You can take the boy out of Van Nuys, but ...
What's a guy in Ohio doing blogging about Van Nuys? It's been more than 25 years since Carey Wilson and his family lived in Van Nuys, hopping from boxy apartment building to boxy apartment building before moving to nearby Valley Village and then points beyond.
He is filling his new blog, Van Nuys Boomer, and Flickr site with photos, newspaper clippings and other memories of growing up in Van Nuys. But he's doing it from his current home in Lakewood, Ohio. His parents (pictured in 1960 in front of their new Sherman Way apartment building) were part of the flood of post-war newcomers who poured into the new homes and apartments spreading across the Valley.
Like many of his generation of Valleyites, the 53-year-old former tool company manager joined the migration out of the Valley and Los Angeles. But Wilson is back, sort of. After leaving L.A. two years ago, he along with other bloggers, such as Here in Van Nuys, have focused attention on the central section of the Valley.
"I started the blog as a way to get in contact with some old friends we lost track of," Wilson, 53, writes from Ohio. "It is probably a form of mid-life crisis in sharing our memories of the past. I was inspired by the website and book, "America's Suburb" by Kevin Roderick. He wrote a wonderful book about the San Fernando Valley and made me rethink our days as children in Van Nuys."
With Van Nuys now under the microscope, who is going to start the Remembering Reseda blog?
--Jesus Sanchez
