Remembering Martinez on Facebook

When I first joined Facebook, it was truly amazing. There was just nothing like it, and there still isn’t, though Google Plus is trying to give Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg a run for his money. The thing that draws me to Facebook, me and the 500 million other users, is the fact that we can reach out over time and space and connect with people we haven’t seen in years, in decades.

Just the other day, I was invited to attend my high school reunion by a woman who now lives in Canada. But when we were in junior high and high school, she lived right up the street from me, and I had a huge crush on her. Of course, being the gawky, dorky little Greek geek I was, it never occurred to me to let her know that. I just sat in my room and played Simon and Garfunkel’s “Kathy’s Song” to her, over and over, until I had that song down. Her name, you see, is Cathy.

In the course of accepting her reunion invitation, I also got to send her a message telling her about my youthful crush. It was quite extraordinary. Perhaps, in the final analysis, we are not supposed to reveal the secrets of our youth, but in this particular instance it felt very cathartic to share that information.

Just the other day, a couple of Facebook pages have gone up that have kept me up far too late at night. One is “You Know You Grew Up In Martinez When,” and the other is “Remembering Martinez.” The first one tends to be for those who graduated in the 1980s and '90s, the latter for those who graduated in the '60s and '70s. Both are just astounding for the fun everyone is having, and for the memories of places and people being shared.

Valco Drugs, Hilson’s Department Store, Bud’s Pork Chop Sandwiches, Pop’s Liquors… these and many other places were mainstays on Main Street until the 1980s. They are all given their due, as are so many other places and people. The Creeper was a guy who tied himself up and walked back and forth around town – he was clearly mentally ill, and was harmless to others, but he certainly left an impression on quite a few high school and junior high school students when he was making his rounds back in the '80s.

There was something called the Zombie, which apparently was a kind of sandwich that you had to have if you grew up around here. And even I know about "Tweak Burger." There are the now-departed Shorty's and Cheers and Beers bars, Paul's and Della Pippa's. Mitch's Club had the best steak sandwiches, while Maria's had the must-have huevos rancheros on a Sunday morning after a raunchy Saturday night.

The sites also list stuff that was going on before, during and after school — it sounds pretty much like the stuff I was doing, but it sure is fun to watch old friends reconnect and share memories.

If you grew up around here, or even if you didn’t but are just curious as to what this town used to be like, check out these pages. They make Facebook fun again.

EVENTS:

TODAY IN HISTORY (from Wikipedia):

1963 - Great Train Robbery: In England, a gang of 15 train robbers steal 2.6 million pounds in bank notes.

1974 - Watergate scandal: President Richard Nixon announces his resignation, effective the next day.

1990 - Iraq occupies Kuwait and the state is annexed to Iraq. This would lead to the Gulf War shortly afterward.

2000 - Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley is raised to the surface after 136 years on the ocean floor, 30 years after its discovery by undersea explorer E. Lee Spence and five years after being filmed by a dive team funded by novelist Clive Cussler.

2007 - An EF2 tornado touches down in Kings and Richmond counties in New York, the most powerful tornado in the state to date and the first in Brooklyn since 1889.