A Bit of History Comes Out in the Carwash

Last week I embarked on a journey through my past. It was an accident. I had no idea when I set out to wash my truck that the quest would lead over miles of asphalt and years of history to the land of my youth, Tustin.

The truck was blighted to the point that no vacuum tech at any car wash could be trusted to get it right. We’re in the heart of the hunting season now, so the poor Bronco interior was sporting over two months’ worth of desert sand, dog hair, bird feathers and mud. Not that I hadn’t bothered to wash it--do you think I’m a pig?--but that kind of world-class dirt requires the kind of world-class attention that only a self-carwash vacuum can offer.

So I headed off to Tustin where, well more than two decades ago, I used to take the family car to the self-wash. I didn’t even know whether the place would still be there, but it’s difficult to find self-wash places in the phone book because they don’t have phones. Always willing to do something the long, hard, stupid way, I set out.

To my good fortune, it was not only still there, but someone had just pulled out of the vacuum station and entered the hallowed shade of the exterior wash bay. I roared in, cut the engine, flung out the floor mats, inserted my three quarters and sucked away. Four batches of quarters later, the inside of the truck looked pretty decent, although I can state for anyone interested that the hairs of yellow Labradors are more difficult to get out than those of chocolate lab, springer and golden retriever.

At any rate, the truck was clean, so I headed to Larwin Square to check Trak Auto (I hate people who spell words wrong just to make us notice, but it was the closest auto parts store) to look at cheap seat covers.

Larwin Square had been the shopping center of my boyhood, and Trak Auto, I realized as I left the store, was right next to one of my favorite places to visit a short few decades ago.

Back then, the store was called Kresge’s, and I’m not sure what kind of store it really was. Now, it is something called Christmas Magic, and as I wandered the aisles past the dreary schlock meant to warm our holidays, I was transported back to those halcyon days when here--yes, right here in the Kresge’s “Garden Shop”--you could purchase a living infant alligator (a caiman, actually) for $7.98.

And that wasn’t all. You could get chameleons (anoles, actually) for 99 cents; red-eared slider turtles for a buck something; parakeets dirt cheap and iguanas practically for free! Your mom could score all manner of flowers, bulbs, planting soil, fertilizer. And that garden shop smelled so good--rich soils, flowers and plants, the dank aromas of fish aquariums blending with the pine-shaving potpourri of the hamster cages. God, it was heaven!

I continued my tour of the square. Where there once was Wynn’s music, there is now Dave’s Bicycles. Where once stood Alexander’s Market (where I had my first job), there is now a Von’s. Winchell’s Donuts has given way to K’s Donuts. The Golden Crown cafe, in which I discovered the pleasures of coffee and falafel (go figure) has deceased completely, unless it’s been partially reincarnated as the Golden Spoon Yogurt place, which is on the other side of the square and does not serve falafel.

I ducked into the barber shop, still exactly where it was three decades ago when you’d always have to ask for the “regular boy’s” because your mother had ordered you to. The place hadn’t changed much.

When I walked in, owner Les Franklin rose from one of the 1961 Paider chairs (padded, reclining, handsome) and motioned me to sit. There was in his gestures--right hand indicating the chair while the left snaps open the fresh bib that will go around your throat--the same kind of finality I remember sensing as a 10-year-old. It was a little like going to the doctor.

I explained that I wasn’t in for a cut, just for a visit to an old haunt. He looked at me askance, likely because of the new hairdo I recently got that sticks up. Hair styles like mine cut little ice in the world of the ’61 Paider chair, the $8.50 haircut and people like Les Franklin, who consider themselves barbers as opposed to hair sculptors.

We talked for a while. Fondly, we remembered Con Adams, who used to own the shop when I was a kid and would drive around to his other shops with a barber pole atop his car. I remember wondering, as a kid, if his baldness was an omen for my own head of hair. (So far, no.)

I asked about a barber named John. John was my favorite because he was the youngest and hippest and because he had sideburns I admired--big, dark accessories shaped like Italy and not ending until the very bottom of his earlobes, where they ceased on a line so straight it could have been etched by a laser.

Les didn’t remember any such sideburns.

I inquired about a coat of arms hanging from the far wall--a big shield with a bunch of ornate designs and swords on it. As I stood there looking, it eased into my memory, jostled around a little, then finally fit in perfectly, like an old hand sliding into an old mitt. Yes, he said--it had always been there.

But Les said the place had changed a lot since he took it over. Gone, for instance, were the mirrors in which, as a boy, I could see my ears lowering as Con Adams buzzed away at me.

A paying customer came in then, so I left the shop. But, softened by memory, I decided to take a spin down Beneta Way, the street of my boyhood home.

It looked a lot like it used to: well-kept, forthright and suburban. I looked at the houses and felt the histories. Some of my old neighbors still live there. Approaching my old house, I noted two young boys playing in the driveway, just as I had played there so many years before with my brother, Matt.

I steered up to the driveway and stopped in the middle of Beneta Way. My heart kind of flip-flopped, did something odd and mildly comforting in my chest. I had to roll down the Bronco window (clean) for a better look. I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing.

There we were, Jeff and Matt, ages 8 and 6, goofing around in the driveway like we always did. I was the older one with the darker hair and plainly aggressive expression on my face. Matt’s head was rounded and his hair much lighter and the look on his face more curious than pugnacious. We were doing something involving bikes, maybe, or skateboards, or tennis balls or who knows what, but there I was, staring back at me thirtysomething years later behind the wheel of a truck.

“Whatta you want?” I asked me.

“Used to live here.

“Not ‘nymore.”

“Nope.”

“This’s my brother.”

“I know.”

A curious look from me to me, exactly what I would have expected. He yanked up his little brother and herded him toward the house, taking a long look back at me as he opened the door.