Patch Blog: School of Old School

Okay, so after finishing up all my paperwork, aka paying the bills this weekend, I started reflecting back on the good ole days when I wasn’t dealing with such crazy looking numbers.

And I don’t mean just a few years back before USC football went illegal. Nope, I’m talkin’ about olden times when dental insurance programs actually paid for more than one crown per year and fillings were black but not so beautiful.

Thing is, I was really thinking back to just last August and a discovery on Facebook, my social networking home away from home. Here’s how some classic virtual reporting to myself went down:

“What awesome weekend! ADP didn’t do the payroll three days early on Friday, I didn’t maim anyone on the links over at Brookside, and the kid at Blockbuster rented me The Shawshank Redemption for free.

Yesterday, the biz went Groupon, most of the new equipment still works, and the folks who sold it to me have no idea how much I owe ‘em.

All I need is a time machine and two more yards outa Lendale White at the 2005 Rose Bowl and I’ll be happier than Frank McCourt suing someone in a parking lot on the Fourth of July.

But what’s really cool is joining a group; and it wasn’t always that way.

After the dental school 4-year beat-down I could clearly relate to Woody Allen’s “I wouldn’t belong to any club that would have me as a member.” And thank God I was in an anti-social state of mind when the Raiders and Spiro Agnew fan clubs were recruiting.

But today, while browsing along on Facebook, I joined “You Know You’re From Old School Temple City When…”

Couldn’t believe the activity; took me half an hour to scroll back to last Tuesday. And I know my only being around here since 1976 practically makes me a carpetbagger but I remember some TC stuff too.

Back in ’76, Norman Rockwell coulda painted the town portrait. Ten years earlier, I was picking up school clothes at Stoppel’s…and we lived in Monterey Park.

I graduated from Mark Keppel High and in four years we won five football games. The TCHS Hitchcock teams used to win that many games getting off the bus.

It was great reading posts about Cool’s, Lieberg’s, the Shrimp Boat, Winchell’s, the Temple Theater (saw Old Yeller there), and Fisher’s Drug Store. And all the revived TC High School experiences had me lookin’ for my long lost American Graffiti DVD.

The posts had me thinking back to folks like Mayor Jack Tyrell and pharmacist Al Lehine on the tennis courts over at Live Oak. I remember one of my first Chamber columns was a sad farewell to Al’s Vernon Brother’s Pharmacy and some of the best customer service I’ve ever experienced.

And with Mc Vey’s Hardware shutting down a few years ago, you could get lost on the Las Tunas Freeway, a block or so west of Temple City Blvd.

So here’s to Wonder Cleaners, Fitzjohn’s, and the Casa Del Rey; hope you guys go on forever. Hope one day we have our own paper again too (and this sentence reminds me how much I miss Editor-Citizen Dana Baskin and some of the other colorful folks who’ve gone the way of retail.)

I still love our town like crazy and “You Know You’re From Old School Temple City When…” goes a long way toward keeping the candle lit.

Thanks for the awesome memories; and please keep ‘em coming.”