PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE: THE COZY LITTLE VALLEY OF OUR YOUTH SURE HAS GROWN UP.

Byline: Lori San Martin

WHEN I was growing up in the early 1960s in the San Fernando Valley, most everything we needed was fairly close to home. We lived in west Van Nuys, right near the airport, just about in the middle of the Valley. We walked to school and to church. The grocery store was a half-mile away. We owned one car, as most people did, and though it was used often, it usually only entailed a trip of no more than a few miles.

When we needed to go shopping, we mainly had two choices. One shopping area extended between Lindley Avenue and Reseda Boulevard, on Sherman Way; the other was on Van Nuys Boulevard from Sherman Way to about Victory Boulevard.

There we would find J.C. Penney, Butler Bros. and Woolworth's. There also was a multitude of smaller, boutique-type stores selling only women's, men's or children's clothes.

A few years later, our shopping choices expanded to include the department store. This was one big store, standing by itself, often consisting of several floors, and there were usually no other stores within walking distance nearby.

Panorama City was the home of the most department stores, with Broadway, Robinsons, Ohrbach's and the only one that still remains in that area, Montgomery Ward. Drive a few miles south, into North Hollywood, and you could do your shopping at a three-story May Co.

There were no such things as malls. When Topanga Plaza was built, it was an incredible phenomenon. But it was so far away from us that we rarely went there. After all, it was way over in Woodland Hills.

When we wanted to go to the movies, we had three or four theaters to choose from. There was the Reseda theater, the Americana on Van Nuys Boulevard, the La Reina on Ventura Boulevard and a couple of others. They consisted of one theater playing one movie, of course.

When a new movie was released by the studios, we would hear about it on TV, or maybe we would see the ads for it in the newspaper. But we had to wait to be able to actually see it. First, it would open in the theaters in Hollywood and Westwood. It took a few weeks, maybe even a month, for a movie to come down into the theaters in the Valley. Not too many people would drive way over the hill into Hollywood to see a flick.

I remember when I was a little girl, during Christmastime, we would drive to see the decorations on the streets of Reseda and Van Nuys. The city strung lights and tinsel garlands that hung low across the streets. It was an exciting thing for me to see. Then one day I learned of an area called Candy Cane Lane, where people elaborately adorned their homes with figures, lights and all manner of decorations. You could drive by in your car and view their creations.

It sounded absolutely enchanting to me. It still exists today. It sounded so wonderful that I asked my parents if we could go see it. When they found out it was in Woodland Hills, they said: ``Way over there? We aren't driving that far.''

My, how things have changed. Being the mother of three children, I find myself constantly in the car, driving my kids way over here and way over there.

A bumper sticker on my van says it all: ``If a Mother's Place Is in the Home, Why Am I Always in This Vehicle?''

It is nothing for me to drive 10 miles to soccer practice, three times a week. Soccer games can be as far away as Santa Barbara or Irvine. A tournament can mean a weekend stay at a hotel in San Diego or San Jose.

Going over to a friend's house does not mean that the friend lives around the corner, in our neighborhood. Half the children in our area attend private schools, so my children don't even know them. The friends from school live within a large radius of the campus, so a drive to their home could very well mean six to eight miles or more.

Shopping has certainly changed as well. There are now no less than five malls in the Valley. At least that long drive means I can drop the kids off and leave them for hours until I have to make the return drive to pick them up.

And just think about movie theaters. The days of one theater showing one movie on one screen are long gone. If a theater doesn't have 12 movies to choose from, digital Dolby sound and stadium seating, then forget it. The kids expect you to drive them to a theater that does. That's usually not a problem because there are now about 15 such movie complexes in the Valley alone. Hopefully, one of them is not too far away.

There certainly are a lot more things available today than when I was a kid. It seems that things are better, too. They are finer, grander and more complex than ever. But I sometimes wonder if in the simplicity of yesteryear, we had a whole lot more than we ever realized.