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Photograph courtesy of Cookie Curci
Backward Glance: Cookie Curci's father, Rocci Curci, helps clients as owner of the Pronto Pup more in the 1960s. The old business is now the home of the Willow Glen Coffee Roosting Company.
Willow Glen 50 years ago--A personal view
By Cookie Curci
A state-of-the-art fire truck roars out from the Minnesota Avenue fire station. The clanging of the fire bell and the wail of its siren cuts through the silence in the small, adjacent Willow Glen Library.
Down the street, a group of Willow Glen Elementary school kids walk past Ernie Hutton's Mobil station on their way to the Pronto Pup creamery for double scoop ice cream cones.
John Rena waves hello as they pass by his busy Lincoln Avenue barbershop. His faithful customer, George Desin, sits in the barber's chair, puffing away on his big, black, familiar cigar, while the barber neatly trims his thinning gray hair.
Next door, at the Pronto Pup creamery, father is busy flipping burgers on a hot grill while noisy teenagers crowd around the shop's horseshoe-shaped counter. The young teens pool their nickels and dimes so they can hear their favorite songs on the corner jukebox. Songs with a rock beat by Fats Domino, Buddy Holly and Little Richard rumble off the walls. Overhead, a fan circulates the air with the warm, mouthwatering aromas of "basket burgers," fried onions and French fries.
Neighborhood teens spend all their free time at the Pronto Pup playing the jukebox, reading comics and hotrod magazines, socializing with friends and eating their favorite foods: Whimpy burgers, chocolate malts and cherry cokes.
A couple of doors down the avenue is the Village Shoe Store. Proprietors Andy and Alberta Trapani are busy restocking their window display for the new fall season. Heavy-soled shoes made of durable leather are the choice of the day, as boys and girls are wearing leather "flats" and "patent leather pumps," and preteens everywhere are wearing black canvas Keds.
The village shoe shop hums with activity as the storekeepers carefully arrange a myriad of fall merchandise into their small display window. Willow Glen mothers take their children here to shop for holiday fashions and durable school shoes.
Further down the street, Bobby, a young clerk at Bergmann's department store, sweeps off the sidewalk as he smiles hello.
As my little dog Buffy walks along the avenue with me, she scampers to the backdoor of the Little Chef restaurant, La Villa Deli, and the Trio market to beg for scraps and leftovers from her favorite cooks and clerks, who always have a food scrap for her.
Walking down the business district, I recognize most clerks and storekeepers by name. I spend a lot of time here, on the avenue, patronizing shops and visiting with the storekeepers. In turn, they are all regulars at my dad's Pronto Pup creamery. Among them: Vivian Lawrence of Lawrence's Drug store, Betty, of Betty's Beauty salon; Don Drysdale, of Geroge and Inman; Conrad Bergmann, owner of Bergmann's Department store; Pat Pooler of Pooler's jewelry shop; Joe Di Solvo of Di Salvo's appliances; Ed, proprietor of Ed's Hobby shop; and Rocci and Chanci Bengiveno of the Trio Market.
Willow Glen High School is holding its first assembly in its newly constructed auditorium; Bob Buchser is the school principal. Popular football coach Bob Berry is out on the field putting the Willow Glen Rams through their paces.
Down the avenue the grand marquee of Bud Lima's state-of-the-art Garden Theater boasts its currant movie attraction, "Father Of The Bride," starring Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor.
J.A. Bud Lima and his dad J.B. Lima, opened Willow Glen's plush new Garden Theater in 1949. Until then, the only movie house on the avenue was the antiquated Willow Glen theater just across from the meat market, Orioles Creamery and Lawrence Drugs.
The Fabulous '50s had come to Willow Glen, bringing with them the latest in Cinemascope, stereophonic sound and three-dimensional films. What better place to enjoy these movies but in the comfort of the palatial Garden Theater, with lodge seats, wide aisles, air conditioning, and a complete snack bar that included Milk Duds, ice cream bars, popcorn, hot dogs, and snow cones?
Every Saturday, predictable as clockwork, I line up at the theater's glass-enclosed ticket booth and hand in my quarter admission to the kiddy matinee. Starring in these films are Saturday afternoon heroes: Roy Rogers, Gene Autrey, Hoppalong Cassidy, Tarzan and Sabu.
Sometimes, during a long triple feature, the theater swells with the aroma of tuna fish, boiled eggs and fried pepper sandwiches rising from the assorted brown bag lunches the children bring in from home.
This was my view of Willow Glen some 50 years ago. I've enjoyed growing up in this community as the daughter of a local businessman, knowing everyone along the Avenue and being known in return. I was 9 years old when my father took over ownership of the Pronto Pup, and I was 30 years old when he sold it. So a good chunk of my life was spent in that old teenage haven, affectionately called "The Pup," now the home of The Coffee Roosting Co.
Each new generation that comes along leaves behind a small part of itself and its cultural contribution. But for me, the Willow Glen I grew up in, its neighborhoods, old businesses, landmarks, and especially its people, will always be an indelible part of my life.
I'm sometimes accused of writing too flowery about Willow Glen and told that I act like Willow Glen is the most important place on the planet. Well, to those of us who have lived here all of our lives...it is.
A wise person once wrote, "No matter where life takes us, no matter where we may go, we never forget our hometown and our childhood friends and neighbors."
Contact Cookie Curci via email at cookiecurci@mymailstation.com.
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
