I took a walk into the 818 area code of my childhood the other day.

Yup. Right there in front of me, in a gallery at the Valley Relics Museum in Van Nuys, was “my” Mongoose BMX bike, save the back-wheel pegs that we’d go wheeling around on, up and down Woodman Avenue, Fulton, Oxnard…. (before it was stolen).

Then, I took a turn into another room, where the Ms. Pac-Man arcade game (which also had Galaga on it — any ’80s children out there?

You know what I’m talking about) beckoned, in a row of such vintage machines that conjured up my own memories of an arcade, right across from L.A. Valley College — circa early 1980s.

I couldn’t believe this was my first time in this shrine to Valley history. I had only about an hour in a few minutes to explore this place before it closed, inside this space on the skirts of Van Nuys Airport.

So this re-union of sorts had to happen fast.

Good to see you again, Pioneer Chicken sign. Oh, cool! Pleasure to re-aquaint with you, Nudie (and your car).

And oh, wow. Love’s Wood Pit Barbecue… I really loved hanging out at your place on Ventura.

And wholly moly! There are people who actually remember the restaurant back in the late ’70s — I totally cannot remember the name — where there was that player piano that just came alive as you ate, along with the cymbal-playing monkeys perched on the walls above you (I was starting to wonder if that was a some weird dream I had transposed as real.).

Man, I can’t wait until some day this place actually has on display vampires moving west on Ventura Boulevard. (I’m so there.)

But that’s the thing. I think there was a long period of time when I took much of this for granted. I’ve been feeling really nostalgic lately — and specifically for the the 818. I grew up in Valley Glen, an east-ish SFV neighborhood perfectly in reach of Ventura Boulevard, Universal Studios, the Galleria, Casa Vega and that great Carl’s Jr., just a few blocks away at Woodman and Burbank Boulevard.

I recently moved away, and a year later a vivid crush of memories has come rushing to the forefront of my thinking: My neighbors. Family. Even the cops who once came to tell me I was playing drums too loud in the garage. Walking to school. Bullies. Friends. Young crushes. George’s — that greasy spoon at Fulton Avenue and Burbank where the guy served up a pastrami and fries that I’m not sure my arteries will ever recover from.

Anyway, it’s all there in my mind these days.

So, perhaps the trip over to the Relics Museum was subconsciously by design — it was about 197 degrees outside. It was late in the day, and yet, I still needed to do it, and did it.

As I meandered by the museum’s old maps of the Valley, it got me thinking, “You know. The Valley gets a bad rap sometimes — and I plead guilty to some trash-talking myself.” But its history is steeped in a healthy bit of real L.A., and its culture — the good to the ugly — and it stretches all the way to real touchstone moments of pop culture, which are so fun to talk about and be immersed in.

I reached out to an expert on Monday, who put this sense into much more succinct — and studied — terms.

There’s good reason for that sense of nostalgia, and the meaning behind it, said Marty Cooper — whose books include “Read All About It: The Valley Times 1946-70” and “North of Mulholland: Essays from the San Fernando Valley Business Journal.” Those reasons include the legacy of the movie and TV industry’s move here, the aviation and aerospace industry’s evolution here and the accomplishments of people here.

“The San Fernando Valley has had an importance so far beyond its region … ,” Cooper told me over the phone, as I sat in my car in Smart & Final parking lot off Ventura Boulevard, which was so crushed with traffic I had to get off the grid.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not pining for some movement back to the way it used to be — some “Make the Valley Great Again” thing.

My generation was really connected to the legacy of World War II generation. But, as Cooper put it, the 818 is no longer just the place where the “Greatest Generation” settled after Word War II, like it had been known for so long. It’s not just the place where GM workers settled in the years when a car plant employed Panorama City. It has become more of a melting pot, Cooper said. And I agree, even with the fragmentation that often divides us and the troubles that afflict the region, from affordable housing to traffic.

It’s that changing dynamic in the Valley “that’s a change we’re in the middle of making,” Cooper suggested.

Maybe the area’s new problems and solutions will some day be the subject of some future Valley museum’s exhibit. For now, maybe the takeaway is just to look back at the old bikes, the old maps, the old street signs and smile. It’s all something for to build on — to remember those times and gear up for new memories.

(By the way, if anyone remembers the name of that restaurant that had the cymbal-playing monkeys and the player pianos, please reach out to me. It wasn’t just a dream.)