A CHRONICLE OF THE PASSING SCENE : Old-Fashioned Christmas Present

Antiquers and residents of Calabasas got an early Christmas present recently.

An “instead of.”

Instead of a three-story office building that was scheduled to be built at Calabasas Junction at the corner of Calabasas Road and El Canon, there are several restored historical buildings instead.

The buildings are filled with the wares of different antique dealers in the area and has come to be called Old Town, just across from the Leonis Adobe and Sagebrush Cantina.

Combined with the other Old Town buildings which house, among other things, Gaetano’s Restaurant and more antique shops, it makes a nice little bit of eclectic Americana. A small town theme park grown from where a real small town used to be.

It was almost not to be.

Fade to 1904 when a man named Charles Cooper bought a building that was once a bakery in downtown Los Angeles. He had it dismantled and shipped by train to what is now Canoga Park.

The structure--a grocery store--was put up on what is now Calabasas Road in the then-civic center complex.

The complex included a courthouse, a jail, a hanging tree (for speedy justice) and the stagecoach stop, all directly across from what is now called the Leonis Adobe and was then the Miguel Leonis Ranch, which dates back to Civil War days, circa 1860.

When Cooper, who operated the grocery store, died in a hunting accident, his widow married a man named Kramer and the couple continued to operate the store, living upstairs with her son, Frank Cooper.

Time passed, buildings got updated. Finally in the late 1970s, Frank Cooper, who died three years ago, sold the property, which, by then, included a couple of other one-story frame buildings.

“But he took his own sweet time selling it. He really sized us up,” says Linda Evron, who bought it with her husband, C.J., a real estate investor. They already owned the adjoining parcel on Calabasas Road.

About two years ago, the Evrons decided to sell the Cooper parcel. The recession was killing off the small businesses that rented space in the buildings on the location. And, remembers Linda, that was before the conservation activists had really gotten their act together. “No one seemed to care if the old buildings were torn down.”

Once the community found out the Evrons had sold the property and it was going to be redeveloped, the community went into shock. “We started to feel pretty bad about selling it, but the deal was done and there was nothing we could do,” she says.

Fate came thundering in on horseback when the developers defaulted on the mortgage payments and the Evrons took the property back. Linda says they were determined not to make the same mistake twice.

“Once we decided to restore the property, help came pouring in from the historians at the Adobe, from the Chamber of Commerce and so many others in the community,” she says.

Now the project is completed, which is why about 500 Calabasans--otherwise known as Pumpkin People--flocked to a recent celebration at the quaint shopping center, to eat, drink and be merry.

Toys From Teens

In Pacoima, the recession can mean real hardship, according to Maria Wale, principal of Pacoima Middle School. “We are a community that has constant survival needs,” she says.

Nevertheless, the youngsters at her school know how to share and help others, especially the 100 students in Larry Morden’s California Cadet Corps. They are going door-to-door to businesses in their area to collect toys for the Marine Corps’ Toys for Tots drive.

The California Cadet Corps is the junior high school equivalent of the high school ROTC program. According to Morden, units are in several Valley middle schools including Olive Vista in Sylmar, Robert E. Fulton in Van Nuys, Richard E. Byrd in Sun Valley and Charles Maclay in Pacoima.

This is the sixth year Morden, a former Marine and Vietnam veteran, will run the Toys for Tots program with the Cadet Corps. Last year, the youngsters collected about $6,000 worth of toys, he says.

Because of the economy, he expected it to be harder going, but he’s come up with something that he thinks will spur the students on.

“We’ll have a party to celebrate our drive’s end and honor those who have brought in the most toys,” Morden says.

Maybe “honor” isn’t the right word.

Those who bring in a to-be-determined number get to throw a pie at one of the student commanding officers. The top toy collectors get a shot at Morden.

“It seems to help motivate them,” says Morden, with a laugh.

A Warm Christmas Legacy

Most of us take community service projects such as the Toys for Tots drive for granted.

We don’t really know where they came from or exactly why.

In the case of the annual nationwide Toys for Tots drive that now furnishes millions of toys to needy children, the movement was home grown.

It got started in 1943 with one rag doll.

Burbank resident Dianne Hendricks made a doll that she wanted to give to a needy child, but she couldn’t find an organization to help her out.

She shared her dilemma with her husband, Bill, a retired Marine Corps colonel and former director of publicity at Warner Bros.

He offered to put a barrel in front of the studio commissary and said he would distribute whatever he got to local charities.

The barrel was installed and a couple of actors named Ronald Reagan and John Wayne posed for publicity pictures with it.

That year more than 8,000 toys were gathered for distribution to needy kids.

This year, according to the local Marine Corps reserve, about 8 million items will be collected for distribution.

Hendricks died this year, but his legacy lives.

Multicultural Music Man and Woman

David Yakobian, 35, and his sister, Gila Parish, 32, were born in a tiny village near the Persian Gulf and lived in dozens of towns on six continents when they were growing up.

“Our father was an engineer who traveled all over the world on projects,” says Dan, a musician who lives in Van Nuys.

The result is that he and his sister, also a musician who lives in Calabasas, are fluent or conversant in 10 languages. The pair makes the most of their linguistic skills when they perform.

But performing at parties is not his highest ambition. He and his sister want to become recording stars.

So they financed their own tape and CD called “The Real Complete Jewish Party Music Collection.” He says they have sold 13,000 copies, which encouraged them to bring out Volume II this year.

They sell their music via mail order, using an 800 number for their musical offerings, which include many well-known Jewish and Yiddish songs (“Hava Nagila”) as well as the more obscure ones (“Haroah Haktana.”)

Overheard

“He just doesn’t seem to put a wrong foot forward does he? I’m surprised he didn’t name Santa Claus to head Health and Human Services.”

--North Hollywood man to friend about rumors that President-elect Clinton might appoint Colin Powell to be Secretary of State