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Published on 02/22/1999 All articles from this issue

Fire and fireworks: Kahn gets lucky, avoids big boom

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Voice of the Past

Sam Kahn, known as "Sammy" to his friends in Los Altos, moved to Los Altos in 1939, where he opened Kahn's Corner Pharmacy, which is still open for business on Main Street. Last week's Town Crier featured the story of how Kahn first got started in Los Altos.

We continue the account that Kahn told during a 1992 interview with Margaret Thompson and Pinkie Whelan at his home on Marvin Avenue in Los Altos. Kahn died in 1997 at the age of 88.

There were many places for rent when we arrived in 1939. It was during the Great Depression and things were just awful. People would come in and work as hard as they could, but couldn't make a go of it.

Our first store had a soda fountain. I didn't like making sodas and sandwiches and things like that. I still remember the Blach family. There were seven kids in their family. They were all big kids. Every Sunday they would come in and just fill up my drug store and order ice cream sodas. When I saw them coming, I wanted to jump under the counter.

Eventually, we sold the soda fountain. As they loaded the beautiful big marble countertop onto a truck, they dropped it, and it broke up into hundreds of pieces. That was a sad experience. But I had the $25 they paid me for it, and I was very happy to be rid of that soda fountain. I never had wanted to make sodas and sandwiches.

Larry Nelson (of the Los Altos Pharmacy) had been in business here for 10 years, so I had to work hard to get people's trust. Larry and I were friendly. We would exchange merchandise. You know, he didn't have this and I had that ... The important thing was keeping our customers satisfied.

Once we almost burned down the old store. It was Christmas time, too, which was really bad. We had a gas heater and somehow it caught fire. The volunteer firemen worked like hell and finally put that fire out. There was very little damage; we were so lucky.

One day, a little while after the fire, I thought I'd see what was in one of the rooms upstairs, if I could get in. I yanked and yanked and finally got the door open. It was filled with fireworks. I suppose Jack Shoup or Jack Gregory, who owned the building, put them there. Luckily, the gas heater fire didn't get upstairs. We were so lucky.

On Saturdays, it was our big treat to go to L'Omelette Restaurant in Palo Alto and then to a show. My wife and I would drive back up Los Altos Avenue, and it was very isolated and dark. If I saw a car approaching in the back view mirror, I would say to Annette, "I wonder who the devil that is."

- Adapted by Donna Shoemaker and the Oral History Program of History House of Los Altos.