here is something significant missing on the restaurant landscape these days, at least here in the South Bay near L.A. in California: the classic 70's/80's "Pizza Parlor". This was not just a pizza restaurant, but a community experience unlike anything that exists today in franchise form. "The Pizza Parlor" was not a single restaurant, but instead, a concept of what it meant to eat pizza with your friends and family. There were two main establishments that offered similar experiences in this genre, and here they are in order of importance: Straw Hat Pizza, and Shakey's Pizza. That is all. Sure, there were some others (Pizza Hut, Round Table, Lamp Post, and Wildflower for instance), but they were either sub-par (Pizza Hut) or not major players (all the others) in our little neighborhood.

The concept of the "Pizza Parlor" went like this: It started with a huge communal room is filled with long, wooden tables and benches (no chairs, and no booths please). Most of the lighting was removed or dimmed, and replaced with little candles in red-glass holders. Added to this was a movie screen in the back showing silent films, a mechanical horse ride, a selection of video games and pinball machines off to one side, and a small stage for live performances.

rowing up in Manhattan Beach, my favorite place to play, bar none, was Sand Dune Park. It was a park like no other. It's main feature, an enormous 100 foot or so high sand dune hill sloping at about a 30 percent grade, was the only piece of "play equipment" required for any kid. However, 20 years ago the place changed for the worse. I recently returned there with my family, and this is the story of what happened.

Most video game fans from the "golden age " (roughly 1978-1983) frequented an arcade that they felt was "their own". For many kids in the South Bay cities of Redondo, Hermosa and Manhattan Beach in Southern California, that arcade was Castle Park in Redondo Beach. Castle Park was built in the mid-1970's. It consisted of two 18-hole miniature golf courses separated by an Arthurian castle that housed the ticket booth, birthday party rooms, a snack bar, bathrooms, and a huge arcade. It was situated (unfortunately in some cases) a golf balls' throw from the 405 freeway in an industrial area right near a set of railroad tracks.

ow that I have moved out of my single-family house, and I have been back visiting my parents often at their house where I grew-up, I realize that I will probably never be able to provide my kids with the same type of house that I grew-up in. Yes, I can get them a bigger house with more stuff, but I don't think I can ever provide them the comforting nuances of in a 70's/80's suburban neighborhood. Given that, here is a list of "Things I took For Granted As a Kid Growing Up In A Single Family House In Middle-Class Neighborhood In The 70's and 80's"

lectronic Games Magazine

Cover of first Electronic Games Magazine

Most Friday nights in  the very early 80’s, my twin brother and I would accompany my mom on the weekly shopping trip to Lucky’s supermarket.   In the late afternoon my dad would arrive home from work with his weekly paycheck cashed and ready for the weekend.  He would lay the crisp $20 bills on his bed, one by one, dividing up what my mom would get for the “house” , what he would “sock away” for whatever it was that he was socking-money-away for that month (Motocross bikes, Civil War memorabilia, whatever).   However, the most momentous portion of this ritual was the final act.  Dad kept four $5.00 bills separated from the rest.  If we had “earned” it that week (or rather, “not lost it” by being idiots), he would dole-out these bills as weekly allowance for each of his four kids.

hen we were growing up there was one place filled with the treasures a '70's kid desired. That place was the corner liquor store. It wasn't booze, cigarettes, or girly magazines we desired as pre-teens, it was everything else this wonderland had to offer.

Liquor stores were the 5 and 10 of our times,  the JJ Newbury in our suburbs, the General Store in our one-beach town. Back in the '70s, the liquor store was "the place" for the kids to hang out. It might sound really strange to a generation that sees liquor stores as glorified wine racks and Lotto outlets, but back then we trekked miles to experience the wonders of a liquor store.

y 1980, the Fulton household was wearing at the seams.  Almost over-night, our little happy family imploded.   First our aunt and cousin were killed by a drunk driver in car accident.  Then our grandfather contracted lung cancer from smoking a pipe for 50 years.   At the same time, our oldest sister was getting into the burgeoning local punk scene.  She was staying out later and later on week nights, and our parents were not happy about it.  All of this stuff combined to make our house a very uncomfortable place to be most of the time. Of course, being 10 years old, none of this really affected us the way one would expect.  We knew weird stuff was going on, but instead of thinking about it too much, Jeff I and dove further into our growing passion for video games.   We did not have access to anything at home, and the closest arcades were miles away.  However, we did have one outlet for our video game madness: the grocery store shopping center located roughly 1-mile from our house.

n the fall of 1977 my mother surprised my 7-year old twin brother and I with some information that we had never bothered to learn beforehand: she told us we were Catholic. This came as quite a shock, as I had no idea we were religious. We had attended church on most Sundays, but my dad was not into it at all and I had figured it was just something we did to get us out of the house to waste time between the Ch. 5 Tom Hatten Popeye show in the morning, and Ch. 9 Horror film Festival in the afternoon (pre-"Elvira Mistress Of The Dark"). It never occurred to me that we were actually serious about it. However, the mere revelation that we were now religious was not the whole story, work was involved. Now that we were Catholics, we would have to attend CCD class, a weekly one-hour bible study/snack time that was designed to prepare us for the second most important Catholic Sacrament, First Communion. This in and of itself was not terrible news. However, it turned out we were starting CCD class a year late, which meant as Second Graders we would be stuck with a bunch of immature First Graders. Second graders mingling with lower classmen was a horrible situation to begin with, but then the other boot dropped: when would be carpooling with one of the aforementioned First Graders. Could it have gotten any worse?