[engine starting] Ken Kramer: When I tell you there is nobody else like this man in San Diego, I don't know how many are left in the world.

He's a living rarity, you'll see.

Towser: [barking] Towser: [howling] Ken: Dogs, well, some names of dogs, at least, on San Diego streets, but do you know where?

P. Hicks: Ha, ha, okay.

Ken: We'll meet somebody who is preserving our history, saving little bits of film and photographs that are one of a kind, one at a time.

But to find out what's absolutely unique, he's gotta first go out and gather lots of stuff.

Hicks: And I don't know until I get home what it is I've got.

Ken: Activating all memory banks, do you recognize this TV kids' show cowboy?

He had a little entertainment empire going in San Diego.

Ken: And beat the drum, cue the choir, see why so many people turned out to pay tribute to a family and to someone, in particular, who built something that has become simply iconic in their city.

Racquel Vasquez: In fact, it is a celebration.

Ken: Plus table for two and more stories too, all of them true, about San Diego.

male announcer: Ken Kramer's "About San Diego," the history and people of the area we call home.

Here's Ken Kramer.

Ken: So very good of you to join us for a show that I think you're really gonna like.

We remain doing episodes from the front porch, and that's been fine.

I will say we have a lot of places to go and a lot of things to see, so we're gonna jump right into it with a question you may have had about San Diego.

Ken: Ever wondered, North Island.

Island?

It isn't an island, is it an island, is it?

So why do we call it an island, why?

Well, first, let's take a look at some other islands that aren't: Harbor Island, and Shelter Island, or for that matter, Coronado Island which isn't an island either.

It's connected to the mainland by a narrow strip of land called the Silver Strand.

But North Island is a little different and you wouldn't think so to look at it, so how, you might ask yourself, did it ever get to be known as an island?

Ken: Because it used to be that it really, pretty much, was.

Most people don't know that if you go back to any time before the Second World War, Coronado was there, North Island was there, and between the two was water.

Ken: Look, here's a picture.

The lower part is Coronado.

The city, the Hotel del, everything is down there, and separated almost entirely by water is North Island.

With thanks to the Coronado Public Library for these, here's a photo of North Island, taken in August of 1933.

Really does look like an island.

And see, here in 1925, there's just a little stretch of sand that connects the two and, in a very high tide or a storm, that would be underwater and you really had an island, North Island.

So much so that from out at sea, sailors would see what looked like two islands.

There also was a bridge, a causeway, that carried Fourth Street over the water and on to North Island.

Only, back then, you were going over water and that strip of water had a name.

It was called Spanish Bight, B-I-G-H-T, Bight.

Means a gradual bend in the shoreline that creates a shallow area of water.

When came the Second World War, San Diego Bay was dredged and the sand was used to fill in Spanish Bight and where once there was water, now there is part of the Naval Air Station.

But the island name has remained and if you've ever wondered why, go back 80-plus years and look at photographs or maps and there is the answer and a bit of history about San Diego.

Ken: Discovering those little background stories is a lot of what this show is built around, in addition to just some random fun things and flashbacks to our past, and there we sometimes get some help in the form of an old picture or video, a bit of film, and we're really grateful for that.

One person whose name, P. Hicks, you've heard from time to time, has a particular passion for preserving things from our past that might otherwise disappear.

And I thought, you know, what he does is so important so I called him and I said, "Do you mind if we take a look at what you do?"

♪♪♪ Ken: You never know, you just never know.

This old home movie might be a really interesting glimpse into the past, or a slide, an old discarded slide that was gonna be thrown out, and there it is.

Hicks: 1953, the PB, Pacific Beach, you know, queen of the parade, you know?

Ken: A snapshot of history.

An instant in time that would have been lost to time but he saved it.

It's what he does.

Hicks: Yeah, I pick up large amounts of slides and photos and films and all sorts of media.

Ken: Here's another.

It's a movie taken at a kids' party in El Cajon in 1956.

Might be it was gonna get tossed.

Nobody cared about it, but he said, "I'll take it."

And so, this little event, this backyard competition on film, is rescued and, with it, a window into what life on just that day at just that moment was like.

♪♪♪ Ken: Miles of home movies, thousands of old photos and slides collected through the years.

And the thing is, most of the time when he buys a bunch of them for a few dollars, Mr. P. Hicks, that's his name, P. Hicks, has no idea what's on them.

Hicks: I don't know what it is I'm buying.

I'm just--I'm buying it blind or I'm acquiring it blind and I don't know until I get home what it is I've got.

♪♪♪ Hicks: This is all slides and photographs.

Ken: Hundreds and thousands of images.

Ken: And film of just random things, sometimes with sound.

Here's Balboa Park 50 years ago.

♪♪♪ Hicks: Got this stuff kind of coming out my ears here.

Ken: And where do they all come from?

Well, garage sales, estates sales, and places where people are getting rid of photographs, recording tape film.

For perhaps a few dollars, P. Hicks will get boxes of them.

What might be in them?

Sure, maybe nothing, or could be something.

You never know.

Hicks: It's that discovery, it's that mystery, of what it is you're finding and it's the context of finding it in a place where it's right on the edge of being lost, you know?

If I wasn't there right at that moment, it was gonna go to the dump.

Ken: A medieval reenactment on the grass at Balboa Park decades ago.

Someone thought to film it, a San Diego moment.

Hicks: And it only exists on that one piece of film or that one slide or that one photo.

That's what I'm looking for.

Ken: Or this.

Watch as a bridge that used to carry the streetcar over Texas Street is demo'd, and the cleanup after.

That is surely local history he's preserving, but in the end, is he an historian?

No, he uses another term.

Hicks: And I like to call what I do, "urban archeology" or "suburban archeology."

Ken: And it doesn't have to be San Diego.

In fact, he doesn't think of himself as a collector of San Diego history, particularly.

Still, his love for local curiosities is fascinating if you've been in our city for a while.

[laughing] Ken: The Unarius Conclave of 40 years ago.

Learn when the Space Fleet will arrive, what to do, and how to be good hosts.

Even a bit of history from this show.

Remember a few years back, we featured a local couple that had a famous talking goose named Cuddles?

female: She tells us when she's hungry.

[honking] female: Did you hear "hungry"?

Did you hear it, audience?

Oh, c'mon.

Ken: Who knew there was Cuddles swag?

Hicks: It's a very uncomfortable shirt, but look, there's Cuddles.

So that's a bit of San Diego history.

Ken: From the old Barratt Junction Café, look at those prices.

A bottle of beer for pocket change.

Couldn't let that be thrown away.

Hicks: Ha, ha, okay.

Ken: But here really is the nerve center.

Here is where the forgotten, discarded bits of image and sound, given up for lost, find new and unexpected life.

Hicks: Videotape machines, audiotape machines, for most of the formats that you could think of and lots of formats that you probably couldn't think of.

Have you ever seen a wire recorder?

Ken: Around 1948 there were spools of wire.

Your voice was imprinted on a wire about the size of a human hair.

In this case, a plumber recites part of a poem on the proper installation of a drain vent system.

male: The waste comes up from down below.

A key wire sits on top, just so.

Ken: A whole box of wires, "Dad, the Plumber," and Mom talking about things like the war.

P. Hicks decided to find the family so he could copy and send it to them.

male: What's the title of it?

male: "The Handyman."

male: That's the best one.

You got that up?

male: Yeah, it's on.

Ken: And he did.

The kids, now in their 70s, were just overwhelmed.

Hicks: And they had no idea what had happened to these wires or how they ended up out in the world for someone like me to find.

Ken: Wires, tapes, slides, bits of film.

He'll try to look at every one of them, he says, and thus whether worth preserving or not, each will at least be honored with one more moment of human attention.

And that's the point.

Hicks: Once these things get thrown in the trash, those are snapshots, those are little time capsules, of everyday history that just disappear forever.

Ken: An absolutely perfect 1950s front room because that's exactly what it was.

A professional set decorator couldn't have done it any better.

Pictures that are greeting card cute, and just, everyday things, friends, the result of P. Hicks' suburban archeology.

Ken: In these preserved moments, there is so often sweetness and kindness and joy, made all the more poignant because we don't know who they were.

We're left to imagine the story of when that instant was captured.

A little recording of history, of life, and, as P. Hicks says-- Hicks: Once it gets destroyed, it's gone forever.

Ken: Seems like everybody's downsizing these days.

It's like we're collectively saying, "I want experiences.

Spare me the burden of old things from the past."

So we throw them away.

And every time we do, the last little spark, the last little memory of a life, of a moment, someone thought was important enough to preserve forever, instead disappears for eternity.

But then there's Mr. P. Hicks to say, "No, no, not so fast.

Let me take one more look because you just never know."

♪♪♪ Ken: We're going to drop in on a celebration now.

It happened on a lovely fall day.

A lot of people gathered to look back and say "thank you" to a particular group of the town's pioneers.

And among those pioneers was one person who had a flash of creativity one day and what he made is still with us.

Ken: To start this story, behold the Lemon Grove lemon, centerpiece of the city, an iconic symbol of civic pride.

Now, meantime, at a nearby park, an event is about to start.

The mayor, Racquel Vasquez, is in fact, just now calling things to order.

Racquel: I bet everybody's excited, right?

Ken: Because, look, the Treganzas are here, members of an important family of Lemon Grove's history, I should say, way back in the 1890s, Eduardo and Josephine came to our county and their descendants, kids, grandkids, became not just citrus growers who helped put Lemon Grove on the map, but artists, educators, scientists, and naturalists, who have always had what's been described as an unconditional love for Lemon Grove.

[singing] Ken: So the Martin Luther King Junior Community Choir San Diego came, and local residents came, to pay tribute to the Treganzas all, including Alberto Owen Treganza, a brilliant architect who strangely may be best known for what he did about a century ago.

See, back then, he built the big lemon.

female: I think about him every time I see it, practically.

Ken: Nobody knew more about that lemon than Alberto's daughter, the late Amorita Treganza, who in her teens was an actress, worked in a lemon packinghouse, went on to be a nationally recognized pediatric optometrist, oh, and who also helped save the town's church as an historical museum where it takes a good part of one whole room just to list the civic accomplishments of her family.

Years ago, Amorita told us about this lemon.

Well, the story goes back to 1928, 4th of July parade in San Diego, and she was Miss Lemon Grove riding on what turned out to be the winning float which featured a huge lemon made of plaster.

Amorita: Oh yes, I went up and helped him slosh some of that white whatever it is they made it out of.

Ken: Well, over the years, the town just fell in love with that lemon, couldn't let it go.

Amorita: They didn't know what else to do with it, so they put it up by the railroad tracks.

[train whistle sounding] Ken: In fact, she told us, that lemon was once honored by a group of architects for being unabashed and exuberant, a monument to American chutzpah.

Amorita: "And to people who just cannot think small."

I think that's nice.

Ken: No wonder that so many family and long-time neighbors and friends joined political figures and civic preservationists here on this day for this moment: an unveiling.

Hereinafter to be known as Treganza Heritage Park, it's quite a legacy the family created over the generations in Lemon Grove.

And their story is surely one we wanted to tell on "About San Diego."

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Ken: Time now for one of those stories I love to do when you find a San Diego person who has both a life-long expertise and also a long life.

It's really true that our society disregards the treasure of knowledge and skill that so many older people bring to the table.

And this next person is a great example.

Wait 'til you see.

When we met him, he was still doing what he is so good at: a particular specialty that, to tell the truth, is, every day, fading into history.

♪♪♪ Ken: Ah, the pastoral English countryside, driving as we are, on the left of the road, of course.

Now, I want you to picture this same scene in England, only it's, like, sometime in the 1950s.

It was said that if you had a happy frame of mind and the weather was reasonably kind, England was a beautiful place to go driving.

Just one thing to remember.

male: Get a good car.

That's the secret of it.

♪♪♪ Ken: There you are, a good motorcar and basic.

Oh, you had your Austins, Land Rovers, and Jaguars, but the Morris Minor was the popular choice.

A little fuddy-duddy maybe, but charmingly simple and really all the vehicle a sensible person needed.

Dennis Tolley: In England, the Morris Minor was the main transportation way back in the late '50s, '60s.

Ken: Now bear with me here 'cause I know England is a long way from San Diego and so does Dennis Tolley.

Dennis: Silicas, mirrors.

Ken: Because 60 years ago, he made the trip and showed up here with a growing family and a ton of mechanical knowledge about the Morris Minor and a lot of other British cars, from so far away.

Dennis: And one place was asking for a--looking for a good mechanic.

So I went there on Monday morning and, after a slight conference with them, they say, "When can you start?"

Ken: Soon enough, he owned something that could never be on such prime real estate today: his own repair shop was right at 7th and G. But in the simpler days of the 1960s, a big part of San Diego's downtown was car dealerships and garages.

Dennis: Here there was at least six or eight repair places like mine, right in the downtown area.

Ken: He eventually moved the shop to Lemon Grove.

More than 40 years there, where he became a bit of a local celebrity because he drove a little Morris Minor truck.

See it there?

Top speed maybe 30 miles an hour.

Dennis: [laughing] Ken: That's great.

Ken: Okay, fast forward to when we caught up with him.

Doesn't have the shop anymore but do you know what he's hung on to?

Parts.

Car parts.

Dennis: Morris Minor parts.

All these are pistons for the engines.

Ken: And now, going on 92 years old, he is sometimes the only source for them.

Dennis: People call me and, "Do you have this part?

Do you have that part?"

Because they're no longer available in some cases.

Ken: Not much need for some of them.

Been years and years.

But he's got them, just in case.

Dennis: Like, this part here's the front gear out of the gear transmission.

And you can't get one of these, you know?

Ken: Points, condensers, ignition parts, service manuals.

Dennis: I have cylinder heads, I have cylinder blocks and I have camshafts and--shafts, and all those parts.

If somebody needs them, I've got them.

Ken: Yes, and when he has a moment, that is a transmission he's rebuilding on his workbench.

But there's something else about Dennis Tolley.

You see, this man, born during the reign of George V, who majored in the Morris Minor and has his MD in the MG, still does-- [engine starting] Ken: --make house calls.

In his tenth decade, he was still going out on home visits in the same little British truck from his San Diego repair shop days.

Well, with a new faster freeway engine.

In its simplicity, his Morris Minor pickup is trustworthy, well founded, and reliable as an old friend who makes house calls.

Those parts back in Dennis's garage, who knows if one or two might come in handy today?

The patient, you see, is a little MG belonging to Jim McIndew.

Dennis: I'll hold it while you-- Jim McIndew: That truck is well known.

My neighbor, he--they all like coming over here, watching what Dennis is doing, what miracle he performs next.

Dennis: And this hose was a little loose the last time we checked it.

We want to tighten it up.

Jim: And I have friends that are car people and they're legendary with Dennis because they call him all the time for advice.

Dennis: It's looking real good.

It's nice and tight.

It's not leaking in any way.

You're not leaking in any of these hose, we're back to normal now.

[engine starting] Ken: And so it goes.

In his 90s, Dennis Tolley from a simpler time, I guess, when you didn't have to be a computer-savvy diagnostician.

No, if you knew what you were doing, with just a few tools you could fix a car.

Jim: He is a treasure.

Dennis: That's looking good.

Ken: But it's that, "know what you're doing" thing.

Who will take his place?

Where is the Dennis Tolley to work on an MG or a Morris Minor, say, 20 years from now?

Dennis: I have no idea.

I don't know.

Ken: When he's gone, that's it.

He's very likely the last of a kind.

And what about that?

This story, his reputation for sure, will outlive him.

What would be his epitaph?

Like everything else, he keeps it simple.

Dennis: Well, "Here lies an old mechanic, long gone."

Ken: Dennis Tolley who spent most of a lifetime keeping those little British cars running and, not a minor point, made a lot of friends around and about San Diego.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Ken: Shall we see what you've sent in this time?

We set aside a part of the show for what you'd like everyone to take a look at.

Little bits of San Diego nostalgia that you might have saved over the years or something that remembers another time in our history.

I've always been amazed at what you come across and, as a kid who came here to go to San Diego State, it's pretty informative to see things that predate even me.

It's funny because they don't fit into any particular category.

We keep them in a file that we just call "Stuff."

Anyway, here we go.

Ken: 1950s, it was, "Welcome.

Come in, have a seat," at the Carnation Ice Cream Parlor at the corner of El Cajon Boulevard and Ohio Street.

Carnation milk products came from contented cows, they said.

Carnation babies were brought up on it.

The name was everywhere.

rabbit: Hey, Harry, I just sold some fresh delicious Carnation homogenized milk to a duck.

Harry: Did he pay cash for it?

rabbit: No, I put it on his bill.

Ken: But Carnation's ice cream parlors, wow.

Long gone now but the best shakes and burgers and fries and they are remembered with fondness to this very day, especially by Linda Nichols who found these pictures including one of her mother, Geneva, who worked there.

♪♪♪ Ken: Now, if you continued East down El Cajon Boulevard, a little beyond 70th Street, there was Monte Hall's Playland Park, a live horses, carousel, three rides for a quarter, kids' paradise.

Michael Gorth, who has a Facebook page devoted to old Kodachrome stills he finds, in this case came across film.

Our friend P. Hicks digitized it and here's the result.

If you were a kid in San Diego, do you remember this?

Ken: And here you go.

There's Monte Hall.

Not the "Let's make a deal" Monte Hall.

This was cowboy Monte Hall who, by the way, had a TV show for young people on Channel 8. male: Scene 6, take 2.

Ken: Two of them, actually.

One was a talent show.

♪ I was looking back to see if you were looking ♪ ♪ back to see if I was looking back to see ♪ ♪ if you were looking back at me.

♪♪ Ken: And then there was his other show called "Monte Hall's Tiny Town Ranch."

There'd be cartoons and kids would celebrate their birthdays, and every now and then a guest would drop by.

Monte Hall: And I'm sure that you boys and girls will be happy to meet and greet in person a gentleman who is one of the stars on CBS, here at Channel 8, each Saturday night at 9:30: John Bromfield, the sheriff of Cochise.

Welcome, John.

John Bromfield: Well, thank you, Monte.

It's a pleasure being here.

Ken: Monte Hall had a multi-layered presence in San Diego.

In the mid '50s he was a big star and his theme park was a big draw.

In the simpler days when there were just three local TV signals to choose from in San Diego, what he and his guests had to say mattered.

John: Hey, boys and girls, know that school's getting out pretty soon now and we want you back in the fall.

We want you to have a healthy mind and sound body.

Ken: Thank you, Sheriff and Monte.

And thank you also for their help to P. Hicks and Barbara Nielsen, archives editor at KFMB, and to Michael Gorth for the video and those memories about San Diego.

Monte: It's mighty important work, partner.

Thank you very much.

Ken: One more from about the same time.

Jeffrey Swain's dad, Harry, took these aerial photos in 1957 and down there amongst all those houses and streets, was an area he used to call "Dog Town."

Not because there's anything wrong with it.

No, it's very nice.

It was the street names, you see?

The names the developer came up with, like Towser.

Big dog, that's a Towser.

Remember "101 Dalmatians"?

Towser: [barking] Ken: Look, also, Skipper and Shep; Laddie, famous Airedale terrier of President Warren Harding.

Here's a lovely portrait.

So that's Laddie and, of course, Lassie.

Seems to be just the developer's whim to name the dog streets.

I looked around for a Nipper, but no look in Serra Mesa.

Maybe one day, that'll be something about San Diego.

Ken: And that's it for this time and this episode of "About San Diego."

Always available online at kenkramertv.com if you wanna take a second look or learn more about these stories.

And just to say, if you have the emotional space to give your neighbor a "Hello" or a kind word for somebody on the other side of the political divide, you know, it'll make our beautiful city and counties seem even a little bit more so.

Maybe you can agree to get together and watch our next episode.

We'll see you then.

I'm Ken Kramer.

Thank you for watching and for caring about San Diego.

Bye, bye.

♪♪♪ ♪ You were cute as you-- ♪ [sneezing] ♪ could be.

♪♪ male: Take two.

♪ --take me for a ride I will sit close by your side.

♪ female: Take ten.

Ken: But to tell the truth, is, every day, fading into history.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ female announcer: Support for this program comes from the KPBS Explore Local Content fund, supporting new ideas and programs for San Diego.