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1954: Korean boy adopted by Van Nuys GI
Photograph caption dated January 6, 1954 reads, “Johnny Vanek, of Van Nuys, turns on Roy Rogers for Kwak Young Chul, Korean orphan whom he met in Seoul while GI and plans to adopt. Youngster is taking rapidly to American ways.”
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Marijuana in the Van Nuys Jail, 1951
The presence of a little Cannabis Sativa on the premises of the Van Nuys Jail evoked some comical camera ready reactions from LAPD in 1951. The coppers are mugging for the camera, ersatz high and stoned. The plant was there to be used later that day for a lecture on the evils of the drug.…
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“College Should Be More Like Prison”
by Brooke Allen reprinted from The Wall Street Journal March 5, 2023 Many of us who care deeply about education in the humanities can only feel despair at the state of our institutions of “higher” learning. Enrollment in these subjects is plummeting, and students who take literature and history classes often come in with rudimentary…
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Winter Storm Report
There were many dramatic scenes from the “record breaking” winter storm which slammed into Southern California over the weekend: downed trees, car crashes, torrential rains, rapid water speeding down concrete channels, trees bent over in the winds, dark clouds and intermittent sunshine. The Southern California mountains were like Switzerland before global warming, buried in many…
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Million Dollar Living
For an estimated cost of about $6,000 a month you can live in a brand, spanking new, “single family” house constructed right on Sepulveda Boulevard, with a front entrance on the beautiful street, leading you into white walled, vertical living with enormous open plan kitchen, four bedrooms, 3.5 baths, several balconies and roof decks. However….…
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Return to Middleview: a short story
Cole Taro, a successful, retired, casually Jewish, Hollywood producer returns to live in his hometown and finds everything progressive, yet one evil remains unchanged. Soundtrack on Spotify Middleview, Illinois is in the middle between Chicago and Milwaukee, 45 miles in either direction. I grew up there. I left 40 years ago. I returned with my…
American Life, Anti-Semitism, Architects, Architecture, Arson, Bill Lawrence, Black Americans, Brentwood, Bungalow, Chicagoland, Christa Miller, Farmers Market, Gay People, German-Americans, Holllywood, Hollywood, Home, Illinois, Jews, Martha Tilton, Multi-Cultural, Northern Illinois, Nostalgia, Short Story, society, Steven Spielberg, Thomas Wolfe, Tom Cruise
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