Time Traveling in the Original Farmers Market: Los Angeles Reveries
Excerpt from Reimagining The Twilight Zone: A Young Fan’s Stories (a slightly edited version of “Shared Memory Banks,” in epilogue) © Elayne Zalis, 2021
Combining fact, fiction, and fantasy, I share glimpses into the personal stories I’ve preserved for safekeeping.[*] Diaries and letters enrich my repertoire. For example, I write a letter to my younger self on January 1, 2014, to commemorate writing my first diary entry exactly fifty years earlier. In this way, I reconnect with the fifth-grader who imagined an endless supply of tomorrows and placed little value on the past, those fleeting yesterdays that, she implies in a 1964 poem, cannot be recaptured.
Fifty years later, I feel differently. Thanks in part to the personal writing the young poet has saved, I can bring back selected yesterdays and thus have something to show for all the living and dreaming we have both done. Our shared memory banks inspire new dialogues:
January 1, 2014
Dear Younger Self,
Fifty years ago, when you were a ten-year-old girl living in Miami, you began your first diary. I’m pleased to report that the special little book in which you wrote has survived to this day, preserving your hopes and dreams and allowing me, the woman you have become, to look behind the scenes at a memory bank in the making.
When I read your diary entries from my home in Los Angeles, where I live now, I pass through again a space made for writing, a child’s space. I remember what that space had felt like and how you had retreated there, to sketch out a world and validate your life.
Your notes remind me not only of memories you preserved but also of thoughts and experiences that you never documented. Aware of blind spots and exclusions, I look for clues to unwritten histories and forgotten stories. Chronology unravels, geography disperses, and backgrounds and foregrounds merge. I imagine endless variations.
Over the years, your notes to “Dear Diary” have provided me with valuable source material for creative projects across a broad range of media and genres, from fictional stories and dance performances to experimental videos, computer-generated graphics, and e-literature. You’d be surprised by the new media and communications technologies available to people in the twenty-first century. We’ve entered the digital age!
Consider this: I’m typing to you on my desktop computer and looking at my text on a screen that resembles a small TV. Not only does the computer allow me to type and save all my work; it also provides access to something called the internet, a global network of information, movies, classes, talks, newspapers, shopping, photographs, and so much more at my fingertips. I can send and receive letters electronically, and I can even post my thoughts on the World Wide Web for everyone to read, sort of like keeping a public diary. I can also create short videos to post on the web or watch videos other people have shared. Many types of social media have become popular online. Archives of all sorts have become popular too.
I’m especially excited about the internet as a repository for personal and cultural memories. I make amazing discoveries all the time. One of my favorite finds on the web recently has been a video archive from a series at the New York Public Library called LIVE from the NYPL. I’ve been catching up on the programs I’ve missed. Going back almost ten years, the archive is a treasure trove of fascinating discussions with famous people about literature, culture, politics, and the arts. The guests expand my horizons and encourage me to think outside the box.
Paul Holdengräber, the host and director of LIVE from the NYPL, always asks his guests to provide seven-word biographies of themselves. Their thoughtful self-portraits inspired me to create my own seven-word bio, which I thought you might like to read: Lifelong learner, choreographs her days, imagines possibilities. This is how I see myself as a sixty-year-old woman, your future self.
As you can tell, I’ve remained fond of libraries, even though I usually visit them virtually these days rather than in person. And believe it or not, books have been digitized. That means you can read and share them electronically. I still read printed books too.
Along with reading and writing, online activities have kept me busy during this winter holiday season. The period from Thanksgiving to New Year’s is usually difficult, since I live alone and have no one nearby to spend time with. Fifty years ago, I never would have thought that I’d end up alone, but I enjoy my solitude and independence. Nevertheless, the holidays can be challenging.
Earlier today, I walked to the Original Farmers Market and adjacent Grove mall, frequent destinations on my daily walks around the neighborhood. You might remember the farmers market at Third Street and Fairfax from the summer of 1965. That’s when all six of us piled into the family car, a Buick LeSabre, and set off on our first — and only — road trip together. From Miami, we headed to California, a place that inspired so many fantasies it hardly seemed real.
The eldest of the four children, you were a strong-willed twelve-year-old, apprehensive about spending five weeks on the road with the family, but excited about seeing America from “from sea to shining sea.” You had never traveled beyond Florida before, so sharing motel rooms with everyone seemed like a tolerable compromise. The itinerary was jam-packed with national parks and other popular tourist attractions, including Disneyland. Going there was a dream-come-true for you.
Dad, the sole driver on this ambitious excursion, had studied his maps well. Your 1965 diary, which I still have, chronicled the trip. I was able to re-create the journey. It took us fourteen days to reach Anaheim, California, where Disneyland was located. Along the way, we visited the Alamo and LBJ ranch in Texas; Carlsbad Caverns National Park and White Sands National Park in New Mexico; the phenomenal Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, as well as the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Park, also in Arizona; and Bryce Canyon National Park and Zion National Park in Utah. We also stopped in Las Vegas, Nevada, to see the gambling casinos and fancy hotels. Before leaving Nevada, we took a short tour of the Hoover Dam.
And then the big day arrived. We reached Anaheim, California. After checking in at the Space Age Motel, we all took a rocketmobile to Disneyland. You went on about ten rides that day. Your favorites were the Matterhorn Bobsleds, the Submarine Voyage, and the Skyway. In the evening, you saw fireworks and heard Harry James and His Orchestra play. Some jazz musicians also played.
You were surprised by the ways girls dressed at Disneyland. Some wore bell-bottom pants, and others wore high-waisted, long “granny dresses.” You hadn’t seen fashion like that in Miami yet.
When you returned to Disneyland the next day, after side trips to Knott’s Berry Farm and the Movieland Wax Museum, you took the Jungle Cruise and rode on a monorail. You wanted to spend more time at Disneyland, but Mom and Dad were ready to move on. We had a strict schedule to follow. Now you knew what being a tourist felt like — you packed in as much as possible on each stop. More than two weeks into our trip, we were still going strong.
After leaving Disneyland — the highlight of our vacation for you — we stopped at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood to see the hand- and footprints of the movie stars. We then drove to the farmers market at Third Street and Fairfax in Los Angeles.
As the owner of the Citrus Express in Miami, Dad considered the farmers market more than another tourist attraction on our odyssey that summer. To him, and, by osmosis, to the rest of us, the farmers market was a mecca that we felt compelled to see for ourselves — a place where vendors sold fresh produce, specialty foods, and much more. There was nothing like it in South Florida.
Unfortunately, the farmers market was closed when we arrived that Sunday. We were all disappointed, especially Dad. We never got to go inside to sample exotic foods or buy healthy snacks for the rest of our journey.
Your mood quickly lifted as we headed toward our next destination — Universal Studios. On the tour we took there, we saw a fashion show, a makeup demonstration, and a stunt act, and we learned how movie producers made snow. We even went in the sound room of the Munsters TV set, and we saw the foam rubber rocks used for Westerns. The next day we headed north toward San Francisco, our final stop before circling back to Florida. I quickly forgot about the farmers market.
I’d have to wait more than forty years to visit the one place on our itinerary that we didn’t get to see in 1965. Dad had died by the time I finally visited the farmers market in 2008, shortly after I moved into my current apartment nearby. Although I had been living in the greater Los Angeles area for fifteen years, I had never been to the Original Farmers Market before. I did, however, visit the weekly farmers markets in Santa Monica and Long Beach when I lived there.
Unlike the temporary farmers markets, the Original Farmers Market is open for business every day now, including Sundays. The Grove, an outdoor shopping mall and entertainment complex that borders the market, also draws large crowds. CBS Television City and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art are within walking distance — further attracting people to an area that’s home to diverse segments of the LA population, from Orthodox Jews distinguishable by their traditional dress to movers and shakers in the entertainment industry. While attracting local residents, the farmers market and the Grove also draw crowds from all over the region — and the world. They come to shop and see the sights.
Even after living in the area several years, I feel like a tourist myself when I pass through the farmers market and the Grove on my walks. Fairfax and Third Street is part of my route. Once I enter the farmers market, I feel spellbound by aisles and aisles of vendors selling everything from gourmet groceries to imported herbs and teas. Delis and cafes offer international cuisine as well as fresh seafood and desserts. Novelty shops cater to niche markets. Fresh produce is available too. People speak languages from around the world.
While losing myself in the crowds, I also feel transported back in time, as memories of the Citrus Express inevitably surface. The farmers market prompts free-associative reveries. One thought leads to another. I recall our unsuccessful attempt to visit the farmers market on our family vacation in 1965, and I think of the family business, which meant so much to Dad. He died in 2003 at seventy-five, long after closing the Citrus Express and giving up his dream of leaving a legacy behind.
Dad never got over the fact that the business he devoted his life to creating ceased to be. Without a realm over which to preside, he lost interest in life. But when he navigated our family trip to California in 1965, he was full of dreams for himself and his family. Only thirty-seven, and the father of four young children ranging from six to twelve years old, he believed anything was possible. And, I suppose, so did you that memorable summer.
You were already pulling away from the family, yet the Citrus Express remained a part of your world. It was like another member of the family. Mom and Dad both worked there, and they expected you to pitch in.
While strolling through the farmers market in the early twenty-first century, I flash on scenes of the Citrus Express as it was long ago. Much wider than it was deep, this tourist destination on Biscayne Boulevard occupied a 1,575-square-foot corner lot that Dad owned. I envision the open-air storefront as it was in my youth — fruit basket displays and floral arrangements on the right, souvenirs in the center, and the juice bar on the left, next to the area where Dad packed fruit boxes to ship across the country.
On eBay, an online site for buying and selling merchandise, I bought a vintage color postcard of the storefront from a collector of Miami memorabilia. Dad stands in the rear of the store, barely perceptible among the display of fruit baskets. The messaging on the exterior of the building brings back memories:
CITRUS EXPRESS
INDIAN RIVER FRUIT
JELLIES
COCONUT PATTIES
ORANGE BLOSSOM HONEY
POM POMS
PECANS
JUICE BAR
HALF-BUSHEL ORANGES & GRAPEFRUIT $4.50
Delivered East of Mississippi
Bonded
Insured
Guaranteed
WE PACK ’EM RITE HERE!!
By the time you were ten, you had already mastered the juice bar and learned to make change — a better way to spend your time, Mom and Dad thought, than secluded at home reading the books you so cherished.
Zooming in, I see you in your usual spot behind the juice bar: a slender ten-year-old girl with long blond hair and blue eyes diligently squeezes oranges by hand in a small electric juicer. President Kennedy, your hero, has recently been assassinated. You’re imagining that when you grow up, you’ll be sophisticated like the former first lady, Jackie Kennedy, and marry a great man like JFK, who loved his wife and children. These thoughts are on your mind as you serve orange juice to a group of tourists who peer at you through their sunglasses and invite you to pose in photographs with them to prove to their friends back home they were really there.
The Citrus Express looms as a ghostly presence on most of my walks through the farmers market. I look backward and forward at once, never quite sure where I am in space or time, yet my overall experience changes as I gravitate toward certain shops.
Intrigued by the variety of vendors at the farmers market, I prepared a slide presentation on several of the shops for a Massive Open Online Course on creativity that I took in 2012. For my observational study, I visited a long-standing vintage toy store that I had often passed by but never visited. When I finally entered the store, I felt as though I had been transported back to the early 1960s. Immediately, I became immersed in a playful, toy-centric world. Arranged thematically on the crowded shelves, the toys and games were the focal point in this no-frills environment.
Nostalgia set in, prompted by a colorful display of hula hoops — the first “toys” that caught my attention. Memories of my own childhood resurfaced. Like many other boomers in the US, you, my younger self, mastered the art of hula hooping. Other items in the store also reminded me of that era: Barbie and Ken dolls, Play-Doh, Crayola crayons, stick horses, puppets, magic sets, and Etch A Sketches.
Ready for more time traveling, I visited a museum-like store that sold vintage memorabilia. As a repository of American popular culture, the store offered visitors a chance to imagine what everyday life was like in the twentieth century. I found memory prompts everywhere, but what really captured my attention was a portrait of John F. Kennedy over a display of magic tricks. In elementary school, you owned a copy of that portrait. How strange, I thought, to encounter that image again, amid the vintage memorabilia.
The seemingly random juxtaposition of the JFK portrait and the magic tricks made me wonder how the historical narratives we tell have developed on both collective and individual levels. Then I realized that the random arrangement of artifacts throughout the store resembled the free-associative nature of memory. In this way, the store enabled me to appreciate the memory work inspired not only by the JFK portrait but also by a wide array of collectibles — as well as by the farmers market itself.
A legendary produce stand was another shop on my itinerary that day. Around since the 1950s, it had become a local landmark. Partly in the marketplace and partly outside, the stall faced a parking lot. I observed pedestrians en route to the adjacent Grove mall stopping by to enjoy a fresh juice, buy a salad, order a fruit basket, or stock up on produce. People shopping inside the farmers market also gravitated to the produce stand. Attractive to tourists and residents alike, it evoked personal memories of the Citrus Express.
If we had visited the farmers market on our vacation in 1965, we probably would have spent time at this produce stand. I don’t know how the freshly squeezed orange juice was prepared then, but in 2012 a machine handled the process — so much faster than the juicer you used for squeezing fresh oranges and grapefruits at the Citrus Express. Generally, though, technology had not significantly altered the retail experience at this produce stand, adding to the store’s broad appeal. Simple displays of colorful fruits and vegetables attracted people who still desired fresh produce from local farmers.
Unfortunately, organic produce, which I prefer, was in short supply. I eat a plant-based, whole foods diet, so I consume lots of fresh fruits and vegetables — and I try to buy organic as much as I can. A health food store across the street from the farmers market offers a large selection not only of organic produce but also of vitamins, body care products, and much more.
You would be surprised by how much health food stores have evolved since the 1960s — and how popular they’ve become. Several large chains have emerged on national and regional levels. Nevertheless, the Original Farmers Market continues to offer visitors a unique shopping experience.
Although a dynamic center of activity year round, the farmers market and Grove mall truly come alive during the winter holidays. The area was particularly animated during the recent holiday season — after the huge Christmas tree was lit at the Grove and Santa started greeting children. I had never seen so many people taking photos with their cell phones.
Small enough to hold with one hand, these mobile devices have transformed the ways we communicate with one another and engage with the world. In addition to talking on our phones, we use them like mini-computers for surfing the internet, using email, watching movies, and taking photos. I took a few shots of the giant menorah that was first lit on Thanksgiving.
As I strolled through the farmers market earlier today, January 1, 2014, I reaffirmed my belief that the best is yet to come, a fantasy that keeps me going. This is, after all, Los Angeles, a city that attracts people chasing impossible dreams. I feel encouraged by the creative energy around me and know I’m not alone in my quest for meaning and purpose. Think of me on the brink of transcendence.
Fondly,
Your Future Self
[*] These reveries were inspired by actual events and lived experiences that have been filtered through the author’s imagination. Names have been changed or intentionally omitted. Some businesses, places, events, incidents, details, and fictitious characters have also been changed, invented, or altered for literary effect. Readers should not consider this essay anything other than a work of literature.
For more reflections on television and popular culture in the late 1950s and early ’60s, see Reimagining The Twilight Zone: A Young Fan’s Stories.
