The dawn of TV

Walter is another volunteer at the SOVA food pantry on Pico Blvd.  About my age, still practicing some law, but brings donated food from Nelsons several mornings a week in his brand-new black Mercedes.  Also, repackages the eggs, which come to use in bulk boxes, but which SOVA distributes in half-dozens.  Last week, while unloading his car, Walter twisted his ankle tore a ligament; will have to wear a "boot" for a while.

Walter grew up in the 1940s on Orange Grove Ave, one block from Canters Deli.  Fairfax Ave was then a heart of Jewish LA.  Canters moved there from east LA in the 1930s.  I pick up day-old baked goods on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays there, and take them to SOVA.

Walter's grandfather would take an old fruit crate, and sit on the corner and schmooze with his friends.

After the war (WWII), a radio and appliance store across Fairfax from Canters began selling TVs also.  Walter and his grandfather would take crates, and sit on the sidewalk and watch (at first in silence) the pictures in the black-and-white TVs in the store window.  Some months later, (perhaps feeling sorry for his viewers out front?), the store owner mounted a speaker out on the sidewalk, and Walter and his grandfather were then able to hear the sound as well!

Canters is still there after about 80 years at this Fairfax location.  The servers are still somewhat abrupt, what one expects in a Jewish deli.  The interior looks like it has not been remodeled since the opening, a bizarre back-lit ceiling in the main dining room.  Obama visited during his reign; photos on the wall.  But many Jews have moved further west by now, and the neighborhood is changing, with hip coffee shops and trendy stores taking over.