The schools now are often criticized for their lack of physical exercise programs. There was no shortage of such programs in the 50’s. Not only were there sports and classroom athletics, but also twice per month, every class from the Haven Drive Elementary School made the trek from the school to the Kern County Public Library on the North end of “A” Street at Fourth Avenue, which was just south of the Arvin Volunteer Fire Department facility. Usually two classes would go at one time, so you had two teachers supervising the outing. We would walk up “A” Street like a line of ducks, lead by our own mother duck teacher. 

 

Wooo-be the student who got out of line or misbehaved, because you might be sent to the principal’s office, where it was rumored that they had a “Automatic Spanking Machine,” where they would just strap you in with your bare butt pointed up in the air, turn it on and leave you there for hours on end. (So to speak) Now mind you, no one you knew had ever seen this machine, or even received a spanking by it, but one of your close friends, had been told by one of his friends, who had heard it from a reliable playground source, that he knew of a guy, who knew someone, who had a friend, that had a buddy, who had pissed a teacher off so bad, that they did not come back to unstrap him for TWO HOURS. We were all kept quite-in-line because no one wanted a closer relationship than that with THAT machine, so everyone minded their p’s and q’s.

 

At Haven Drive and South “A” Street intersection, the traffic was always controlled by Mr. Harley Smith; our School Crossing Guard, so that the class could cross. Mr. Smith’s hair was as white as snow and he wore a kahki uniform. Everyone loved him and we would give him Christmas Presents the same as we would our teacher each year. He would always have scraps of Cedar wood retrieved from Mr. Earl Catlett’s school woodshop and he would carve small hearts during the time that school was in session. If you asked him nicely, he would carve a heart for you and even cut your first name into the face of it. Somewhere I still have my heart that I got from him. At the Bear Mountain Blvd. intersection the teachers acted as crossing guards so that their line of ducks could cross the street then on to the Library. This is where they also set up and gave us our Salk Polio vaccination sugar cubes so that we would not get Polio like my brother, Leo had, several years earlier.

 

The Librarian was a very energetic lady, who took the time to learn each of our interests. She would then introduce you to books that we liked to read. First, I read and studied every airplane book I could get my hands on and could identify any plane that happened to pass over on their way to Edwards AFB. She then introduced me to a series of books about an outdoorsman and a family of Grizzly Bears. I became so paranoid that someone else was going to check out the next book in the series that I was reading that I use to go over to the Reference Book section and hide the next book behind the taller books, so that they would be there, when I wanted to check them out on our next visit.

 

When we returned to school, the teachers would march us down the 8^th grade hallway, down the ramp, onto the playground and then dismiss us just as the recess bell was sounding. The problem was that this was not our playground and if the 7^th and 8^th graders caught you on “Their Playground” you would be pushed around or harassed, so we would run back over to the eastside playground to play on our swings and slides.

 

I was always the long-legged, lanky kid who was the fastest runner of the group, so when we were dismissed, I sprinted off towards our playground as fast as I could, so that I would be the first to get one of the chain swings. As I ran, I was looking back over my shoulder, nanner – nannering everyone, as I left them in my dust. I noticed that everyone was shouting and hollering at me, but I could not hear what they were saying because I was so far ahead and the recess bell had begun to loudly ring. I turned my head foreword just in time, to see the tetherball pole about four inches in front of my nose. 

 

I was later told by one of the students that saw this, said that I was just like Wile E. Coyote in the cartoons. My arms went straight out horizontally in front of me, as did my legs, while my body attempted to conform to the shape of the pole. I then slid down the pole and smacked my butt on the ground and flopped backwards, totally unconscious. I awoke, surrounded by a mob of kids, with several teachers shaking me, while calling out my name, trying to wake me. I got up and had no idea what had happened and alas, all of the chain swings were taken. 

 

I instead got to go to the School Nurse, Mrs. Eleanor Phillips office, where she slathered all of my wounds, and scrapes with the magical green antibiotic soap that stung like the dickens, while I waited for my mother to come and pick me up. Finally mother arrived and took me directly to Dr. Hotten’s office, where I got a stern lecture about how I should be more careful with the playground equipment, since it cost so much to maintain. I did not understand why he kept winking at my mother, as I was spending so much time wincing as they were washing all of the green soap off my wounds with Isopropyl Alcohol. Then he dabbed a liberal dose of mercurochrome onto the wound and put a small bandaid over all of that.

 

We got home just in time for my favorite show, the Don Rodewald’s Afternoon Show, complete with Deputy Howie  to come on KERO Channel 10. I even got to lay on the couch in the living room and watch it. Next was The Cousin Herb Country Music Show where my next door neighbor’s daughter; Rebba Harmon, often sang and played guitar.

 

I was positive that I was going to have an extended session with the infamous Automatic Spanking Machine that we all knew about, when I returned to school. But fortunately that pole was so well anchored, that I did not cause it any damage. The mercurochrome and bandaid made me quite the war hero, but just to make sure, I always gave those poles a wide berth from then on, just in case they might have reconsidered my attempt to knock down their pole.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As children in the 1950’s, we never understood the true meaning of the term “Trick-or-Treat”. There was no vandalism, very little mischief and even fewer bullies. No one had store-bought costumes and most Trick-or-Treater’s either had a hand-painted bag over our heads with holes cut for our eyes, nose, and mouth with colored art paper tabs glued all over the face of the bag. A classic “Trick” was to prepare a second bag, leave your own house wearing one bag, change bags and go back to your own house, so that you got one of the popcorn balls you and your mother had spent two evenings making, but mom said you couldn’t have any, because we have to save them for the “Trick-or-Treater’s”.

 

 In one evening, between dark and 9:30 you could visit every house in Arvin and you got homemade treats from most of them. When you went to most houses, even though you were disguised with a bag and an old bath towel safety pinned around your neck, they would address you by name, as the homemade treats were placed in your bag. Usually, I would follow another group up to my own house and remain silent as they screamed “Trick-or-Treat”! But each of us was expected to say “Thank You,” as we received our Treat and my mom would say “you’re welcome David”. Darn!  I thought I had really fooled her this year. I think she recognized her bath towel that was still safety pinned around my neck. 

 

I only remember one instance where three older bullies tried to snatch a kid’s bag and they started a tug of war contest with the smaller kid screaming bloody-murder while the paper bag finally broke and candy scattered everywhere across the street. Other kids, parents and homeowners all came from one block away from every direction hollering for them to leave him alone. The hoodlums grabbed a couple of pieces of candy and disappeared into a grape vineyard where they spent the rest of the evening dodging police spotlights and parent’s flashlights. I heard later that the brats had a “Come-To-The-Lord Meeting” with some of the older brothers and we were never bothered again.

 

One year, I was into making the little string balloon animals, hats, flowers etc. and I was asked to man a booth at the annual Sierra Vista Elementary School Halloween Carnival, where my creations were sold or given out as prizes at one of the booths. I did not have my other way to blow the balloons up, except by mouth and breath and even though I had made up a large box of them for more than a week before the event, we ran out and I wound up blowing myself silly trying to keep up with the kids who won at the bean bag throw, at my booth. 

 

A few people in town went all out and decorated their yards or gave special treats. The underground network of kids meeting at the end of each block, usually did not take long to spread the word of something special in the community and the kids would come a-flockin. Somewhere around the age of high school, your parents would no longer let you go out, so we would be relegated to the candy bowl and we would go to the door to greet the little monsters and pass out candy, “one for you”, one for you,” ”one for you,” ”one for me”.

 

As we got older our minds got more and more devious. One year we had a large box that a clothes dryer had came in that I decorated and cut several eye holes. I would scare the little kids by scratching or bumping the sides of the box, rocking it back and forth, but the older kids got a ghostly Jack-in-the-Box treatment as they turned to leave. Candy would fly everywhere as they ran off in fright.

 

My friend Gary Smith remembers dangling a cap gun from the ceiling rafters of his porch cover in a darkened area, where wooden planters had been placed. Then with a second string running through the screen on his window of his bedroom, he would yank it back and forth to make a commotion. His Dad, at the door, would play along and ask the scared kids what was going on over there and the kids would go over and try to see what was causing the noise in the dark. Gary said one small kid looked and said, “I see it ---- It is aaaa ----aaa!” then he turned and ran away.

 

Rick Maltone, another good friend of mine fondly remembers Pat and Karen Huffman’s infamous Halloween Parties where they set up part of their backyard as a ghostly haunt. You were made to walk through the maze barefoot and blindfolded. In this maze, they had set up one section of the floor scattered with little Vienna sausages. As you walked through squishing the sausages between your toes, you remembered their dogs. In another section they had hung wet spaghetti from boards that hung over you. You were positive that you were walking through cobwebs and spider tendrils as they brushed past your face. He thought it was Very Frightful, but more fun to listen to your friends as they went through the same sections, after you had emerged unharmed and knew what they were experiencing.

 

Linda; the editor for the Arvin Tiller, pointed out that she and Dennis; her husband, were married on Halloween. Their cake was a haunted house with an attached graveyard and Linda’s wedding march was Alfred Hitchcock's theme song. I can just picture all of the “Death of a bachelor” jokes a-flyin. It is good to see that other people exist with a slightly distorted, “far side”, sense of humor.

 

When my son Michael was a small tike, he was fascinated with fire trucks and firemen so my wife; Valerie, dressed him up as a fireman and his baby sister, Katie, who was only a month old was dressed in white pajamas with black spots marked all-over with a marks-a lot marker so that she was his Dalmatian fire dog for her first Halloween.

 

 

My last celebrated Halloween, was with a combined Arvin De Molay’s/ North Bakersfield Jobe’s Daughters, where I and my then girlfriend Sherry dressed up as hobos, complete with things tied in a bandana on the end of a stick, slung over our shoulders.

 

It has been said that boys never grow up, they only get older! So, TRICK-OR-TREAT!!! Do you have any popcorn balls left? Have a Great and Safe Halloween this year.

 

Growing up in Arvin, California in the 50’s was fun. Twenty-one miles from Bakersfield and only seven miles from the famous Weedpatch, Ca. mentioned in the John Steinbeck’s book “The Grapes of Wrath”. We considered ourselves the town located south-of-the-tracks of a known poor-ole Okie town. The summers were unbearably hot, usually more than 110^o, and for us kids running around barefoot in this temperature, it was very uncomfortable. Fortunately, there were not too many concrete sidewalks and you got use to your feet getting hot as they buried themselves in the sand with each step, or hot tar stuck to your feet from the melted asphalt streets as you ran across them, not to dodge traffic, but to keep from getting stuck to the tar. It was a special treat to get to the El Rancho Movie Theater. If your momma was kind and your family was “well–to-do,” she would give you the 25 cents to get in and sometimes another 50 cents to get some candy, popcorn and a soda. Most of my friends lived in the farm labor camp on the next street over from our house and their parents either worked seven days a week or still could not afford to give them the money to get in. They would go out, collect refillable pop bottles, returning them to the local markets for their deposit so that they had money to come also.  I would go along and help them look for pop bottles which had been discarded along side of the road. We would often walk miles before we could get enough unbroken bottles to cash in for money for all of my friends to get in to the show. Most of the bottles were worth five cents each. Now the El Rancho Theater was run by a grouchy, rutty faced old man named Ernie Martinez who chain smoked cheap cigars. The popcorn smelled pretty bad and had a smokey flavor, but what did we kids know? Each Saturday Ernie was faced with an endless line of kids who were perpetually 12 years old, because the rate tripled to a unbelievable high 75 cents at age 13. Poor Ernie was faced with the undaunting task of asking each kid his age and trying to trap them by also asking them for their birthdates. After all, you can’t expect 12 year olds to carry drivers licenses – though a few of them had been driving for several years and offered to show their Draft cards as proof they were only 12 years old. He finally got smart and started keeping a list of all the kids’ names and ages. He probably had a more comprehensive list than the information at the schools. More than once, Ernie threatened to tattoo our birthdates on the center of our foreheads, since they seemed to change each week. Go figure! Gary S., Gary N, Pogie and I met there every weekend, along with all my Camp friends and we would play tag and war in the theater. Heads bobbing over the seats, throwing popcorn, jujubes, Dots or what ever we could find. Then the noise of kids scurrying back and forth on our hands and knees trying to get a better vantage location Black Dots candy would be stuck all over our clothes after people had put them into their mouth and then spit them wet onto the floor.  In a town with only a thousand residents, there were not that many kids and a lot of vacant seats between the older teenage couples huddled together in a three hour long embrace. Ernie would shine his light on anyone who got too frisky within either group. We finally figured out that the main reason most of us were sent to the movie theater was to allow our parents several uninterrupted hours where they could make more kids. This was the era of the cheap Japanese horror flicks and California surfing movies. Usually each week was the same scenario, you would go into a semi-dark theater with a Hi-Fi playing scratchy classical selections, the action would start with a serial such as BUCK ROGERS; News of the Day showing the latest news from the battle front in Korea; a first rate Disney cartoon; the “A rated” movie; intermission; then a prize drawing MC’ed by Ernie-complete with his cigar; a second rated Looney-Toon cartoon; and the second “B rated” movie. Twenty five cents was a lot to pay, but it was marginally worth it with the prize drawing. As I got older, the weekend adventures with my boy type friends changed as I noticed that some of them were developing bumps on their chest. From that point on it was sort of a pre-drivers education, where you learned to be a contortionist, trying to kiss while seated with a chair arm between each other and not be too obvious. If you got too frisky Ernie would shine his light on the offending couple which would illicit general cat calls by the other couples laughing as the light was trained on you, as clothes was straightened and we sat up straight and tried to deny ever having met the person sitting next to us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1951, I was just five years old when I was diagnosed with astigmatism by Dr. O. Righellis O. D. here in Arvin. I remember the first comment on my patient card was that I was continually getting car sick. I had to go to his office, which was located on Bear Mountain Blvd. just opposite from the Arvin Congregational Church at north “B” street, once a week for eye exercise training. My right eye had become very lazy. Its view on the world was so out of focus that I was only using my left eye. I got the “four-eye” nickname very early in life.

 

Back in those days glasses were made from real glass and my lenses were very thick and heavy. Finally, Dr. Righellis found a source for plastic lenses for glasses that were far more expensive than glass, but they were lighter. He talked my mom into buying me the first pair ever sold in Arvin. We picked them up on a Saturday morning, right before going over to the Canterberry’s house for a birthday party. Because the fitting had taken so long, I was late for the party that was being held in their backyard.

 

Everyone was in the backyard trying to spank the birthday boy. He had grabbed one of his birthday presents, a baseball bat, to defend himself. Marvin had backed up to the edge of the house and was swinging the bat back and forth to keep his attackers at bay. As I was coming through the house, I heard all of the yelling and commotion and figured I was missing something good, so I ran through the kitchen and burst out the screen door just as he swung his bat my way. He struck me squarely across the eyes as I exited the doorway.

 

The impact knocked me back into the kitchen and broke my new glasses. The lenses cut me all of the way around both eyes and gave me two black eyes. There was tears and blood everywhere. Dr. Righellis later told me that had I been wearing my old glass lens glasses, that I would have been permanently blinded.

 

In 1960, as a freshman at Arvin High School, I went out for the football team. I played the position of guard and tackle on the “C” class team in practice and chief benchwarmer during the games. I knew I was chief, because they gave me the uniform with the Number “1” on it. As I remember it, we lost every single game that year. During football practice one day, we were having a practice scrimmage. As soon as the ball was snapped and I blocked the player opposite me, my right plastic lens on my glasses popped out of the frame and immediately disappeared into a sea of grunting bodies and feet. All of which were wearing football cleats.

 

I dropped to the ground and frantically tried to get everyone to stop, so that I could find my lens before it got broken. But to no avail, they could not hear me and continued to push and shove. Now, even back in those days, I was in the situation where I needed my glasses to find my glasses and my search was not going well. Finally, Coach Lukehart whistled the play to a stop and several players tried to help me search for my lens. We simply could not find it. It had totally disappeared from the face of the Earth. Finally, coach Lukehart said we had to continue practice and he motioned me to get off the field.

 

We had been practicing hard for more than an hour and so we were soaking wet in the Arvin afternoon heat. When I stood up, I felt something icy cold touching my belly inside my football jersey.  Sure enough, there was my lens. It had fallen down the neck hole of my loose fitting jersey and since I had been on my hands and knees all of the time frantically searching, there it was, undetected until I stood up. I popped it back into the frame and continued with football practice.

 

Later that year, as a member of the AHS swimming team, I was at the Arvin Community Swimming Pool where the Arvin High School swim team met for practice and their home competitions. Coach Klinger was barking for everyone to get into the pool and start practice. As the girls ran out of their locker room one of the girls screamed that her contact lens had just popped out her eye and was lost. Everyone stopped and got down on their hands and knees. We searched the rough concrete deck to no avail, even though none of us had ever seen a contact lens and had little idea what they looked like. Roy Carlos even brought a broom over to sweep the area, but was told it would ruin the hard lens.

 

Hard contact lenses had just been invented and cost well over a thousand dollars so this was a big loss. She began crying because she knew that her parents were going to be mad at her for losing her new contact lens. I remembered my football practice experience and told her the story. I then said, “You don’t suppose ….?” Despite my best offer to help her search, she and two of the other girls ran back into the girl’s locker room. They came out a few minutes later, all happy. The errant lens had been found, a little higher than I had found my lens in football practice. While I was the hero that saved the day, not only did I not get to participate in the search, but I did not even get a kiss for my efforts. Such was the plight of a unappreciated, geeky, four-eyed kid throughout my high school days.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arvin’s first community center did not have a roof. As a matter of a fact, it did not have any walls either. It had trees. I am referring to the DiGiorgio Community Park. In the 1950’s, the park was many things to everyone in the community. It was a place for reunions, weddings, receptions, church gatherings, revival meetings, movies, swimming, baseball, basketball, football practice, roller-skating, Recreation Center games and of course long afternoon naps in the shade.

 

Many families celebrated their Easters and had their Easter Egg Hunts there, followed by family reunions or picnics, where they would reminisce of births, passings, wars fought and fish caught. Anyone that was passing-by was usually invited to join the party. Most of all though, just laying back on the cool grass, listening to the birds chirp, and the butterflies flutter, as the clouds passed overhead made life worthwhile. We met our friend after school to play there, or to challenge each other to fist fights to defend the honor of our brothers or sisters. The park was in the center of everything. You identified where you lived in Arvin, in relation to the park. If a friend was coming over to play, you met them halfway, “at the park”. 

 

We kids use to swim and body-surf in the flood irrigation, lawn watering ponds, long before there was a swimming pool in Arvin. One time, Mom and Dad were taking me to Little League softball practice. We turned off Haven Drive onto Myer Street and had just passed the “Easy Way Market” when my Father saw three young kids trying to catch a very wet and forever-mad gopher that was stranded on the berm between two adjacent ponds of water. The kids were closing in from both sides with their hands outstretched ready to grab their new-found pet. The gopher was standing on his hind legs chattering at his attackers.

 

 My Dad, saw this and hit his horn for a long blast, he then slapped on the brakes, threw open the door and he ran across the flooded pond, yelling at the kids to get back, as he gave the gopher a full football field-goal kick across the pond. He then gave the kids a stern lecture about trying to catch wild gophers, while still standing in 9 inches of water. He then slogged back to the car, still parked in the middle of the street, with his door wide open and cars going around us. I don’t think I ever saw my Father move that fast again his whole life.

 

The Recreation Center building was home for Boy Scout Troop 97, where we met weekly and I learned Morse code. Once while out in the park at night, we were practicing our Morse code, using flashlights to signal back and forth between teams, one of the scouts noticed that there were flashlight signals coming from the Bear Mountain hillside above “The Cross”.   DOT – DOT – DOT (S), DASH – DASH – DASH (O), DOT – DOT – DOT (S), (S-O-S). This is the universal distress Code (SAVE – OUR – SHIP meaning “HELP!!). The scout, seeing this, signaled back and the signal again returned. They ran inside and got the leaders who also signaled and got a similar return signal. Two of the Leaders with several of the scouts went up onto the mountain and found a family stranded with their car broken down, and they were able to rescued them. We heard all about their adventure at our next meeting, where the husband who had been stranded with his family, was present as a guest to say; “Thank You,” to all of us.

 

We also learned knot-tying and most of my outdoor skills that I have been able to amaze my kids with, every time a knot is needed or trail is to be found. During the summer you could check out checkers, chess, Chinese-checkers and backgammon sets. We played ping-pong and pocket-pool. It was the departure spot for the buses that took us to the Buena Vista Elementary School swimming pool, before Arvin had our own swimming pool. Also, we all met there to leave for Scout Jamborees, campouts to Caliente Creek and field trips to Fort Tejon up at Lebec.

 

In the early 50’s, 16mm black and white movies were shown on the baseball diamond. The projector would be on home plate and the screen would be at the pitcher’s mound. The audience would sit in the stands to watch the movie. They were showing a caveman movie one time, with lots of dinosaurs and wild animals roaming on the screen. I leaned over to my brother, Leo and ask him why all of the people were behind bars in a cage. He thought a moment and leaned back over my way and told me that it was so the wild animals did not attack us.

 

My mother loved to Roller Skate and they had a concrete slab which had overhead lights on the east side of the park. Once per week, they would play 78 rpm records from a Victrola and we would skate until late in the evening. Most of us had roller skates that fastened to our shoes with skate keys that tightened tabs onto the soles of our shoes. My Mother had real shoe skates that she had brought with her from Kentucky. I remember that one young beautiful lady could skate backwards around the entire rink and we would watch her as she skated, admiring her grace and beauty. I never did master the art of skating backwards.

 

When in 1959, they placed the swimming pool deep in center field from the baseball diamond. Everyone was sure that the west side dressing room windows were at a safe distance, but Albert Bullard proved them wrong at least three times, by hitting home-run balls through the windows. The first time, I was the centerfielder and I was sure that I was in trouble for not stopping a ball that sailed 20 feet over my head, before it hit the window. I had to loan them my own personal baseball, so that they could finish the baseball game.

 

I took my Lifesaving Course at the pool and I became Arvin’s first “Certified Junior Lifeguard”. Later, we used the pool for Arvin High School physical education class, swimming team practice and a place to hold our hometown meets. In the summer, the pool provided us endless summer afternoons and evenings of relief from the heat. We lounged, swam and splashed with our friends, as we watched the girls work on their perfect tans.

 

The Head Park Caretaker worked for Kern County and lived in a house that was provided for him by the County on the corner of Haven Drive and South Hill Street. My Mom and Dad were friends of his and we would often be invited over to his place for Barbeques. He had a dog that had been trained to only accept treats if given to him from your left hand, because his owner thought that most people were right-handed and there was less chance that he would be poisoned if he would not accept treats from just anyone. 

 

I am sure, that while the trees have gotten taller, and some even fell over in the 1977 windstorm. The park is still used to wax your car, meet your friend, have a picnic and play baseball or soccer, but most of all it is still a place to listen to the birds chirp, butterflies flutter and to lay on you back on the cool grass to watch the clouds lazily glide overhead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

        & nbsp;       &n bsp;       &nb sp;       &nbs p;         ;                 & nbsp;     THE END