New to Santa Clara

Impressionable Benny Collins, transplanted at seven years old into the rapidly changing Santa Clara Valley, narrates a story of growing up in the town of Santa Clara, as he witnesses firsthand the "Valley of Heart's Delight" slipping into the past.

If you lived in Santa Clara, California in the fifties and sixties, you likely remember many of these places:

Santa Clara and Sunnyvale orchards, Lawrence Station Road, St. Lawrence the Martyr Catholic Parish, Valley Fair Shopping Center, El Camino Real, Santa Clara Schools, Lawrence Square, Moonlight Drive-in, Stevens Creek Dam, Sunnyvale Shopping Center, Sunken Gardens Golf Course, Libby's Cannery, Calaveras Creek, Santa Clara A&W, The Corn Palace, Briarwood Little League Park, Uncle John's Pancake House, Edelweiss Dairy, Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, War Memorial Pool, Schurra's, Andy's Pet Shop, Santa Clara Theater, Lawrence Meadows, Santa Clara Grandview Hardware.

These are just some of the places recreated in the story New to Santa Clara. Historical events shaped, reshaped, and even eliminated many of those places. People of this young boy's past bring them back to life.