bank sign

[godforesaken]

i had a random encounter with this photo of huntington beach's main street, 1972. i was struck--am still struck--by the bank sign at mid-left in the picture. it's something i haven't seen for at least 20 years. and while i never had occasion to be interested in this sign when i was a kid, some memory of it managed to lodge itself way back in my

Comments

[handstil]

I was going to say "sitting on the counter!" Totally a vivid memory of mine. I also remember that the bank teller at the bank in this very photo (this was our bank!) had a daughter that was going away with the Russian Ballet. I also remember when they gave me a cocker spaniel toy with the Security Bank tag around it's neck when I opened my first savings account!

[godforesaken]

my most vivid kid-bank memories are: smell (money, carbon paper, cigarette ash trays); padded pleather covered ropes at chin height; the ball-chains that hold pens to the counters; yellow light coming in through tinted windows.

oh! and in the drive-thrus the plastic canister things that used to whoosh your money to/from the bank through those space-age pipe contraptions. crazy to see they still have those here!

[heatherica]

Those plastic canister whoosh things always meant a sucker to me!

[handstil]

Oh, the bank is Security Pacific!

[substitute]

Pictures from that time in So Cal always give me a weird shiver. I was 7 when that picture was taken, and that whole world -- the cars, the signs, the clothes -- is like a forgotten home planet.