Beautiful Downtown Burbank (Illinois)

Statiscally Speaking...

2011-02-11T19:43:00.003-05:00

What do you want to know about Burbank? The odds of your neighbor being over 80? (The answer: slim.) Median number of rooms in houses and apartments in Burbank? (Scintillating!) Means of transportation to work? (Take a wild guess which is most popular. Hint: It's not the pogo stick.)

So, check out one of my favorite websites: City Data. Some stuff here is useless, but some of it's extraordinarily interesting and useful, and once you start comparing it to other cities, it becomes geometrically more interesting. ("Geometrically" may not be the word I'm looking for, but you get the idea. The information becomes less flat, more spherical.)

Enjoy!

McNally Returns to Duke's!

2010-09-15T08:30:00.007-04:00

Yes, that's right. I'll be at Duke's Italian Beef Drive-in on Saturday, October 16, from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. selling and signing copies of my books.

Stop by and say hello!

Beautiful Downtown Burbank (California)

2010-07-31T15:50:00.011-04:00

It's been a while since I've posted anything. Have I run out things to write about? Maybe. If someone could send me a photo of Henry's Hamburgers or, hell, I don't know, the Bicentennial Parade of 1976 that took place on 79th Street, I might be able to muster up some more anecdotes. (No, no, I'll post more soon. I promise.)

In the meantime, I'm typing this post while staying in the Safari Inn in Burbank, California. (The Safari Inn is featured in the movie True Romance by the way. You may remember a particularly brutal scene that takes place there. Nonetheless, here I am.)

And last night, I actually made it down to Beautiful Downtown Burbank (the original Beautiful Downtown Burbank, north of Hollywood), and although it's neither beautiful (not in any kind of Pacific Coast Highway way, at least) nor very large of a downtown, I was still charmed by it.

This morning, I returned to shop at the farmer's market, where I bought about twenty dollars worth of pluots. If you haven't eaten a fresh pluot, you haven't yet begun living, my friends.

These photos don't do it justice -- I took a few quick snapshots this morning -- but here it is, folks: that place of myth and legend. (Maybe next week I'll approach the mayor of Burbank, CA, about making our own lovely hamlet a sister city.)

You want some Hawaiian BBQ?
(For every five storefronts, there appeared to be a restaurant in four of them. I had Thai food last night, with a side of coconut rice. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.) Two hours of free parking (a better deal than anything in Santa Monica). Used bookstores. A movie memorabilia store. Street musicians. Some dude with two dogs resting on a bench with him. All good, folks.

John McNally's in Town All Week Promoting His New Book

2010-03-03T00:44:00.003-05:00

Hello, folks.

I'm in Chicago and North Riverside this week (March 3, 4, and 6) to promote my new novel, After the Workshop. For information about where I'll be, click HERE.

For more information about the book itself, click HERE for reviews.

I hope to see you around!

John McNally Returns to Burbank on March 2, 2010

2010-02-28T16:51:00.002-05:00

Hello, folks.

If you're in the neighborhood, stop by Prairie Trails Library at 7:00 on March 2. I'll be there promoting my new novel, After the Workshop. Just be sure to call ahead to reserve a spot.

For more information about the book tour, click HERE.

For more information about the book itself, click HERE for reviews.

I'll read a few short excerpts from a few different books, answer questions, and sign copies of my books. Books will be for sale at the event. I hope to see you there!

More Natural Disasters

2009-10-11T10:56:00.004-04:00

On April 21, 1967, a twister hit Oak Lawn and nearby towns. According to WGN's website, "The storms resulted in 58 fatalities. The Oak Lawn twister continued across the Dan Ryan Expressway at the height of the evening rush hour, knocking a semi off an overpass, before proceeding out over Lake Michigan."

I don't have any memory of this. I was less than two. But I do remember my parents talking about this. We lived in Guidish Park mobile homes, across from the old Zayre on Harlem. If memory serves, the twister ended up ripping through a nearby trailer court, maybe where Chicago Ridge Mall is now? (I know it's no longer called Chicago Ridge Mall, but to me it will always be Chicago Ridge Mall, just as the Sears Tower will always be the Sears Tower.)

Amazingly, there's some footage of the twisters on YouTube. Here's one:

The closest I ever came to a twister was at a drive-in flea market, way south on Harlem (I believe), around Tinley Park. (I could be wrong about the specific location, so if anyone knows what I'm talking about, help me out here.) Anyway, my father and I were selling stuff at the flea market when we saw a twister heading toward us. It sounded like a freight train approaching very quickly. We got into my dad's truck and remained there until the twister had gone by. When we finally opened the truck's door, we saw that everyone's tables and most of the stuff they were selling had been blown all the way to the back chain-link fence of the drive-in. The twister had gone around us, but the wind was powerful enough to blow everything away. Also, there were dollar bills all up against the fence. And coins. Everywhere. Flea marketeers tended to keep money boxes next to their chairs, and these, too, had blown away. We retrieved what we could of our own stuff. I want to say this was late 1970s, but, again, my memory could be failing me here. I remember not being very afraid since I didn't know how much damage a twister could do. I guarantee you, I would be a hell of a lot more afraid today.

(Photo above courtesy of Paul Wrubel, which, in turn, is courtesy of the Oak Lawn Public Library.)

Blizzard of Oz?

2009-10-10T08:20:00.004-04:00

No, it was the Blizzard of '79. Remember it?

Where I live now, in North Carolina, schools are shut down at the hint of snow. I'm not kidding. Not actual snow. The whole city shuts down at actual snow. No, what I'm talking about is the likelihood of snow.

Which brings me to Chicago. January 13-14, 1979. I was thirteen and in the eighth grade. Our family was living in the condos near Reavis. Two things I remember: the difficulty of opening the doors to get outside, and all the cars in the parking lot entombed in snow. Everyone was out with a shovel, digging. Digging a path. Digging for their cars. Why, I wonder now. Did we go anywhere? Could we go anywhere? I don't remember.

Our faithful reader, Paul Wrubel, sent this photo. He writes, "If you walk 4 houses to the left, you'd be on Ford City Drive." I believe he's the one dangling upside-down.

What are your memories of the great blizzard? (I'm sure no one ever asked Michael Bilandic, Chicago's 49th mayor, this question. He pretty much lost his job because of the blizzard.)

The Marketing of a School or Team

2009-02-04T22:32:00.006-05:00

I was a Kennedy Falcon and a Reavis Ram (I also went to Fry and Maddock but can't, for the life of me, remember what I might have been -- the French Fries? the Maddock Marauders!?). The marketing of a high school is intense (the school jackets; the two-pocket folders with a Reavis Ram on it; the pencils with the school's name in gold-inlay; even the gym clothes we wore: polyester with Reavis insignias on them). On a much smaller scale, our grade school sold us some crap, too. I owned a Kennedy Falcon's T-shirt. I'm pretty sure I have a Kennedy Falcon's pin, too, but why would I have bought a pin? Could I have won it for something? Unlikely but possible, I suppose.

All of this is by way of saying that a reader of the blog sent to me (a long time ago) some photos from his school and baseball team (I think these two were for a baseball team), and I'm finally getting around to posting them here. If you still have some of your stuff, I'd love to post it, too. Recently, I found a Kennedy Falcon ribbon...but, again, what the hell did I do to earn it? It certainly wasn't for winning the 50 yard dash, unless they gave one for coming in second to last...which I doubt. (You have to trust me when I tell you that I made a concerted effort not to be last.)

Ford City -- Redux

2008-12-14T12:45:00.003-05:00

I found some interesting new stuff on a blog called Mall Hall of Fame.

For starters, here's the original design for Ford City.

And here's a list of Ford City's tenants in 1975:

GRAND MALL:

WIEBOLDT'S (with Veranda Restaurant) / J.C. PENNEY (with Auto Center) / F.W. WOOLWORTH (with Woolworth's Grill) / Harvest House Cafeteria / Bressler's 33 Flavors / Minnesota Fabrics / Hallmark Cards / R and R Crossing apparel / National Tea Grocery / Ford City Restaurant / Tally-Ho Restaurant / Wurlitzer Organs / Frank's Shoes / Flagg Brothers Shoes / Musicland / Tobacco Teepee / Dunkin' Donuts / Super-X Drug / Saint Anne Shop / Gift Studio / Lerner Shops / Thom McAn Shoes / Pam's Young Folks children's apparel / The Knot Shop / Bond's apparel / Marc Allen Shoes / Singer Sewing Center / So-Fro Fabrics / Buster Brown Shoes / Karroll's / The Gap / Polk Brothers / Mailing Shoes / O'Conner and Goldberg Shoes / Orange Julius / Fanny Farmer Candies

NORTH MALL:

JEWEL SUPERMARKET /Ford City Cinema / Talley's Pub / Ford City Bowling Center / Print King / Fayva Shoes / John M. Smythe Furniture / Turnstyle Toys

PEACOCK ALLEY:

Pagoda House / The Shelf Shop / Nickleodeon Pizza / Park Magnavox TV and Stereo / Village Records and Tapes / Gingiss Formalwear / Ford City Karate / House Of Lewis / Allsport Sporting Goods / Tricks -N- Toys / Toby's Bridal / Ford City Key and Lock / The Loft apparel / Ford City Catholic Center

Had you forgotten some of these places? Also: How many damned shoe stores did we need back then?

Where I Bought Cigarettes For My Parents...

2008-12-12T23:50:00.004-05:00

This probably seems appalling today, but, yes, kids used to be able to buy cigarettes for their parents. I did it all the time. Oftentimes, my mother would stay in the car while I ran in the store or the gas station and bought the cigarettes. My mother smoked Winstons; my father, Lucky Strikes. And so I would run in and buy two (or sometimes four) cartons.

From 1973 to 1974, we lived in the apartment building on the north side of 79th, between Normandy and Natoma. Across the street was White Hen. I was in the third grade in 1973, and at least once a week I would dash across 79th to buy cigarettes.

I loved White Hen. The first thing I would do is go to the magazine rack, which was located in the right corner of the store. I usually checked out Mad Magazine or one of the music magazines, like Cream.

But the highlight was buying Wacky Packages. If I was lucky, I could afford a package.

I was obsessed with Wacky Packages. Literally. A few years after I started buying them, my father, my brother, and I drove to Maine, where my aunt and uncle owned a small country grocery store. I must have stared so longly at the box of Wacky Packages that my aunt gave me the entire box. Imagine: An entire frickin' box of Wacky Packages! I was like an alcoholic, except with stickers. And gum.

I loved these things. Loved them! Here are a few from my day. Enjoy!

Why I'm Not a Famous Rock Star

2008-11-30T18:40:00.006-05:00

There are many reasons why I'm not a famous rock star (I can't sing; I can't play an instrument), and yet I still sometimes wonder, Why am I not a famous rock star?

My mother didn't want me playing an instrument because we lived, for the most part, in apartment buildings. The two instruments I was drawn to -- piano and drums -- weren't conducive for apartments. The piano would have been too expensive, too large (I wanted a baby grand), and too loud. Drums would have been too loud and, if truth be told, probably too expensive. Oh, and probably too large.

But the primary reason I'm not a rock star is because the only instrument I learned to play at Jacqueline B. Kennedy was the recorder. Remember these little beauties?

It's possible -- likely, even -- that the recorder is a fine instrument. It's possible that it's a gateway instrument, leading the user to louder and more powerful instruments, like a twelve-string acoustic guitar or, hell, even a mouth harp. But the recorder didn't take with me. In fact, the only use I ever found for the recorder was as a weapon to fend off other, tougher kids looking for trouble. (Trust me: You could do some serious damage to the cranium with a recorder.)

But what if I had taken the time to master "Frère Jacques"? Or "Mary Had a Little Lamb"? Or "Carry on My Wayward Son"? Where would I be today, and what would I be doing?

Hmmmmmmm.........

(I shiver at the thought.)

The Book Tour Begins!

2008-10-02T22:56:00.004-04:00

Yes, I have a new book hitting the bookstores -- Ghosts of Chicago. Check it out.

What this means is that I'll be all over the Chicago area (and the Midwest) for two weeks, starting Wednesday, October 8. If you're in the neighborhood, stop by. For a complete list of appearances with links, check out my website. I hope to meet some of you!

FALL 2008

Saturday, October 04, 2008
BRADDOCK, PENNSYLVANIA
8:00 p.m., Reading/Signing for GHOSTS OF CHICAGO
The Convent at St. Michael's
1137 Braddock Ave.

Wednesday, October 08, 2008
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Columbia College Chicago, Fiction Writing Department, "Fiction Writers at Lunch"
PART ONE:
11:00-12:30
Reading and Discussion of new short story collection, GHOSTS OF CHICAGO
12:30-1:00 Book signing
PART TWO:
1:15-2:30
Reading and Discussion of my anthology, WHO CAN SAVE US NOW?, with some of the book's contributors.
The Hokin Annex
623 S Wabash
Chicago, Il, 60605

Wednesday, October 08, 2008
BURBANK, ILLINOIS
GHOSTS OF CHICAGO official book launch!
Prairie Trails Library
7:30 p.m., Reading/Discussion/Signing
8449 Moody Ave.
Burbank, Illinois
1-708-430-3688
Please Note: You Must Call in Advance to Reserve Seating!

Thursday, October 09, 2008
INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA
Irvington Branch Library
6:30 p.m., Freight Stories Reading Series.
Books will be available.
5625 East Washington Street
Indianapolis, IN 46219

Friday, October 10, 2008
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Chinaski's Bar
8:00 p.m., John McNally reading with Windy City Story Slam. Books will be available.
$5.00 cover @ the door
1935 N. Damen
Chicago, IL

Saturday, October 11, 2008
BRIDGEVIEW, ILLINOIS
Duke's Italian Beef Drive-In
11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., Book signing.
8115 South Harlem Ave.
Bridgeview, IL 60455
708 599-0576

Saturday, October 11, 2008
NORTH RIVERSIDE, ILLINOIS
Tamale Hut Cafe
7:30 p.m., John McNally reads, followed by Open Mic. Books will be available for purchase.
8300 W. Cermak Road
North Riverside, IL 60546

Sunday, October 12, 2008
CHICAGO RIDGE, IL
Borders
1:00-3:00 p.m., signing for GHOSTS OF CHICAGO
Westfield -- Chicago Ridge (formerly known as Chicago Ridge Mall)
Ridgeland & 95th
Chicago Ridge, IL
If I'm remembering correctly, this store is located near the anchor store at the north end of the mall.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008
IOWA CITY, IOWA
Prairie Lights Bookstore
7:00 p.m., Reading/Discussion/Signing for GHOSTS OF CHICAGO
15 S. Dubuque Street
Iowa City, IA 52240
319-337-2681

Wednesday, October 15, 2008
PALOS HILLS, ILLINOIS
Green Hills Public Library
7:00 p.m., Reading/Discussion/Signing for GHOSTS OF CHICAGO
8611 W. 103rd
Palos Hills, IL

Thursday, October 16, 2008
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Book Cellar
7:00 p.m., Reading/Discussion/Signing for GHOSTS OF CHICAGO.
4736-38 N. Lincoln Ave.
Chicago, Illinois
773-293-2665

Saturday, October 18, 2008
LINCOLN, NEBRASKA
Nebraska Book Festival
more details to come

What We Read

2008-08-01T11:57:00.008-04:00

This is less of a Burbank post than it is a 1970s nostalgia post, but since the two are inextricably connected in my mind, I figured I'd write a bit about it. Since I write books for a living now, people sometimes assume that I was reading Dickens and Shakespeare when I was a kid, but no: My favorite was Mad Magazine. Spy vs. Spy, anyone? Or what about that last page that you folded so that it became a different picture?

I even bought the paperback collections of Mad Magazine, which I read (looked at) on car trips.

Dynamite (see above) was another favorite, probably because the covers featured whatever I happened to be interested in at the time (i.e., Land of the Lost).

Whenever I could, I would by music magazines like Cream; occasionally, I would buy magazines that featured nothing but the song lyrics to a song. In fact, I'm pretty sure one of those magazines was called Song Lyrics. That way, I wouldn't botch the lyrics when I sang along to my transistor radio. (Did I mention that I wanted to be a rock star?)

Lastly, I loved ordering books from Scholastics. Remember how the teacher would pass around little order forms (I don't even remember catalogs, just a list of books), and you'd check off the ones you wanted? My favorite books were ones about Houdini, the Lochness Monster, and motorcycle daredevils. (Ironically, those are still three of my favorite subjects.)

Oh yeah...and every year I'd have to buy the new Guinness Book of World Records.

Remember the dude with the longest fingernails? Or what about the guy who could smoke something like, I don't know, a hundred cigarettes at once? (You think he's still alive?)

Ripley's Believe It or Not also made for some fine reading.

But my all-time favorite reading? TV Guide. In the eighth grade, using my dog walking money, I actually ordered a subscription. Good stuff. I still own this issue. Not sure why. I saw it in a box in my basement just the other day. Along with some copies of Dynamite. And a book about Houdini.

Where Have I Gone?

2008-07-20T22:51:00.002-04:00

Good question.

First, I had my wisdom teeth pulled. Then: I found out I had high blood-pressure, went on some medicine, had bad side-effects, went off, went on some other medicine, had bad side-effects, and went off. I've also been finishing the draft of a new book, doing publicity for my new anthology, dealing with various things having to do with the book coming out in October, and wrapping up revisions of a screenplay. Somehow, I forgot I was keeping a blog about all things Burbank!

I'll be in and around Burbank in October promoting the hell out of my new short story collection, Ghosts of Chicago. Check out the book tour section of my website, and if you're in the neighborhood, stop by. (I'll be adding more events over the next few months.) I'd love to meet the folks who've left messages here.

As for the blog, not to worry. I'll be back. I'm going to Los Angeles for two weeks, and when I return to North Carolina, I need to do some home repair, but I'll start posting again in the fall, especially once I return home from my jaunt to Burbank in October.

So: Hang tight. And I'll see you on the flip-side.

Don't Know Much About History -- Burbank History, That Is

2008-06-20T08:40:00.009-04:00

The wisdom teeth extractions -- I had all of mine pulled last week -- didn't go as smoothly as planned. Thank God for Vicodin! One thing I learned: It's damned near impossible to knock me out. The doctor gave me a sleeping pill to put me under. An hour and a half later, I was still reading the book I'd brought along. "Do you want us to top that off with a little gas?" he asked. "Sure!" I said (I'm never one to turn down legal drugs), and so I sat there for the next half hour with the mask over my mouth and nose, looking like a pilot on one of the Apollo missions. Nothing. They probably should have begun shooting at me with a tranquilizer gun or blowing poison darts at my neck, but they finally just gave up and pulled the teeth.

Enough about my teeth. Here are few fun facts about Burbank from The Encyclopedia of Chicago.

Did you know...

One of the earliest roads to run through the area was the diagonal State Road...By 1871, State Road attracted the attention of a Pittsburgh investor who laid out a subdivision along this route that apparently never materialized. Instead, German and Dutch truck farmers settled in the area.

1871 was the year of the Chicago fire, by the way.

Anyway, Burbank's history is apparently full of such false starts. A dude named A.B. Stickney -- name ring a bell? -- made plans for Burbank (before it was Burbank) to become a transfer station for the freight railroad, but the depression of 1893 nixed those plans.

In the 1920s, developers bought up a lot of the land with the hope of capitalizing on the subdivision boom, but "the ongoing drainage problems, poor roads, and inadequate water and sewer systems, as well as the Great Depression, dampened enthusiasm of many would-be buyers."

So, what changed Burbank's luck? The creation of the South Stickney Sanitary District in 1952, back when Burbank was known as South Stickney or Burbank Manor. Population tripled, "reaching an estimated 20,720 in 1960."

To avoid annexation by Chicago, Burbank became incorporated in 1970, taking the name from the already-existing Luther Burbank Elementary School. (Luther Burbank was a famous horticulturist, and, yes, he's responsible for the Russet Burbank potato that we all know and love, but...what's his connection to Chicago's southwest side again? Hmmm... Must investigate this futher.)

Oh yeah, one last tidbit: Burbank's population peaked in 1976 at 29,448.

Class dismissed.

John McNally's Burbank Book Club

2008-06-07T11:39:00.007-04:00

I'm cheating with today's post because I'm going to the dentist in a few hours to have all my wisdom teeth pulled. And I know you're all jealous! Why does HE get to have all his wisdom teeth pulled today? What about ME?

Okay, the first book recommendation -- Who Can Save Us Now? -- is a plug for a new book I coedited with the writer Owen King. It's an anthology of twenty-two short stories featuring brand-new supeheroes. But...WHOA...WAIT A MINUTE. Check it out. My story in the book is about a superhero who lives in Burbank. Duke's even makes an appearance in the story. Stevenson Park is in there, too. How can you pass up reading about a Burbank superhero? I mean, really.

The book should be hitting the bookstores by the end of the month, but you can pre-order one now by clicking on the title below.

Who Can Save Us Now?: Brand-New Superheroes and Their Amazing (Short) Stories

***
This next book -- The Golden Age of Chicago's Television -- is one of my favorite books on Chicago pop culture of my era. Inside, you'll get the skinny on Bozo, Ray Rayner, Frazier Thomas, and any other Chicago child's icon from the '50s, '60s, and '70s. It's a fun, fun book with great photos.

The Golden Age of Chicago Children's Television.

***
This next one -- Chicago TV Horror Movie Shows -- is a good companion book to the one above, but its appeal may be more limited. What I appreciated were the lists of horror movies that were sold as "packages" to WGN and other stations, along with the histories of individual shows, like Creature Features. Still, it's hard to beat The Golden Age of Chicago Children's Television with Bozo, Garfield Goose, and Dirty Dragon as subjects for a book. This one, on the other hand, is definitely more for the hardcore collector of Chicago childhood nostalgia.

Chicago TV Horror Movie Shows

Where We Shopped: Scottsdale

2008-06-05T09:01:00.006-04:00

Scottsdale: 79th and Cicero (southeast corner)

If you do a GOOGLE photo search of "scottsdale shopping chicago," you'll see all kinds of beautiful stucco shopping centers with tall, majestic palm trees out front; and if you're like me -- often sleepy; frequently confused -- you'll start wondering, "Did I really live in such a place? Was Burbank even more beautiful than I remember? Was the southwest side actually Xanadu, and I just didn't realize it?" And then you see the word "Arizona" attached to one of the photos, and you realize that, no, where you grew up was full of mostly ugly strip malls, and the sky was often overcast.

Let's face it: the glory days of Scottsdale are over. In fact, I'm not sure I was ever alive during its glory days, but it was certainly more of a staple for shopping when I was a kid, and it certainly had more character than today's strip malls, what with its big-ass sign (not the one pictured above) and its asymetrical design. I realize I'm pushing my case a little too hard here, but I'll go so far as to say that Scottsdale Plaza was ahead of its time. If you go to L.A. today, all you hear about is the trend of the "open air" shopping center, which is usually a couple of blocks of stores, where walking outside, usually amongst some professional landscaping, is a huge plus. Now, Scottsdale didn't have the greenery, per se, but it did have the potential for it. And, as I said, it was structured interestingly.

The anchor store was GOLDBLATT'S.

Here's what I remember best about Goldblatt's: the pet store. If I remember correctly, it was just inside the entrance and off to the left. Just before my fourth birthday, I talked my mother into buying me a baby turtle.

A few days later, our trailer (we lived in Guidish Park) burned completely down in the middle of the night. (We made it out safely.) My father threw a few things out the front door before the fire engulfed the entire trailer: our finch (in its cage, of course -- it was probably brain-damaged afterward); a Code-a-Phone answering machine (a high-dollar item back then), and a few other strangely disparate odds and ends. It wasn't until a few days later that I remembered the turtle. When I asked my mother where it was, she had to break the news: the turtle, whose name I no longer recall, didn't make it out alive. So there you go: my indelible Goldblatt's memory for you. (Hold on a second: I need to blow my nose and dab my eyes.)

But hey: Do you remember the photo store? I believe that, too, was a Goldblatt's enterprise, but it was in a building by itself. I loved going in there and looking at the Super-8 projectors and seeing what movies they had for sale. (For the younger readers, here's a "I-walked-fifty-miles-in-my-bare-feet-to-school-every-morning" story for you. Probably about a year after Star Wars came out, a Super 8 movie of Star Wars was released. This was a BIG DEAL for anyone withe a Super 8 projector. I'm assuming Star Wars ran about two hours, give or take several minutes, at the theater. Well, a Super 8 movie ran, on average, 8 minutes. With sound (that is, if you wanted sound), it would cost probably twenty-five bucks. If you were wealthy, you might be able to spring for the twenty minute version, which cost probably in the neighborhood of forty or fifty bucks. To own even the eight-minute version of the movie back then would be the equivalent today of, I don't know, owning a Hummer and a Rolex.)

For the life of me, I can't remember any other store in Scottsdale. Help me. There was a furniture store down the way, right? But what else was actually in Scottsdale?

All right, folks: time to chime in with your own Scottdale memories. And if anyone has any old photos of Scottsdale, please (please) send them to me at bookofralph@aol.com for posting.

Ah, but to imagine what Scottsdale could have been with a little imagination...

(Photo of Scottsdale sign, courtesy of Renee Greco)

Where We Played: Rice Park

2008-05-29T08:08:00.009-04:00

It's a wonder, really, that every kid in Burbank didn't end up sterile because of all the power lines that are draped across some of Burbank's parks. Maybe this was an urban legend, but I'd heard that the electric company donated some of the land to the city where several power line towers and transformers are amassed. (Most cities fence those areas off, by the way.)

In any event, the park where I spent most of my time wasn't one full of power line towers: Rice Park.

Rice Park sits behind Kennedy Grade School. I wasn't an athletic kid (in fact, from the second grade until eighth grade, I grew increasingly fatter by the minute), but I spent a lot of time at Rice Park. But doing what? I owned a tennis racket that I'd bought at a flea market, and I loved knocking tennis balls around, often over the fence, but I never learned how to play. I also loved playing Horse at the basketball court. But as soon as any other kids came up, I left. I was a magnet for trouble (maybe all fat boys are), and so I learned quickly to remove myself from situations before they happened.

One time that I didn't remove myself was shortly after our family had moved to that part of Burbank, and I was riding my bike up and over the dirt hills that sat over from and behind Rice Park. What I didn't realize was that Rice Park was a little bit like the island on Lost in that there were the kids who hung out in the park, and then there were The Others. The Others hung out over by the dirt hills, and they didn't like it when some fat, younger kid came riding up and over their hills. As was usually the case, I was outnumbered: about six or seven of them to me. The one I remember the best was this red-headed kid who was notorious for causing problems -- their pack-leader. He grabbed my handlebars while The Others surrounded me. I honestly don't remember what happened next -- they may have knocked me off my bike and given me a warning -- but I do remember that such incidents weren't uncommon in Burbank in the 1970s. The upshot was, I stayed away from the hills after that.

During the summer of 1979, I spent a lot of time by the Little League part of Rice Park, not because I liked baseball (I didn't) or because I was friends with some of the players (I wasn't). No, I started going because a girl from another part of Burbank -- a girl I didn't know but had started seeing riding her bike around our part of town and, as these things happen, developed an intense, heart-pounding crush on -- had begun going to the games. I had started losing weight, so my confidence should have been on the rise, but it wasn't, so I would merely situate myself and my bike near her in the hope that I'd catch her attention. And one day, while I was eating Milk Duds, she came up and asked me for one. That's all that happened. She asked me for a Milk Dud, and I gave her one. The fact that I still remember this should give you some idea of just how fricking excited I was! I didn't see her again until the fall, when she was (miraculously) in my high school Geometry class (I was a freshman; she was a sophomore), a class I would end up failing because I spent all of my time either talking to, or pining for, her. She would even walk with me to my locker after every class. There was only one hitch: She had a boyfriend who was three years older and could easily have been one of The Others. And one time she warned me: "I can't let my boyfriend know I'm walking with you."

Too bad. But at least we'll always be bound by shared Milk Duds at Rice Park and, uh, Geometry...or at least our mutual hatred of it.

P.S. I took Geometry over during the summer and got an 'A' in it, which further proves just how damned smitten I was of this girl.

What park did you hang at? Memories, anyone?

(photos of Rice Park courtesy of Renee Greco)

What We Eat: Pizza!

2008-05-23T17:52:00.005-04:00

You can find edible pizza outside Chicago, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a pizza as good as even the average, run-of-the-mill Chicago pizza once you leave the outer edge of Chicagoland. Trust me. I’ve lived in central Illinois, Southern Illinois, Iowa, Colorado, Nebraska, Florida, Wisconsin, D.C., North Carolina, and L.A. I’ve found some pretty good pizza in L.A. and in New York City (though, usually, I’ve been out drinking in NY by the time I end up at a place selling slices, so I’m guessing cardboard with tomato paste would probably have tasted okay by then).

As I’ve already noted here about a thousand times, I haven’t lived in Burbank since 1983, but I still get back there maybe once or twice a year, and if I’m in town for more than a day, I usually end up eating pizza somewhere in the neighborhood. Down below, I’ve listed places I either frequented or remember. Please correct locations and names if I’ve made any errors, and by all means, tell us about your favorite South Side pizzas.

Italian Villa

Italian Villa is located in Southfield Shopping, and it’s been there since at least the early or mid ‘70s, if not earlier. This is the pizza that my family ate the most, and this is where I tend to go when I’m back in town. Even when I haven’t been there for a few years at a stretch, the waitress recognizes me and, often, remembers my order. The best features of Italian Villa? For me, it’s the whole package – superb sausage; tasty sauce; excellent crust (thin but a bit chewy). Plus, there’s a blurry, enlarged photo of Pete Townsend doing the windmill to his guitar in the men’s bathroom. Also: Could the food be any cheaper?

Gino’s Pizza

If memory serves me, Gino’s was on 79th and Central. To the best of my knowledge, it wasn’t affiliated with the famous Gino’s downtown. I’m not sure why we ate here. Did my brother work here? Possibly. Anyway, our Gino’s experience was short-lived. I can’t even remember anything about it. Gino's was definitely around in the '70s, but I can't vouch for it before or after that.

Tafte’s (Tafde’s?)

I ate here only a few times, probably in the ‘70s. They were located somewhere on 87th, I believe, on the Oak Lawn side. Is that right? Not far from Central, I’m thinking. Here’s what I remember: A corn-meal crust? Yellow with holes poked through? Cracker-ey? A few years ago, I started talking to a Law professor here at Wake Forest, and we quickly discovered that we were both from Burbank, and so we started trading anecdotes. Apparently, his first job was delivering pizzas for Tafte’s (Tafde’s?). A small, small world. And if anyone knows for sure how to spell the damned name of the place, please enlighten me!

Phil’s Pizza

Phil’s was across from the Jewel on Ridgeland. I went through a brief – but intense – Phil’s stage. When I was in high school, before I could drive, my father took a roofing job in Indiana and had to stay over night while my mother was in the hospital, and so I started ordering Phil’s pizza, almost nightly, to have delivered since I couldn’t drive. (We never had pizza delivered, so this was true decadence.) I can almost remember what it tastes like, but what I remember for certain were the enormous, meatball-sized chunks of pale-colored sausage. I'll have to try it again next time in town; it'll be my first Phil's Pizza in 27 years. Oh, and if you're reading this Phil's, you can send coupons to me @ P.O. Box 7387, WFU, Winston-Salem, NC 27109. :)

Fasano’s

Fasano’s is located around 83rd and Roberts Road in Justice. This was our default pizza when we tired of Italian Villa. I haven’t had one in years, though about ten years ago, when I was living in Iowa City, buy an extra-large one, throw it in the trunk, and drive it three and a half hours home. This place was all about the toppings – tons of toppings. A good pie, as I recall. It may be the heaviest of the thin-crust pizzas on the South Side.

Durbin’s

Durbin’s is, of course, on 79th and State Road. I’ve only recently begun eating pizza at Durbin’s, and I only eat there when I’m drinking. It would never cross my mind to go there specifically for pizza, even though the pizza is pretty damned good. But give me about a dozen beers, and I’m all over the menu.

Oh, yeah. One last thing, for what it's worth: I'm a thin crust guy. There. I said it.

Where We Worked

2008-05-22T10:31:00.007-04:00

Most of my friends' parents worked manual labor or trade jobs of one kind or another. Some worked for the telephone company; some were electricians; some were plumbers; some painted water towers. My mother worked in box factories until she had to go on disability in the early '70s for health problems. She hated not working and even tried returning to her job until she realized she couldn't do it anymore. My father was a roofer for most of his life, though he took about seven years off to try to make it on his own cleaning rugs and washing walls, but he eventually went back to the roofer's union and stayed there until he retired in 1989.

Growing up in Burbank, you had to be industrious. In grade school, I walked dogs and sold things. I sold knives (yes, knives), concert T-shirts, bootleg cassettes...whatever I thought I could sell. My first "real" job wasn't until my senior in high school when I worked as an usher at the Orland Square movie theater. Mostly, as an adult, I've been a teacher, but I've also worked shipping and receiving for a small electronics company, worked in a cafeteria, scored standardized tests, worked as a file clerk (or something like that...can't remember my title), did data entry, greeted people at a new mall (the most humiliating?), gutted buildings for surplus, worked in a library (mostly processing books and, once again, doing some shipping and receiving)...and on and on.

What did (do) your parents do? What do you do? And what jobs have you had -- the good ones, the bad ones, and all the ones in-between?

1970. Me and my father. The photo-booth at Zayre's.

2008 (this morning). Me and my father. My backyard in Winston-Salem, NC.

Reader Needs Your Help

2008-05-21T12:33:00.002-04:00

Does anyone know the answer to this? I don't. Help us out, if you can. Here goes.

Maybe you know the answer to this question...currently there is a Value City and a Burlington Coat Factory on 84/Cicero. What two stores were there before? one of the stores was Polk Brothers the others was??????

Anyone know?

Side-note: I'll get back to posting more blogs soon. I just filed my students' grades. Time will free up soon.

Where We Shopped: Korvettes

2008-05-10T12:01:00.003-04:00

Location: the southwest corner of 87th and Cicero (Oak Lawn)
Years? I remember it being there in the 1960s and '70s, but maybe it was around a lot longer. I honestly have no idea.

Click above to watch this 1970s Korvette's commercial.

Korvettes was one of the earlier of the discount department stores. In the mid '60s, our family lived in one of the mobile homes in what used to be called Guidish Park (across the street from Southfield Shopping Center). Korvette's was probably the main department store for my mother during that period, though eventually (probably starting in the early '70s) Kmart trumped Korvette's for us. (And, as I wrote earlier, my father was always a Zayre man.) So, given that I was only two and three years old when we shopped there, my memories of Korvette's are a bit fuzzy.

(Note: The photo above is not our Korvette's. I thought I'd post it in case you forgot what the script looked like on the store's sign.)

One thing I do remember is buying -- or asking my mother to buy for me -- The American Breed album "Bend Me, Shape Me" at Korvette's, which I still own. (The American Breed was a band from Cicero, Illinois, by the way, and the song "Bend Me, Shape Me" was a huge hit in 1968 -- #5 on Billboard's Hot 100). From what I've been told, I was incorrigible, even as a baby, when it came to wanting (demanding) music, and when my mother accidentally broke the Bobby Darren 45 of "Splish Splash" when I was only a few months old, I cried for days until she bought a replacement; so I'm certain that by the time "Bend Me, Shape Me" came out, I was already something of a musicologist, albeit a two-and-a-half year old one (and if not a musicologist, well, then, a pain in the ass).

For those of you who haven't heard "Bend Me, Shape Me" in a while (or at all), here's a treat. This has to be one of the earliest music videos. (I love the exercise subplot, by the way. How bizarre.)

If anyone has clearer memories of Korvette's than yours truly, please share.

Where We Drink...uh...Socialize: The Castle

2008-05-09T15:59:00.010-04:00

Location: 5700 W 79th St. (79th and Major)

For those of you who haven't seen it in a while, here's The Castle after they remodeled it.

No, wait. Sorry. Here it is.

Since I don't live in Burbank (or Chicago, for that matter), and am back in town only occasionally, I'm not an aficionado when it comes to where to drink in and around Burbank. That said, I've been to The Castle a handful of times, and one thing I can say with certainty is this: the drinks are cheap and cold, and the jukebox is good.

In my twenties and thirties, whenever I was back in town, I usually went to Durbin's, so I'll save my good Durbin's stories for later. I also dragged my friend, kicking and screaming, to any number of places: Stancik's Satellite, which had, as I remember, shuffleboard (now there's a business sign I miss...the Sputnik-looking satellite out front? Remember that?); or over to that bar next to Little Frank's Pizza? Help me out. I can't remember the name of it. But in the last few years, I've been stopping off at the Castle.

For those of you who've never been, I should give this warning: It's very un-castle-like inside, and, no, the people who work there aren't dressed as royalty or wearing suits of armor (though maybe they should think about doing that...just a thought, folks). All of this is by way of saying, if you happen to see me in the Castle and, I don't know, feel compelled to buy me a drink, I'm a Bud Light guy (when I'm drinking beer) or an Absolut and tonic guy (when I'm not drinking beer). Not that you have to buy me a drink. I'm just saying...

(photo courtesy of Renee Greco)

A Little Love from Chicago Reader

2008-05-09T15:49:00.005-04:00

If you check out the entry for May 15, you'll see a little more love for our hometown blog, this time from Chicago Reader. Thanks, Jerome.

Where We Went to Church

2008-05-09T08:39:00.004-04:00

I'm still not sure why, but our family went to St. Fabian, not St. Albert's, so I didn't know most of the kids I had CCD with (though a few other Burbank strays, such as myself, did inexplicably end up there).

Maybe I would have enjoyed CCD more if I had known more kids, but I have to be perfectly honest: I hated going. One reason was because CCD was the same night as The Bionic Woman, and as a diehard fan of The Six Million Dollar Man, I felt royally cheated out of some quality prime-time television.

Another reason I hated going is that I'm not a fan of repetition. In fact, it makes me sort of looney. And CCD (at least my experience of it) never evolved. Oh, the rituals varied, but the information -- the things we learned -- were always the same, year after year. And so a strange thing happened in that, while I was a law-abiding kid in grade school, I was frequently in trouble in CCD. For example, each year we were shown a symbolic movie about a dying girl and a moth -- does anyone else remember this movie? -- and by the fifth or sixth time, I just couldn't take it anymore. I started laughing maniacally and cracking jokes (I know, I know, I'm terrible...but how many more times could I watch it?). The last time, shortly before Confirmation, I got hauled off into the main office to talk to a priest.

I did like collecting these weekly programs, however, like the one I've posted here. Why? Who knows. And there was a selection of books in wire-racks in the lobby, small picture books about the Prodigal Son and whatnot, and when I was in the first and second grades, I used to beg my mother for enough money to buy them. (As a child, I was a collector of books and curiously worthless artifacts. I still am.)

Take a look at the businesses listed above. How many do you remember? How many are still around?

My father, who was a roofer, worked on St. Fabian's roof. I can't remember if he put the roof on or patched it, but I was out there with him one weekend, helping out. My father was a notorious swearer, and at one point, while one of the priests stood down below watching, my father yelled, "Goddamn it!" And then he saw the priest. My father attended a Catholic grade school in Maine and dropped out of high school because of the old-school nuns, whom he battled with; this would have been in the 1940s. My father said, "Oops. Sorry, Father." I think my father expected lightening to blast him from the church's roof. To his credit, the priest -- an elderly man with snow white hair -- merely laughed and walked back inside the church.

Comments; New Posts. Etc.

2008-05-09T08:23:00.002-04:00

Apparently, some people have had problems with their comments not getting posted. Not sure what's up with that. And then -- fool that I am -- I didn't realize that there were a dozen or so comments waiting for my approval. (I'm supposed to be notified via email...but wasn't.) Needless to say, "Blogger" is a flawed site. But keep trying.

Meanwhile, I've been busy wrapping up my semester here, which hasn't left me with much time to post, but I'll be leaving more posts soon...maybe even one later today.

Thanks for stopping by...and for your patience!

Burbank Blog Makes Time Out Chicago

2008-05-04T12:32:00.002-04:00

Our little blog gets noticed by Time Out Chicago. Now, watch the housing prices in Burbank soar!

Where We Went To School

2008-05-03T08:24:00.017-04:00

One thing Burbank is not known for (and for good reason) is its architecture. That said, two Burbank grade schools are architectural stand-outs: Tobin (no longer among us) and Luther Burbank (still among the living -- the building, that is, not the person). And I have to admit that I didn't appreciate either of these when I was a kid, but click on each one to englarge them and take a close look. They're truly impressive buildings, and they put the other abominations (especially the three schools I attended) here to shame!

So, tell me where you went to school. And what do you remember about the school itself? One thing I remember was showing up before the start of the school year to see whose homeroom I would be in; the lists were always posted on the front door. An event! (Again, this was the '70s, and we didn't have a whole hell of a lot to occupy our time back then.)

Tobin (above). (An anonymous reader of the blog sent a bunch of photos of Tobin to me, including many from when Tobin was torn down, which I'll post soon.) This photo looks like Tobin after a nuclear holocaust. Look at the barren ground, and notice how hard the flag is flapping. Haunting. But a great-looking building nevertheless.

Luther Burbank (above). (This photo is courtesy of Sherry Cofer-Logan.) Enlarge this one, and take a close look at it. This is in Burbank? Of course, I saw it all the time, but why was I so oblivious to it as a kid?

St. Albert's (above). I've never been inside St. Albert's. (For church, my family attended St. Fabian's, so my experience of St. Albert's was limited to their carnival). What's a shopping cart doing locked to the hand-rail?

Fry (above). For my money, this is the ugliest school in the district. I attended Fry from 1973-74 for third and fourth grades. I wrote my first piece of creative writing here, a play about a fat superhero who slips inside of a phone booth to change into his costume and gets stuck. And here I am, thirty-four years later, still thinking up ridiculous ideas. Thank you, Fry.

Byrd (above). I suppose if you use your imagination, you can see some Frank Lloyd Wright influences...maybe? (I know, I know, I'm stretching here, but it's not as bad as Fry or the others below.)

And now we come to two schools that are more or less interchangeable: McCord (above) and Kennedy (below). Try to find the differences. Can you? I have to say, though, that these are some sad-looking schools.

Kennedy (above). I attended Kennedy from 1975-79, from fifth through eighth grade. I spent sixth grade in the mobile units out back. Our teacher (let's call him Mr. L.) was a compulsive smoker, and so he would sometimes go into the bathroom and light one up on the sly. The problem was that smoke would come rolling out of the vents. Another time, after he'd driven through a bad snow storm to get to work, he sat in front of the class and told us that he needed a cigarette, and he didn't care if we reported him; and then he pulled out a pack, lit a cigarette, and smoked it in front of us in silence. Ah...the seventies!

Maddock (above). Maddock was my first grade school in Burbank: 1971-72, for first and second grade. It looks a little bit like a factory with that smoke stack popping up out of the roof. Believe it or not, I attended two other schools before Maddock -- one in Argo and one (briefly) in Houston, Texas. Maddock was the third school I attended for first grade; I had fallen so far behind that a girl in my first-grade class at Maddock offered to do all my homework for me. And guess what? I let her. (I'm still in her debt!)

Who Is This Man?

2008-05-01T14:19:00.004-04:00

Oh, wait. It's Burbank's Mayor, Harry Klein.

I had already moved out of Burbank by the time Harry Klein became mayor, so I don't know anything about this man, except this... When my novel The Book of Ralph came out, I sent him a copy of the book, along with a letter explaining how it was a love song to Burbank, and how it featured several Burbank businesses, many of which were no longer there. Now, I wasn't expecting him to send me a key to the city -- though how cool would it have been to hang a ginormous key on my wall? -- but I was sort of (kind of) expecting a short note, because, well, how many books are set in Burbank? You know? You can probably already guess where this is going. I heard nothing from him, or from anyone in the mayor's office. So, my running joke now has been that I'm going to run for mayor of Burbank and dethrone him. My platform can be, "I'll bring back the Sheridan Drive-in!" What do you think? Do I have a shot?

Hey, I'm sure he's a good guy. Right? I don't know anything about him, so if you want to leave comments, feel free (though please avoid saying anything libelous or defamatory...I'd hate to get sued). And a note to those who don't know me: I'm just teasing Mr. Klein and the mayor's office. No hard feelings.

A future post: Fitz.

Ford City General Cinema

2008-04-26T17:26:00.006-04:00

Remember this? (You see? The Internet is actually good for something.)

I saw dozens of movies at Ford City Theaters, so I'll just hit the high points.

On November 8, 1975, my tenth birthday, my father took me to see Jaws. For those of you too young to remember, Jaws marked the beginning of the "blockbuster" movie (to the detriment of the film business, in my opinion, but that's another story). Anyway, this was the first movie I remember going to where every single seat was taken. My father, brother, and I sat in the last row. I still remember the collective scream from the audience when the bones of a corpse appear in one of the porthole windows.

I saw Star Wars here, too. Lines for Star Wars wrapped around the theater. Every show, hour after hour, week after week, month after month, was sold out. This was the first movie that people went to repeatedly -- five, six, fifteen times. The local news ran stories on how many times some people went to see it. Every time you drove by Ford City, you saw the lines. I wasn't one of the first to see it; I waited months, after the lines had begun to dwindle, if only a little bit. Hard to believe, but the same was true for Superman, which I also saw at Ford City.

I forced my mother to take me to see Steve Martin in The Jerk. It was Rated R; I needed a guardian. My mother, despite thinking it was "stupid" (her word, not mine), laughed the entire time. (She hated admitting that she actually enjoyed it, so I frequently teased her about it!) A highlight, though, was seeing the preview for Kubrick's The Shining: gallons of blood pour from a closed elevator, so much blood that furniture outside the elevator floats away. That was the entire preview, but man oh man, was it effective!

In high school, I reviewed movies for Reavis' newspaper, The Blueprint, and there were some days when I would go to Ford City Theaters for a matinee and then slip into another movie afterward. One day, I saw three movies in a row. If memory serves me correctly, two of the movies were Prince of the City and Southern Comfort; I can't remember the third. I justified sneaking in because, well, the candy and Cokes were so damned expensive.

In the '80s, I saw several forgettable movies at the less memorable Ford City East Theaters, though the one notable movie I saw there (probably a dozen times the month it was released) was Fast Times at Ridgemont High. I saw it so many times, I ran out of money. I had to stand in the parking lot and ask someone for a dime or quarter. Sad, folks. Very sad.

The very last movie I saw at the main Ford City Theater was a midnight showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show -- an appropriate end to an era (for me, at least). This was the fall of 1982. By spring of '83, I was working as an usher at Orland Square's movie theater (I know: I'm a traitor), and by the following fall, I had moved away.

Good times.

Photos Needed

2008-04-26T15:11:00.004-04:00

If you have any photos of old Burbank -- or recent photos of still-exisiting but old Burbank establishments -- I'd love to be able to post them. You can email them to me here: bookofralph@aol.com

Here are some places I'd love to have photos of...

Goldblatt's (or any store in that shopping center)
Korvette's
Henry's Hamburgers
Topps
Sayre Lounge
Cezar's Inn

Those are just a few off the top of my head...I'm open to any photos, however.

Thanks! John

Where We Shopped: Burbank Records

2008-04-24T18:16:00.007-04:00

Location: 79th and Austin

Burbank Records was originally located on the northwest corner of 79th and Austin, in that little strip of shops there (I have no idea what's there now, or if anything is there, for that matter). As with most of my postings, my dates are a little fuzzy, but the earliest I remember Burbank Records was 1975. I absolutely loved this placed. Frickin' loved it!

The guy who ran the store reminded me of an ex-hippie ("ex" meaning that he had cut his hair and trimmed his beard). The store still sold paraphenalia (pipes, mostly), as did a lot of independent record stores back then. I was nine years old for most of 1975 (my birthday is November), and I earned my living walking dogs. In fact, I actually made a pretty good buck doing it. My family had just moved into the condos over by Reavis, and so I spent a fair amount of my time biking down to Burbank Records with a pocketful of dog-walking money, walking up and down the store's aisles, deciding which album I would buy each week.

I bought dozens of albums there, but a few that I remember are Cheech and Chong's Sleeping Beauty and

George Carlin's On the Road. When I brought the Carlin up to the counter, the proprietor asked, "Do your parents mind you listening to this?" I said they didn't mind -- which was true -- and then named off the other George Carlin albums I owned. That was all he needed for confimation: He slipped the album into a bag and rang it up. Five bucks!

I'd like to think that I was one of his best customers, and maybe I was. He spent a lot of time talking to me, and I got the feeling that things weren't always going well for him, though I have no idea why I thought that. (I spent a lot of time listening to older people when I was a kid, which is strange because, where I live now, neighborhood kids wouldn't think twice about talking to me or asking me for any advice or hanging around while I told them stories about my life, and yet that's how I passed a lot of my time as a kid.)

Flashforward: Summer of '76. The owner of Burbank Records knew that I was a huge Elton John fan (remember: Elton John was a mega-star in 1976, at his peak, and he often had not one but two or three albums in the top 40), and he had a stack of tickets for the upcoming Elton John concert at the Chicago Stadium. He was scalping them for twelve bucks a pop, and he wanted to know if I wanted to buy one. (The face value of the ticket was only six bucks. Six bucks!) My parents, unfazed by the scalping, stipulated that I could go if my brother, who was six years older, went along with me; my brother agreed, but on one condition: I had to buy his ticket for him, which meant I had to come up with twenty-four bucks. Somehow -- I have no idea how -- I did, and while I worked on scraping together the money, the store's owner held two tickets for me. "You're good for it," he told me.

I still have the concert program...and, in fact, the ticket stub. A short while after the concert, I stopped off at Burbank Records and bought the disasterous Elton John double album, Blue Moves. The owner, as I recollect, may have even knocked a few bucks off the price for me.

The guy, whose name I wish I could remember, eventually sold Burbank Records. On his last day in the store, he gave me some advice on life and then, reaching over and ruffling my hair, told me that I was a good kid.

I have no idea who the new owner was; I'm not sure I ever did. By the time Burbank Records moved across the street, to the southwest corner of 77th and Austin, I had pretty much quit going there. The last time I went was when they were having their going out-of-business sale, probably around 1981. I stocked up on cheap cassettes by bands like the B-52s and The Kings. I may even have bought a Jim Steinman cassette that day, if anyone remembers him. ("Rock and Roll Dreams Come True," anyone?)

Burbank Records was, to my mind, one of the few stores that truly gave Burbank character, and when it dissolved, the city lost something rather unique.

New Post Coming Wednesday...or Thursday

2008-04-21T09:59:00.003-04:00

Just got back from Comic Con in New York. It's a massive convention for comic book lovers. I was there to promote my anthology of short stories featuring brand-new superheroes. The highlight? I saw Lou "The Hulk" Ferrigno there. He's 56 years old, but let me tell you: the dude is still ripped! Anyway, check back later this week for a new post.

Where We Ate: R & D's Ice Cream

2008-04-16T09:34:00.003-04:00

Location: southeast corner of 79th and Narragansett.

(photo, circa 1981)

As you can see from the photo, this was a grim little place...and yet I went there all the time. We didn't have a Dairy Queen in Burbank, and, as I remember, the ice cream at R&D's was pretty damned good. The place was run by what I assumed were a husband and wife, though I couldn't say for sure. They never engaged in small talk. In fact, they rarely, if ever, cracked a smile.

My most vivid memory of R&D's? A girlfriend dumped me in the parking lot after I bought us both milkshakes. (That's cold, man. Cold.)

Ah, R&D's.

Where We Ate: Duke's

2008-04-15T19:50:00.009-04:00

Location: 8115 South Harlem (Bridgeview)

My order:

1 Beef, extra extra juicy (dipped), no peppers.
1 Large Fry
1 Diet Coke

Still hungry? Top it off with a milkshake.

I'm also a huge fan of Duke's cheeseburgers. The Italian Sausage -- extra red sauce -- is an old favorite as well.

Let me tell you...once you get a few miles outside of Chicago, you're not going to find a good Italian Beef, if you can find one at all. No one where I live now -- in Winston-Salem, North Carolina -- has a frickin' clue what an Italian beef even is. (The pizza here sucks, too.) I remember when I moved to Iowa City in 1987 and ordered an Italian sausage sandwich, and it came out looking like a hamburger: a round flattened patty on a bun. And I was like, "What the hell is this?" I say this for the benefit of all of you (or "you's," in true South-Side-speak) who still live in and around Chicago. You can piss and moan about the long winters all you want and no one will blame you, but you have no idea how good you have it food-wise.

If you want to see Duke's old sign, click here. And if you want to salivate over your keyboard, their menu is here. (My favorite item: "Piece of Bread. $1.25.")

I dedicated a chapter to Duke's in my novel The Book of Ralph. The owners were then kind enough to let me do a book-signing there; they've also been displaying a poster for the book going on four years now. How did I repay them? I inserted a scene in my next novel, America's Report Card, in which two inmates argue about the best beef sandwich joints in the Chicago area. Duke's, of course, was one of them. Look: Some filmmakers and TV stars use product placement so they'll get free luxury cars, free jewelry, or free vacations to exotic lands. Me? I'll go for the free beef sandwich every time.

Long live Duke's!

Ford City Shopping Center

2008-04-13T08:13:00.009-04:00

Location: 7601 S Cicero Ave, Chicago

When I was in grade school, I frequently walked to Ford City. The problem with walking there was that it took me into unfamiliar parts of Burbank, where I didn’t know any of the kids, or down State Road, where you didn’t want to run into any high school thugs, or across Cicero Avenue, where a semi was likely to flatten you.

My friend and I usually entered Ford City through the Wieboldt’s. (I believe it later became Carson Pirie Scott’s.) Even back then, Wieboldt’s seemed like an old person’s store. They gave away S&H Green Stamps with purchases. (Our kitchen drawers at home were always full of S&H Green Stamp booklets, but I can remember only one time that my mother actually cashed them in.)

Here are a few stores I remember:

Woolworth’s (another old person’s store, it seemed to me), and though I didn’t appreciate it at the time, Woolworth’s had a stand-alone diner in the middle of the hall outside the store. I’m not sure if I ever ate there, however. Probably not. I wish I had.

When I was really young, my favorite store was a bookstore that was close to one of the south entrances. This would have been before WaldenBooks opened in the mall. I want to say that the name of the store was Printer’s Ink, but I could be wrong. It was mostly a card-and-stationary store, with a few books. Even so, I would spend hours there looking at the few books they had. (These were desperate times, friends.)

Close to the bookstore was another store that sold Hammond or Wurlitzer organs. Did they sell pianos, too? Not sure. I never saw anyone in there, except the salesman.

There was an electronics store in that wing as well. This is where I got my first VCR, back in 1978 or ’79. The damned thing cost over a thousand dollars, and my father had to finance it; and I spent the next several years paying it off with money I made walking dogs or selling stuff at the flea market. (One blank videotape cost between $20 and $25!)

(Were these Orange Julius decals fuzzy? Am I thinking of some other iron-on decal?)

Orange Julius was another high point. My memory is that it was once located downstairs in Peacock Alley, but maybe it had always been upstairs.

The real highlight, of course, was Peacock Alley. There was a stairwell with all the names of Peacock Alley’s businesses painted every which way on the wall as you walked down. Many of the businesses had closed years earlier, but that didn’t stop me from wondering if I was somehow simply not seeing them, such as the camera store that was purportedly down there. I probably asked every proprietor of every store in Peacock Alley if they knew anything about the camera store. No one did. I even asked a security guard once, who thought I was crazy.

Highlights of Peacock Alley:

I seem to remember a head shop when you first walked down the stairs, but maybe I just made this up for my novel and have since come to believe it was there when it wasn’t. Does anyone else remember this?

What I do remember clearly was the record store. It was surrounded by a short wrought-iron fence, and it was close enough to Nickelodeon Pizza that you could smell the food. (What I loved about Nickelodeon Pizza was that it had a bar to the right when you first walked in. The first time I felt old enough to sit at the bar and order a slice of pizza, it was 1979, and I had just graduated eighth grade and was wearing a t-shirt with a “Class of ‘83” iron-on decal. I may even have flirted with the girl working behind the counter, or vice-verse. I felt so…adult.)

Another memory: My mother frequently took me to the beauty school – because haircuts were cheaper there – and I always left with crooked bangs, or some other minor mishap.

Later on, there was an arcade down there, but it was a rather sad and grim place.

One of the best parts of walking through Peacock Alley was emerging all the way across the parking lot, not far from the bowling alley, if I’m remembering this correctly. The whole trip to Ford City -- the walk there; the time spent in Peacock Alley; the movie we'd go to (if we went to a movie); the long walk home -- was a true adventure back then.

Okay, I’ll post more about Ford City later on. I’ll give Ford City General Cinemas its own post.

What stores do you remember? If you remember specific years that the store existed, please list those, too.

Where We Ate: Kojak Drive-In

2008-04-11T19:03:00.000-04:00

Place: Kojak Drive-In (The name on the sign is Kojak, but everyone I know calls it Kojak's)
Location: 79th and Central

Okay, so I'll need some help on this one. My memory of the order of things goes like this: Before Kojak's, there was Henry's Hamburgers (on the northwest corner of 79th and Cicero). I loved Henry's. Was their sign that of a giant, smiling hamburger? Was the hamburger personified to look like someone? Am I making this up? I'm not sure. But this was where my mother would take me, sometimes over the short school lunch for a treat. Then Kojak's opened. I want to say it opened around 1975 or '76. In one of the comments, someone wrote that Kojak's used to be a Church's Chicken. Does anyone else remember this? Kojak did a swift lunch business, but then around 1978 or '79, McDonald's opened just a little ways down the road. (Are these years correct? I could be way off here.) So, that's my short -- very short -- history of hamburgers between 79th and Central and 79th and Cicero, though I'm thinking that there was another place, a little hamburger stand near McDonald's, that I'm forgetting. But maybe it was an ice cream stand. Help me out! Also, does anyone know why Kojak's is named Kojak's? I mean, it opened about the time that the Telly Savalas show Kojak was well-known, if not still on TV...but that doesn't explain it, does it? I'm guessing that's a coincidence.

I ate at Kojak's fairly regularly because my good friend, Joe, lived behind Speedway, which used to be the much smaller (but a whole hell of a lot scarier) Purple Martin; what I ate, in great quantity, were the cheeseburgers and the beefs, and, of course, the fries at Kojak's. Last year, I was teaching at Columbia College, and on a whim (and after a few too many drinks downtown), I took the train to Midway and then a cab to, well, The Castle. It was a slow night, and after a few too many drinks at The Castle, I decided to go to Kojak's and call a cab. Two observations: 1) I don't think Kojak's has put one penny in remodeling in thirty years; and 2) the double cheeseburger I ordered was one of the best double cheeseburgers I'd ever had in my life! Seriously. I ate the fries in the cab all the way back downtown. It was a ludicrously expensive night, but the Kojak's double cheeseburger almost made it worthwhile. Almost.

(photo courtesy of Renee Greco)

Where We Shopped: Zayre

2008-04-09T16:54:00.000-04:00

Location: Southfield Plaza Shopping Center (Bridgeview), where the now-defunct Dominick's stands. (Dominick's, by the way, used to be where the Hobby Lobby now is.)

Why this was, I don't know, but my father favored Zayre while my mother favored Kmart. (My father's absolute favorite store was a place called Stark's, which I'll write about in another post.) Between Zayre and Kmart, I always preferred going to Kmart with my mother because she let me wander off to the record department, where, at the end of one aisle, all the Top 40 45s were on display. My father, on the other hand, made me stay with him, and so I spent a lot of time in Zayre in departments that held no interest to me: automotive, mostly; or the place where they kept their insulated coveralls and gloves. (My father was a roofer, so I spent a good deal of my childhood hanging out with my father while he examined insulated work clothes.)

My favorite part of Zayre was the photo booth at the front of the store. My father would use this photo booth whenever he needed a black-and-white photo for an I.D. As much as I begged, I was rarely allowed to use the photo booth myself. Photo booth photos were too expensive, a luxury, but on at least two occasions, I was given enough money for photos. Here's one of me and my father, probably taken around 1970 when I was five. (It's unfathomable to me that I'm now five years older than my father was in this photo. Take a close look: even my father's hat was insulated.)

One time, when both of my parents took me to Zayre, my mother let me wander off to Zayre's record department, probably against my father's wishes. I had to go to the bathroom, so I took a detour; but I was gone so long that my mother and father both thought that I had been kidnapped. Apparently, they looked everywhere but couldn't find me, so they had me paged, but I didn't hear it. I eventually resurfaced, of course, and they were relieved, but I'm certain this was the last time I was allowed to wander off in Zayre alone. Years later, when I was in high school or away at college, there was in fact a kidnapping in this very Zayre, so my parents' fear wasn't entirely ungrounded. Ironically, Kmart remained unrestricted territory for me, and I was still able to go wherever I pleased.

One last note: I almost always went to Zayre in the dead of night, an hour or so before closing time, probably because I went with my father, who didn't get home from work until fairly late; and I remember, more than once, staring at the illuminated Zayre sign and thinking, What IS Zayre? What does it mean? I never thought this about Dominick's or Jewel or Kmart, even. Maybe because it sounded exotic. And maybe it sounded exotic because it began with a Z. Who knows.

Zayre was a nationwide chain that finally went belly-up in 1990. RIP.

Haunted Trails

2008-04-08T06:54:00.000-04:00

Location: 7759 S Harlem Ave

Other people will have to help me out here, because I can't remember when Haunted Trails opened, and what I do remember may be a little hazy. All I remember from the 1970s are the miniature golf course and batting cages. On rare occasions -- very rare occasions (maybe two or three times?) -- my parents took me and my brother to Haunted Trails to play miniature golf. There was something surreal about going there at night, the way it could be pitch-black out while the golf course was illuminated like a movie set. I never chipped any of the golf balls into traffic, but this was a pretty common occurrence. (In grade school, I was a fat kid, and pretty unathletic to boot, so I avoided the batting cages altogether.) By high school, Haunted Trails became part of the official dating circuit: you could go to a movie at Ford City or Chicago Ridge Mall, or you could go to Haunted Trails.

It wasn't until 1982 that I began frequenting Haunted Trails with a degree of obsession that I probably haven't experienced since. I'd recently been dumped by my girlfriend, so my friend Joe and I started paying the arcade at Haunted Trails daily -- sometimes twice-daily -- visits. I bought tokens by the fistfuls, and then Joe and I would wander around, staking claim to our favorite games.

The first video game I ever played was Pong in 1980, which you hooked up to your TV: It was a black and white image of a ball going from one side of the TV screen to the other. Each person had a paddle, and your sole objective was to make sure that the ball didn't get past you. The only adjustment that you could make was how fast the ball would go. The second game I played was Frogger in 1981; I played it in a grocery store in either Normal or Champaign.

Haunted Trails, however, was my first legitimate arcade. I loved the electronic noises. I loved the the sound of tokens filling the tray of the coin machine. And even though I was going through a period of pathological shyness, I loved the girls who'd come in and sometimes flirt.

I'm sure I played Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man, but our favorites were Tron and Pengo. Tron, especially. I'm sure Joe and I weren't the best Tron players at Haunted Trails, but we were certainly in the top rung, and there were days when we were playing the upper levels that a small crowd would gather behind us to watch. I was skinny in high school (but still unathletic) and wore a Members Only jacket (actually, it was a Members Only knockoff), and I bought my clothes at Chess King in Chicago Ridge Mall, and I felt that I was on the cutting edge of...something. I wasn't sure what, though.

I never got into Skee Ball at Haunted Trails, and the couple of times I returned there after high school, the place had expanded too much for my tastes. One thing I've noticed is that when you meet people from other parts of Chicago who have never heard of Burbank and have no idea where it is (and, believe me, there are millions of such people), there's still a pretty good chance that they'll have heard of, or remember seeing, Haunted Trails. It may be Burbank's most enduring landmark.

Memories, anyone?

Creature Features

2008-04-06T13:33:00.000-04:00

Creature Features ran on WGN from the fall of 1970 until 1976. Every Saturday night, after the ten o'clock news, you could watch a classic horror movie -- usually a monster movie featuring Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, Dracula, or the Mummy...but occasionally you'd get to see one of the creepy psychological horror movies, or something lesser known, like Bela Lugosi in The Black Cat.

I was five when the show first aired, and I remember begging my mother to let me stay up. On nights when she wouldn't, I sometimes turned on the tiny black-and-white TV, anyway, but often fell asleep before the movie ended. My mother, to her credit, never punished me for not obeying.

Sometimes, the best part of Creature Features was the opening montage of movie clips and the voice-over of Carl Greyson and, later, WGN anchorman Marty McNeely reading a poem about ghoulish ghouls. There's something to be said for the days when every movie wasn't readily available via NetFlix or Amazon, when you had to wait (sometimes years!) to see a particular movie, and when a ridiculous little show on a local TV station was an actual event.

If you haven't ever seen Creature Features -- or if you haven't seen it in over thirty years -- check out the opening.

Radio, Radio: What Burbank Listened To

2008-04-04T10:04:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, while driving to work, the Rod Stewart song "You're in My Heart" came on. I was about to change it, but for pure nostalgia's sake, I left it on.

There's that part in the song when Rod sings, "You're a rhapsody, a comedy/
You're a symphony and a play..." Well, as a kid, I had always thought he was saying, "You're a wrapped sardine." Which, of course, makes no sense. But a lot of things didn't make sense to me when I was a kid. Anyway, yesterday, I began thinking about all the other lyrics I had misheard. (Remember: We couldn't Google song lyrics. The best we could do was buy a copy of the magazine Song Lyrics or Hit Parader).

My family moved around quite a bit when I was kid. We lived in the apartments behind House of Camping, an apartment around 79th and Normandy, the condos over around 77th and Austin, and then, finally, a house in the 82nd block of Rutherford. For some reason, my memories of listening to the radio are most strongly connected to the apartment on 79th Street, when I was in third and fourth grades. I listened to WLS. I believe Bob Sirott may have been on WLS back then, but I distinctly remember listening to Larry Lujack.

To give you a sense of the times...if I wanted to tape a song, which I frequently did, I would hold a bulky cassette recorder up to the radio and then press down both the play and red record buttons. The microphone, of course, picked up every sound: me breathing, my mother calling for me, car horns outside. In 1973, 45s were about fifty cents each; occasionally, you'd find a three-for-a-dollar special. In grade school, I gauged pretty much all inflation by the price of a 45.

Every week, for several years, I would go with my mother to Kmart so that I could pick up the most recent Top Forty list. As you'll see below, the Top Forty songs would be listed on the right; the top-selling albums on the right. A D.J. was always featured on the sheet as well. A thrill was seeing what color that week's list would be. (Yes, it was the early '70s. Before videotapes, even. Before cable. Before video games. It didn't take much to thrill me back then.)

In high school, I woke up in the mornings to "Animal Stories," the irreverent show that starred Uncle Larry (Lujack) and Li'l Tommy (Edwards). (I may even have owned an "Animal Stories" album, come to think of it.) Meanwhile, The Loop was piped into the lunchroom at Reavis, and it was there, my freshman year, that I heard about the death of Led Zepplin's drummer, John Bonham.

One summer when I returned home from college, I took a job working in a small electronics company, where I was in charge of Shipping and Receiving. This was 1985 or '86. A guy I worked with -- Joe -- was in charge of the radio, and so we listened all morning to Steve Dahl, which was fine, but then I had to listen to some Easy Listening station all afternoon, which wasn't fine. (Every frickin' day, I would hear Neil Diamond's cheesy E.T. tribute, "Heartlight," a song that still inspires me to want to smash the radio.)

I've barely touched on music here, so I'm sure I'll be coming back to it often, but in the meantime, tell me what station you listened to?
What lyrics did you hear wrong?
And what other major radio events do you remember? (Did anyone go to Disco Demolition?)

The Sheridan Drive-in

2008-04-02T13:12:00.001-04:00

Location: roughly the corner of the 79th and Harlem (the entrance was on Harlem, just past Haunted Trails).

Ah, the Sheridan Drive-In! It had a movie screen so large that you could sometimes see, as far away as K-Mart, naked people (women, mostly) doing unthinkable things. This was one of the few great joys of my childhood in the '70s -- trying to see what was playing on the movie screen, even when we weren't actually at the drive-in, and hoping it was something I wasn't supposed to see.

I wish I had a list of all the movies I saw there. I must have seen at least fifty movies at the Sheridan, from the late '60s through the mid '70s. I know I saw several Planet of the Apes movies there. I also saw Enter the Dragon, maybe even The Chinese Connection. I saw Gus, the movie about the football playing donkey. I saw a lot of "women in prison" movies; these were usually the second movie, and I usually fell asleep during them.

What did you see there?

What are your memories of The Sheridan?

Let me know if you have any photos! I'd love to post them.

Nostalgia for Burbank?

2008-04-02T12:58:00.000-04:00

This blog is designed for the purposes of sharing memories, photos, and triva about the 'burb that time forgot: Burbank. Nope, not California. Burbank, Illinois. My hope is that, through this blog, I can recreate (with your help), the history of Burbank, but in order to do so, I'll need your help and suggestions. I'll especially need your photos, especially any photos of Burbank landmarks from the '60s, '70s, and '80s. Occasionally, I'll drift to nearby cities where we Burbankians would shop, eat, or play.

Why am I doing this? I was born in 1965 at Christ Hospital (then Christ Community), lived up and down Harlem Avenue, but eventually settled in Burbank in 1971. I attended Maddock, Fry, and Kennedy; and then I attended Reavis. I moved away in 1983 to go to college, occasionally returning home for summers. Since most of the fiction I write is set in or around Burbank, I spend a lot of time talking to old friends and emailing with acquaintances about various places, and what I discovered was an intense nostalgia for Burbank (something I would never have imagined when I moved away twenty-five years ago).

So, welcome! And please join the fun.