The Valley Yesteryear : Sam Greenberg: His family was first of Jewish descent in Valley.

Sam Greenberg, the Sam behind Sam’s U-Drive rental business, upon returning last year from a lengthy trip overseas, said: “There’s nothing better in the world than coming back to Southern California.”

Greenberg’s affection for the Valley has not been diminished by the changes it has undergone. And he works to recapture the sense of small-town neighborliness that he remembers from his youth by being generous with his time and money.

He has donated several million dollars to charities in recent years, including $450,000 to the San Fernando Valley Assn. for the Retarded. He’s also powerful, serving as chairman of the Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners and active in many other community causes.

But he’s relaxed and down to earth, happily remembering going barefoot for much of his youth in Van Nuys, bathing on Saturdays in a tub in the kitchen and running for class office in 1927 at Van Nuys High School. His platform, printed on manila cards, was: “Experience. Pep. Ability. That’s Sammie.”

He whispers conspiratorially when he talks about those days. Smoking corn silk with childhood pals. The longtime weekly poker game among prominent Van Nuys business people, including his father, that was broken up when one of the men’s wives called the police. The scene when one of the regular Saturday-night revelers might get tipsy, and Officer Neustadter of the Los Angeles Police Department, the only law in the Valley in the early days, would order someone to ensure that the overindulger got home safe.

Greenberg’s father, Louie E. Greenberg, brought his family to Van Nuys from Norwalk in 1911 with two wagons and two horses. An illiterate Russian Jew from Kiev who nonetheless spoke English, German and Polish, he bought the new town’s blacksmith shop.

They were the first Jewish family in the Valley, and Greenberg recalls that they were the object of some good-natured teasing. Occasionally, something more sinister occurred, but Louie Greenberg did not let it alienate him.

He helped pay for the Van Nuys-Sherman Oaks Park and contributed to many community projects, including the construction of St. Elizabeth’s Church, near the intersection of Cedros and Kittridge streets.

“Everybody pitched in,” Greenberg said. “Dad was over there helping. Dad put up a few bucks. It didn’t make any difference who in the hell you were, a Jew or anybody, you just pitched in. Everybody helped everybody.”

Greenberg later owned a car and truck sales agency, the Valley’s second movie theater, a restaurant and a bowling alley, all of which were popular places for socializing.

The businesses were wiped out in the Great Depression, but Sam and his brother, Jake, began selling used cars. Then, in 1935, they rented a truck to a man for $5. That was the beginning of what Greenberg believes was the world’s first equipment rental business, still operating at the same corner of Van Nuys Boulevard and Oxnard.

“This Valley’s been good to me and my family,” he said in the bustling office where he still comes to work at 6 a.m., seven days a week. “We’ve been very, very lucky.”