Tommy Gelinas’ childhood ‘bug to explore’ lost San Fernando Valley landscapes evolved into a mission to preserve contemporary, but passing away, Valley souvenirs in the Valley Rel…
There are people who talk a good game about missing the old San Fernando Valley of their youth and then there are people who actually play the game. That would be Tommy Gelinas. He’s been on a treasure hunt in the Valley since he was 10, and he’s still on it at 58.
Vintage memorabilia at the Valley Relics Museum Lake Balboa Tuesday, July 19, 2022. The museum houses historical items from the San Fernando Valley and beyond. Show CaptionTommy even has one of those talking Jack in the Box heads from the 1960s that we used when ordering our burger and fries in the drive-through line. That talking head is more popular with visitors than any of the 1800s historical documents and early photographs of the Valley he’s accumulated over the years.
“They had this mural of the Valley in the early 1900s inside the lobby and I asked my dad what that building was at the end of a long, long dirt road,” Tommy said. “He told me that dirt road was Van Nuys Boulevard where we were right now, and the building at the end of the dirt road was the San Fernando Mission.
By 30, he wasn’t looking at the past as much as he was the present. All his old haunts as a kid were disappearing — the Malibu Grand Prix, the miniature golf courses, Zody’s, the White Horse Inn where he had dinners with his parents, and the old General Motors plant on Van Nuys Boulevard — home of the Camaro — where 53 million Chevys were built. Gone.
Tommy was married by then, and the owner of a successful T-shirt screen printing business where he stored in his parking lot many of the old signs he was collecting. Pretty soon, he had run out of parking spaces for his employees. Sometimes, after the last visitor of the day is gone, Tommy will hang around for a few hours to walk through the museum alone. It can get emotional, he said.
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