Saturday Memory for April 18, 2026
Saturday Memory for April 18, 2026
In my last year of high school (1956), I worked part time for Bank of America, delivering deposit information to the Federal Reserve Bank. At lunch time, my friend and I would eat lunch at Clifton’s Cafeteria. Almost everyone there was old, in our minds, really old. The conversations we overheard we thought were hilarious: talk of being old, hospital stays, friends dying, falling, wheelchairs., aches and pains. We smirked and giggled. I can’t recall now why we thought all this pain and suffering was funny.
Today, I read in the Los Angeles Times, that the proprietor of Los Angeles’ legendary Clifton’s has given up on reopening the shuttered venue.
A wave of nostalgia swept over me.
It was no longer funny what we heard there seventy years ago.
And now Cliftons’ itself has died.
Ah, Cliftons’ ! it was such a magical space then. The ads on TV would draw my breath. It was the Disneyland of lunch restaurants. At 10, my yearning to visit there was almost unbearable. Thanks to Aunt Angie, my dream came true. RIP, Clifton’s!