Toco Hill Residents Reminisce in New Facebook Group

Daniel Glusman started the Facebook group "You might be from Toco Hills if you remember..." on Saturday at 10:55pm. Three days later, the group already has 200 members, and it's already an interesting repository of memories, old photos and ruminations on the small community mostly defined by Toco Hill Shopping Center and Toco Hills Promenade.

"A traditional Sunday morning was when my brother Jonathan and I rode our bikes to Ben Franklin and spent all our allowance on bubble gum and comic books. It was so easy back then. I miss it!" Terri Kaplan Levine wrote on the group wall.

"I remember my grandmother would gather all the coupons for toilet paper from the newspaper and give one coupon to each grandchild with the exact amount of money," Judy Diamond wrote. "She would drive us all to the SupeRx and have us buy the toilet paper for her. It was her way of showing us how to handle money and save with coupons."

I sent an e-mail to Glusman, a 44-year-old Lavista Park resident who said he grew up in Toco Hill, about why he started the group. Here's his response:

I kept seeing friends post in these groups "you might be from {random hometown} if....."  so I figured Toco Hill(s) was my 'hometown'.  As a child that shopping center was the center of my universe and that of every child who grew up within 3 miles of the place.  From the 2nd grade on, me and all my friends used to hang out there all summer long,  As we grew, we got our first summer jobs in and around that shopping center, we didnt need to be old enough to drive to get a job around toco.  We had all sorts of odd jobs including taking out trash for businesses to putting flyers on cars and mailboxes to just collecting coke bottles (for deposit).  As we grew up we started working in Kroger, A&P, SuperX or many of the other stores that were open.  As you can see from the responses a lot of other people had a similar experience. 

It seems to be a fast-growing group. It'll be interesting to see where it goes. If you've got any Toco Hill stories, tell us below, and if you've got old photos, feel free to upload them to the two aerial photos I already put up there.