Northern California - You know you're old-school Bay Area when you remember...

Redspoke, here you go. This thread should be fun.



I'll start.

You know you're old-school Bay Area when you remember....

there was no BART.
there were Jitney buses on Mission St.

TV40 - Cap'n Mitch hosting afternoon cartoons (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAN3aYlSZEU)

And TV POWWW! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08JwB2XQ3zM)

Cap't Satellite used to live down the street.

Wow, this is a hella bad thread. :)

You can remember when Alcatraz was still a prison.

You were a member of the Kofy Kids Club!

When Silicon Valley was mostly prune and almond orchards. And there were fruit stands along Monterey Rd between the towns on the Peninsula.

When you can remember when Bussing started or when the national guard helicopters landed nearby to quell a student protest at SF State... or when the Black Panthers had an office in a trailer on campus right outside the student union...

Walnut Creek and walnuts, and creeks.
The only reason to go to Antioch was that you were going to the dump.
No freeway through Oakland.
Seeing another cyclist on Diablo was a very unusual thing.

When there weren't any mansions on Mt. Eden Road.
Selling corn on the side of Mt. Eden Road.
Where you were during the '89 quake.
Joe Montana and the 49ers glory days!

When Mark Spitz came to the Concord Community Pool to open it up.
ditto with all the orchards in Concord and Walnut Creek.
...and there was no traffic!

Wow, except for Stripes, you guys are REALLY old timers.

I remember when the Bay Bridge was 50¢

Wine tasting was free at most places along Hwy 29.

You needed a special card to bring your bike on BART.

Dialing for dollars with that guy who called people out of the phone book on Channel 2 (?)


You were a member of the Kofy Kids Club!

KOFY / TV20 used to have different call letters, remember what they were?

Buses were Yellow and Green with actual cushions
I knew who was faster than a speeding Bart train
Gemco stores

Your clock radio was set to KFRC to listen to Dr. Don Rose.

Dialing for dollars with that guy who called people out of the phone book on Channel 2 (?)

Pat McCormick, he also did the voices of the puppets Charlie (horse) and Humphrey (dog) and the weather on the 10 o'clock news. Now that is great local TV on budget. One guy, three gigs.

Here is a story about him from SF Gate (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/parenting/detail?blogid=29&entry_id=16529)

Roller Derby on Channel 2 Saturday afternoons.
MarineWorld was in San Mateo.
Coke bottling plant in SF.
Doggie Diner.

Doggie Diner.

As much as everyone really digs the logo the food was awful. There was one just three blocks away on Geary & 25th before it become Tokyo Slop.. I mean Stop.

Yeah, Cap'n Satellite, Romper Room too, Romper Stomper Do
Getting your car rocked by black panther students while you gas up in North Oakland, pretty scary for a 6 year old. Owner of station walks out with a shotgun.
The old AC Transit logo on the buses.
Having your mom drive up to the Berkeley Campus so you can see the riots.

Wow, except for Stripes, you guys are REALLY old timers.

Yeah, I'm more of an aspiring old timer. I'm as old school as you can get while still being 26 :thumb:

Few things I can remember from the so far listed items except for the '89 earthquake (I was in my office in Foster City and living in the San Mateo hills at the time), the Joe Montana era (after suffering watching the boring Raiders during my 3 year stint in LA the Niners were a Renaissance), and Pat McCormick on channel 2 (he was a fun character to watch).
I arrived in the Bay Area in 1986, there were still some orchards in the San Jose/Palo Alto corridor but not many left.

Roller Derby on Channel 2 Saturday afternoons.MarineWorld was in San Mateo.
Coke bottling plant in SF.
Doggie Diner.

In Sacramento, there was Big Time Wrestling on ch.40 every Saturday afternoon. Live from the Memorial Auditorium.

http://homepage.mac.com/viktor2/btw/unconPatSac.jpg

When cargo was still being unloaded in the piers of the Embarcadero. I still remember trains running along the waterfront.

"Steven Matthew David*Top of the hill*Daly City"

Pacific Stereo

The Record Factory

In Sacramento, there was Big Time Wrestling on ch.40 every Saturday afternoon. Live from the Memorial Auditorium.



How could I forget about that. My dad loved wrestling and I used to watch it with him on the fuzzy UHF ch....Pat Patterson, Rocky Johnson and Chief Peter Maivia. He would yell at the wrestlers in Chinese. That was pretty funny. :lol:

Sonic booms from Hamilton AFB
Interstate 80 was called "The Superhighway"
You had to explain to people in Richmond where Pinole and Rodeo are.
We used to go camping where Hilltop Mall is.
Remember the giant vegetable stand on San Pablo Dam Road?
Duck and Cover! There was an air raid siren on Hilltop Drive.
El Portel drive was "Road 20".

VeloSport was on Grove Street



Roller Derby on Channel 2 Saturday afternoons.


I grew up in Iowa, we watched the Bay Area Bombers every week on Roller Derby... I thought it was Green Bay or something.

the N-Judah was green with beige trim.

at Top of the hill-Daly City Stereo and TV, you get this red/yellow trim ten speed with a stereo purchase.



"Steven Matthew David*Top of the hill*Daly City"

Pacific Stereo

The Record Factory

OMFG the flashbacks!!!!!!!!! :roflmao2:
Playland at the beach in SF! Who can forget the terror of having to get past Laughing Sal to get into the Funhouse. And the roller derby, and the ice skating rink out in the avenues. The Doggie Diner at the bottom of Sloat, the other one up on 19th Ave. Racing over to a friends house to watch Speed Racer, because he got uhf channels.
And just to mention a bike thing - my beloved Schwinn Sting Ray with the banana seat and sissy bar.
Fizzies! Space Sticks, which we ate because the astronauts ate them, and they were awfull but we ate them anyway, by the box full.

at Top of the hill-Daly City Stereo and TV, you get this red/yellow trim ten speed with a stereo purchase.

Funny you mention that.

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=481662

LOL, guess I should've went up the threads instead of down.

Biking all over Redwood Park, single track and all. I guess you can't call it mountain biking as it was a 5 speed stingray. Too bad we can't do that anymore. :(

Jeff

I was on Mayor Art's show... I'll be seeing you... SUB SE QUENT LYYYYYY!!!!"

My hippie wife lived out here in the summer of love...Lot of storys there, she sold weed to the trumpet Player for "Malo"

http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa292/taxi777/DVC00026-1.jpg

Oh man, top of the hill Daly City... haha
Yup, I remember when Marine World was still in Redwood City.
Dialing for dollars.

Who was that guy who used to do the Monster hour? (I forget the name... it was on Ch 2)
Ahh - Creature Feature! (thanks to SteelBlue on the Firenze thread)


How about "Downtown Datsun?" -anyone remember those commercials?

- Mt Umunhum still having the rotating radar
- When Monterey highway and 101 in South San Jose were just roads, and to get on you stopped at a stop sign?


[Edit: I thought of some more]

- Wherehouse music store

- Gold Circle (Gemco, oh man... flashbacks)




dang, talk about memories. Good thread

Buses were Yellow and Green with actual cushions
I knew who was faster than a speeding Bart train
Gemco stores

Ah yes, Gemco... and in Stockton there was a Rosco store that I remember fondly.

- Wherehouse music store

dang, talk about memories. Good thread

Haha, I worked at a Wherehouse music in Stockton for a couple of years.
It was next door to a Best Showroom store (where I worked at briefly too).
*side note: I remember when I got the first opportunity after turning 18, I bought a Ruger 10/22 rifle from that Best store. No background check, no waiting period, just walked out with my new rifle and ammo :D I returned it when I realized I would never use it.

Ah, I remember Gemco and Best. The Best store in Sacramento was a large, completely plain, beige building made of brick, aside from one thing: The lower corner of the building slid out on rails to reveal the doors. After hours, it would slide back into place, giving the appearance that the building just didn't have a door. It was so cool.

Now it's Yet Another Best Buy. The doors are still in the same place, but the exterior of the building was changed to look like every other Best Buy. Meh.

Oh man! Best! I used to go to that store like 1x/week with my family.
You could order something, and it would come down the conveyer as you paid your bill.
I think I got my first stereo there.

Ok, a couple more I thought of...

Bullocks
I. Magnin & Co
Emporium (<- are they still around?)
As a young boy, I got dragged around with my mom + sisters to go shopping, so I guess I remember more of those stores, chuckle.


Some Gemco pics I found:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/storeadventures/2858509644/http://www.flickr.com/photos/storeadventures/2858509644/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/storeadventures/2705833944/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/storeadventures/2705833944/
How about the fountain when it used to be inside Eastridge mall?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mindcage2000/2592577907/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mindcage2000/2592577907/

How about Alpha Beta and Frys stores before it became Frys Electronics?

But in Fremont, that'll be the Baylands track by Nitwitz freeway, or was it Nimitz LOL.

This is about the only picture I could find of the place:

http://www.metropolismag.com/images/images_0403/bst/notch_op051_t.jpg

The structure on the left was moveable, and could close up the building. Must've been a tough place to break into. :)

Apparently Best had five or six architecturally interesting stores around the country. One looked like it was collapsing, another looked like the whole thing was on a tilt, one had trees growing out of it... cool stuff. I wish more companies would bother to make their buildings interesting, instead of just "looking like all the rest".

When SamTrans was new.

@x136 - whoa, cool pic!
I've never seen anything like that before. Very interesting :thumb:

When there were weekly fights between Asians and Chicanos at Jefferson High in Daly City.

Carol Doda and Channel 36
The 38 Geary only went to Balboa & Ocean Beach. 31 Balboa end of line was 32nd ave.

Playland in SF, and back then I think you could get baby red eared sliders there, too.

Speaking of Best stores, I live pretty close to the one that used to be in Campbell, on the corner of San Tomas X-way & Hamilton Ave. It was pretty cool how the corner moved in and out, but, alas, it and the Denny's that used to share that corner got torn down for a blah hotel of some sort.

I remember...

Frontier Village Amusement Park (http://www.defunctparks.com/parks/CA/frontiervillage/frontier.htm) (which is the only place I can ever remember fishing for trout in an amusement park)


Liberty House department stores



When Interstate 880 used to be Highway 17



When the east bay used to be part of the 415 area code

When CalTrain (which I think was called "The SP" for Southern Pacific) had smoking cars.
The all wood square box store on El Camino (where Frye's Palo Alto is) was a Banana Records (and I went with my brother to buy The White Album).
When Prince Lightfoot would dance before every Stanford Indians football game (and the Stanford Band actually sounded good)
When you could take a boat into the Palo Alto Yacht Harbor
Then Terman Jr. High became the Jewish Community Center
There was no San Mateo Bridge

Who was that guy who used to do the Monster hour? (I forget the name... it was on Ch 2)
Ahh - Creature Feature! (thanks to SteelBlue on the Firenze thread)




Bob Wilkins (sp??)


The Niners played at Kezar.
The Warriors played at the Cow Palace during the 75 playoff.
The Giants had Mays roaming center field.
Drag racing on the Great Highway (where I blew the cylinder head on my Toyota Celica).
Before the current rice rockets, the car to hot rod was the Datsun 240z.

Bob Wilkins (sp??)


The Niners played at Kezar.
The Warriors played at the Cow Palace during the 75 playoff.
The Giants had Mays roaming center field.

Yup. He moved to Sacramento in the 70s.

http://www.bobwilkins.net/photo/sactopage.jpg

Holy crap! Look what I started...

First off, let's not get all Sammy Hagar* and call Sacramento part of the Bay Area... :lol:

That Best store was the bomb. I remember waiting all day in front of that store at about age 10 to play Atari 2600 Pac-Man in hopes of winning a cocktail Pac-Man arcade console only to get in there and the game was set on level 8 (the crazy hardest skill level) and I was dead in about 10 seconds... :notamused:
And MEH! Now it's just a Best Buy. :mad:

Fox 40 is celebrating "40 years of 40" or something like that and they had a hour-long retrospective that brought back so many memories with the wrestlin', night comfort theater, and I shocked to see Pete Wilson RIP, sad, very sad :cry: . Check it out if you can. Very cool.

Now back to the other half of my upbringing... The Bay Area in the 80's. I am late to the game but I've got an unused nugget...
(bounce up and down like a ball and sing in a whiny kid voice)
PETE ELLIS DODGE
10-95 WEST EL CAMINO RE-ALLL
SUNNY-VALE

Oooh! I also remember MUDFLAT SCULPTURES IN EMERYVILLE!!! My Mom knew a guy who made a book about em'. Those were awesome!
Wow! I found the book, it's called DRIFTWOOD WHIMSY :thumb: By Doug Keister

*Sammy was greeted with enormous boos fronting Van Halen at Arco Arena a few years back by referring to Sac as "part of the Bay Area" or something like that.