cartoon. I remember my girlfriend in the passenger seat, shedding some tears when Dumbo was taken away from his mother. Also, at this drive-in, I saw The Jungle Book cartoon. Also, at this drive-in I saw a movie "MAYA" starring Jay North.
(7) SLOT CAR TRACK. There was a slot car track in the Bonaire district, probably on Farnsworth Street. Fellow student, Bruce Williams (1963) mentioned a slot car track on East 14th Street. I have no idea if the slot car track in the Bonaire district is really gone (since I didn't check), but I did race my slot car there, and I have no doubt that this track is gone.
(8) The shopping center at Marina Faire. We lived in Marina Faire during my years at John Muir Jr. High School and at Pacific High. The biggest store in that shopping center was Safeway. But now we find, NEW SANG CHONG MARKET, Pearl Bay Tea House, TUT TAI TAKOUT, Ming's Donuts, HANOI CHICKEN NOODLE, and Wei Asian Cultural dance company. Last year, I went into New Sang Chong Market (it used to be Safeway). As I wandered around the aisles (and hearing various languages spoken by the customers, but not English or Spanish), I realized that something small had been taken away from me. Perhaps, this explains the fact that, in the past couple of months, I've watched Clint Eastwood's GRAN TORINO at least twenty times. Well, at least the Monument to the Portuguese Immigant is still in downtown San Leandro.
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