When the Burbank Beat came across this Burbank business directory from June 1971 (a little over a year after the Burbank officially became a city), we reached out to author John McNally. John grew up in Burbank and set two of his novels, The Book of Ralph and America's Report Card, here. John also maintained a blog about the city for a time. We sent John a copy of this business directory to review and he was gracious enough to write this introduction for us. Many thanks John!
When I was about six months away from being done writing my book The Book of Ralph, which is set in Burbank in the late 1970s, I made a list of all the places in and around Burbank that were important to me when I was growing up, and then I wrote very short chapters about those places and put them in the book. They included Duke’s, R&D’s, Peacock Alley, and Sheridan Drive-in, among others. What I wanted was to give the book a greater sense of place, but what I hadn’t anticipated was that this was how people who grew up in the area would connect with the book. For years after the book was published, people who had grown up in Burbank – people I didn’t know – would send me links to news stories about various businesses. Or if they wrote to me specifically about the book, it was almost always to reminisce about places I had written about.
These places are our common ground, and it’s how two people who don’t know each other make a connection. Mention The Burbank Rose to someone of a certain age, and they’re likely to have a story. Mention The Dugout or Kojak or Topps or Korvette, and watch the expression of the person who recognizes that place. I just wrote a chapter for a new book about the Santa Trailer that used to be parked in Scottsdale parking lot next to Goldblatt’s. Remember that? I asked Santa for a Janis Joplin album. It was the first time I was aware of someone – in this case, Santa – doing a double-take.
At the end of the day, the places we most frequented become our life stories. How many times had I waited with my father at Service Merchandise for the stuff that we had paid for to be delivered via a conveyor belt? My father, who wasn’t a patient man, would grow angrier the longer we waited. Meanwhile, I became anxious because I knew my father was likely to create a scene. Once, he poked his head into the space where the stuff came out and yelled, “Where the hell is everybody?” I can’t hear the name of Service Merchandise without feeling a moment of anxiety and then thinking, “Good God, what a horrible idea for a store. A conveyor belt!” And then laughing at the absurdity of my father’s reaction to it all.
This list of businesses resurrected many memories, making me think about things I hadn’t thought about in years. I’ll mention only one so that you can enjoy the list for yourself: Henry’s Drive-In at 79th and Cicero. This was the place for hamburgers before there was a Kojak’s. And what I remember were those days when my mother would pick me up from school for lunch and then quickly drive me to Henry’s so that I could get a cheeseburger and fries, which I would eat in her car, a 1976 Ford Maverick, while she quickly drove me back to school. Many years later, when I was going to school in Lincoln, Nebraska, I stopped off at a rundown hamburger place, and the first bite brought back the memory of Henry’s, and I remembered what a treat it was whenever my mother decided to take me there. This list – seeing the name and location of the place – brought those memories back again.
I was happy the Burbank Beat sent this list to me. It’s like picking up a snow globe of Burbank from a decade that some days feels like ages ago and other times feels like yesterday.
John McNally, December 2014
These places are our common ground, and it’s how two people who don’t know each other make a connection. Mention The Burbank Rose to someone of a certain age, and they’re likely to have a story. Mention The Dugout or Kojak or Topps or Korvette, and watch the expression of the person who recognizes that place. I just wrote a chapter for a new book about the Santa Trailer that used to be parked in Scottsdale parking lot next to Goldblatt’s. Remember that? I asked Santa for a Janis Joplin album. It was the first time I was aware of someone – in this case, Santa – doing a double-take.
At the end of the day, the places we most frequented become our life stories. How many times had I waited with my father at Service Merchandise for the stuff that we had paid for to be delivered via a conveyor belt? My father, who wasn’t a patient man, would grow angrier the longer we waited. Meanwhile, I became anxious because I knew my father was likely to create a scene. Once, he poked his head into the space where the stuff came out and yelled, “Where the hell is everybody?” I can’t hear the name of Service Merchandise without feeling a moment of anxiety and then thinking, “Good God, what a horrible idea for a store. A conveyor belt!” And then laughing at the absurdity of my father’s reaction to it all.
This list of businesses resurrected many memories, making me think about things I hadn’t thought about in years. I’ll mention only one so that you can enjoy the list for yourself: Henry’s Drive-In at 79th and Cicero. This was the place for hamburgers before there was a Kojak’s. And what I remember were those days when my mother would pick me up from school for lunch and then quickly drive me to Henry’s so that I could get a cheeseburger and fries, which I would eat in her car, a 1976 Ford Maverick, while she quickly drove me back to school. Many years later, when I was going to school in Lincoln, Nebraska, I stopped off at a rundown hamburger place, and the first bite brought back the memory of Henry’s, and I remembered what a treat it was whenever my mother decided to take me there. This list – seeing the name and location of the place – brought those memories back again.
I was happy the Burbank Beat sent this list to me. It’s like picking up a snow globe of Burbank from a decade that some days feels like ages ago and other times feels like yesterday.
John McNally, December 2014
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