Good, Clean, Fun

I have lived most of my life cautiously. Not all of it; but most of it. When I was little; I was a straight up coward; I grew up very sheltered because I was a very sick child. I didn’t really go outside and get hurt playing sports until I was almost in my teens. Being born prematurely, I had allergies to everything. It was terrible. I went to hospital on a regular basis, I couldn’t eat anything or even play outside; it was not a fun existence.

As I grew older, I became a bit more daring. I rode my bicycle all over the San Fernando Valley; traffic back then was much lighter. Of course the day came when I started driving; so I really never rode my bike again. I didn’t lace on my roller skates, or touch my skateboard; which I was never really good at anyway.

Growing up in the Valley was interesting. There was so much to do. There was always something to do; somewhere to go. Weekends were for hanging with my friends. We would go to the movies, or fill in to one of our cars, (though most of had no licenses) and go to the drive-in, listening to one another’s reasons why we weren’t with our girls instead of being with one-another. We had lots of fun together. It was clean fun. A couple of my friends smoked and drank; but that was it. No one indulged in drugs, or hard alcohol. We’d spend time at our high school football games, go roller skating, mainly because the girl I crushed on all through high school liked to roller skate.

We spent times at Disneyland, Six Flags Magic Mountain, Universal Studios, Hollywood, Knott’s Berry Farm and all kinds of things in Southern California. I’ll write about some of these adventures at some point in the future.

I don’t have really cool, wild party, drunken exploits to reminisce on, but there were some pretty fun times. I am reminded of an evening out with my cousins, my three bestest pals, Sal, Cel and Tim. I discovered pizza late in life. I didn’t like cheese when I was a child, so I was a little late when it came to the discovery of tacos, nachos and pizza. I still don’t eat cheese-burgers.
Anyway, this one Saturday night, we’d decided to go to the moves in Northridge and decided to end the night at My Brothers Restaurant. It was an Italian food place with candles on the table and the cool thing was that they served COKE by the pitcher!
We walked in like we owned the place; we did that everywhere. We all had money from working and we spent it like it was water. Myself, I made my money working at a music store in San Fernando, CA. I played in a band, occasionally and I made money with my camera, photographing weddings, quincenearas and whatever else needed photographing.
Anyway, getting back to My Brothers Restaurant, we sat down and ordered; two large pepperoni pizzas and salad.  As we waited for our food, Cel started playing with scraps of paper from the straws, throwing them into the burning candle and amusing himself by watching the flame flare up and go back down.

At some point, Cel got bored with the little flare ups and decided to wad up a napkin and proceeded to throw it into the flickering candle. The flame that shot up was impressive. It looked like someone had built up a bonfire on the table in front of us. Without panicking, I took a glass of ice water and proceeded to pour it into the candle, but not before the glass around the candle shattered, allowing flaming wax to flow out upon the table. I put the fire out just as the owner of the restaurant brought us our pizzas; TO GO. We were banned from the restaurant, and as we exited, I proudly stated: “We’ve been thrown out of bigger dumps than this!”
We went home to have our pizza, sans pitchers of COKE. My cousins were a bit embarrassed, this having been a new experience for them.

This is a good example of what our typical nights on town were like. Living in Pacoima, I tried not to stay in that area too much. There was nothing but troubles there in the neighborhood. Most people I grew up with, and knew in the neighborhood I grew up in, ended up in prison or dead.
I decided I didn’t like those choices, so I chose to not hang out thee so much.
Most of my off time was spent in and around the other parts of the valley from Northridge to Encino, Tarzana to Studio City.

 I still remember the night I discovered Encino. Cel, Sal and I had gone to the movies in Northridge and decided we wanted to go to this hot dog place we’d heard about; it was called Carney’s. The cool thing about Carney’s was that it was on a Train Car. There were three around us; one in Hollywood on Sunset, one in Studio City on Ventura Blvd. and one in Glendale that I never found.

I think growing up in the 70’s and 80’s was a great time to grow up. The stressors and pitfalls that are so prevalent today; were absent in our time of youth. Like I stated earlier; we had good, clean fun; something that is missing today for kids out and about. It isn’t as easy to find safe fun today. There are drugs, gang shootings, abductions, rapes and other terrible pitfalls that abound in today’s society. I watch the news frequently, (I’m a news junkie, remember?), and it frightens me. My niece and nephew hang with their friends on weekends as I did and their father did, but it’s not as safe an environment for them today as it was for us. We try to tell them everything to watch for. We try to monitor who their friends are and encourage them to bring their friends home for us to meet and get to know.

Times are different. Everyday, I thank the lord that I am no longer a teen-ager trying to find himself and his place in the world. I think that is one thought that really terrifies me. Maybe, my experiences can help others grow to find themselves; and perhaps, one day I will write something poignant that will inspire someone to make good choices for themselves or even just to let someone know that there are kindred spirits out there. I think that everyone has something to say. Everyone’s voice should be heard. I also think that if you have ideas, thoughts, rants, dribble; you owe it to yourself to express yourself. You may impact someone’s life in a positive way and never even know it. For the next month or so, I am going to make the attempt to share some of my experiences; some of you may see an Al that you didn’t know; or even knew existed. For now, I’m going to go and do some reading. Enjoy!