Attention former students of Pine Street School in Redding. The owners of a new restaurant planned for the space want your old school photos and other memorabilia.
Chef Cal DeMercurio and his wife, Christa, are working toward opening Old School Restaurant this August in the old gymnasium, which housed the late Pio Loco restaurant for many years. As part of their effort, the DeMercurios are hoping to decorate the space with items – especially photographs – from Pine Street School. The grammar school closed in 1967.
“We would accept things on loan, but even better would be pictures we could scan and then attach with a note of ‘from the collection of,’” Christa DeMercurio told me. “All original pictures would be returned.”
She has photographs, provided by members of her own family who attended the school during the 1940s and 1960s, that she is going to enlarge and frame.
I love this idea. A number of the McMenamins establishments in Oregon and Washington are in historic school buildings, and they are packed full of old photos, report cards, art projects and other memorabilia. It’s a hoot and even educational to look at stuff from back in the day.
If you’d like to contribute, contact Christa DeMercurio at info@oldschoolrestaurant.com. For updates on the restaurant and to make menu suggestions, visit the Old School Restaurant website.
On today’s A La Carte menu:
Can it this Thursday … Shasta Food Group’s annual summer food drive is scheduled for this Thursday, July 21. You may drop off canned and other non-perishable items between 7 a.m. and 2 p.m. at Mt. Shasta Mall in Redding, Sentry Market in Shasta Lake, Safeway stores in Anderson and Burney, and Ray’s Food Place in Fall River Mills. Also, Kent’s Market on Airport Road just north of Anderson will accept donations from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Think whole grain cereal and pasta, canned fruits and veggies, beans, peanut butter, and canned meat and fish. All of the food will be distributed by local food banks and charitable organizations. Also, if your garden is giving you more than you and your neighbors can eat, call Shasta Food Group at 226-3067 to find out which food pantry could use your excess produce.
U.S. soccer team is all talk … Less than two weeks after I lamented how football, baseball and men’s basketball dominate sports talk radio, the airwaves were filled with discussion of the U.S. women’s soccer team. Even gum flappers who normally make fun of soccer couldn’t bypass this story. And, in the spirit of sports talk radio … Am I the only one who thinks the U.S. would have had a better chance if Redding’s Megan Rapinoe (Foothill High School class of 2004) had not been pulled late in the final match while playing such an excellent game?
The wicked ditch is dead … Thanks to the National Park Service and scores of volunteers, mostly from the local mountain bike community, the Ditch of Death on the Clear Creek Canal Trail in Whiskeytown National Recreation Area is history. The less severe, re-routed trail at Orofino Gulch still has a few rough edges, but it is fully passable and will smooth out after a season of rain. Mountain bikers who are a notch or two above the beginner level should have few troubles with the new route, and equestrians no longer need to dismount.
Paul Shigley is a freelance journalist based in Western Shasta County, CA, and is definitely old school. He may be reached at pauls.anewscafe@gmail.com.
A News Cafe, founded in Shasta County by Redding, CA journalist Doni Greenberg, is the place for people craving local Northern California news, commentary, food, arts and entertainment.
