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Arvin Cowboy
Life in Rural Arvin in the 50's
Real Name: David L. Norris Gender: male Member Since: June 17, 2007 Last Signed In: April 21, 2009 Profile Views: 410 Blog Views: 1518 Walking to the Library Mr. Barle and the Hearing Aid Trick-or-Treat The El Rancho Theater The Law of Supply and Demand The Contact Lense Locking your Doors Arvin's First Community Center The 500 yard Dash Accident Momma and the Pillsbury Poppin Biscuits July 07 August 07 September 07 October 07 November 07 December 07 January 08 February 08 March 08 April 08 May 08 June 08 July 08 August 08 September 08 October 08 November 08 December 08 January 09 February 09 March 09 April 09 May 09 June 09 July 09 August 09 September 09 October 09 November 09 
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In 1954, when I was eight years old, I became a chicken rancher. My parents allowed me to have a small pen of chickens south of our garage at 301 Grove Street, where I grew up. We had bought a dozen mixed hen chicks and one red rooster chick from Canterbury’s Feed store on the south side of Bear Mountain Blvd. near “B” Street here in Arvin. They finally out grew the box that I kept them in and were put into a small pen. It was my job to go out each morning and collect the eggs from the nest boxes that my father had built from old fruit boxes that he had liberated from some ranchers orchard. The hens did not appreciate my trying to reach under them to collect the eggs that they had laid and I would get my hands pecked. They would then flap into my face, squawking as they flew off.
Now, as much trouble as the hens were, the rooster hated MY intrusions into HIS territory. There were days, he would not allow me through the gate to collect the eggs. He would challenge me at the gate, spurs bared, leaping and flapping at me. I found that if I took my water pistol when I collected the eggs, I could fend him off with a squirt here and a squirt there, but I would occasionally run out of water while I was still at the back of the pen. Now he was, FOREVER wet rooster mad. I would have to make a mad dash for the gate with the wet rooster in hot pursuit.
I finally went down to the Arvin Sprouse Reitz - 5 and 10 cent store and I bought six water pistols. I would put on my Hopilong Cassidy gun belt, two larger water pistols in the double holsters and four smaller ones tucked into the belt, two in the front and two pistols hidden in the back and I was ready for my daily face off at the OK Corral. My gawd, did that rooster ever hate me.
One Saturday morning, my mother went down to Canterbury’s feed store to get chicken feed. Marvin Canterbury, the owner had come up with a brilliant sales idea to increase his feed sales. He had bought 16 flats of day-old chicks and had a sign on the window. “Come buy a 100 pound sack of feed and get a free flat of chicks”. Now, each flat contained 100 day-old chicks and he figured that since the people would now have chickens, they would buy more feed and thus recoup his cost of giving away the chicks.
There were some unexpected glitches in his plan. First, he had not adequately advertised his sale. Except for the store sign, with a town of 1000 people, not that many people who are into raising chickens drive down the main street of Arvin each day. Secondly, buying chickens would probably be near the bottom of the impulse buying list, while you were waiting in line at the local feed store checkout line, since you would normally need to prepare yourself and you environment for such an addition. Thirdly, none of the chicks knew how to eat or drink and had no food or water in their boxes. Finally, think about how hot the summer days get, in a feed store in Arvin that only had one fan for circulation. The poor chicks were dying left and right and he had only gotten rid of two flats of chicks by early afternoon.
In walked my mother and I, to buy our customary 5 pounds of chicken feed that would normally last us two week or better. My mother was not one to let a good sale or bargain pass. Marvin, with a big smile on his face said, “Have I EVER got a deal for you!” He gave my mother FOUR flats of chicks for each 100 pound bag of feed. Before you knew it, he was loading out three 100 pound bags of chicken feed into the back of our station wagon along with all of the flats of chicks he had left. He threw in a couple extra flats – Just in case some of the chicks were dead. We were off to home with well over 1000 cheeping hungry chicks in our hot car. When we got home I thought Dad was going to have a cow. He huffed and he hollered, but finally settled down. He and my brother Leo, started building cages while mom and I tried to get the little chicks out of the car into the shade, fed and watered.
For several days, mom and I would have to push all of the chicks to one side of the cage with a 1 x 6 board, grab one chick at a time and dip its beak first into the water, then into the feed and release it on the far side of the cage. This kept up until the chicks either learned to eat or decided to die. Most figured out that the food and water was good for them. Eventually all of them were released in our original coup and started growing and laying eggs. My task of gathering eggs grew by leaps and bounds. The rooster was strutting around as King Cock of the World and had no time to bother me. The cage was totally wall to wall chickens. It was so full that you could not walk without kicking a chicken.
Eggs were anywhere that the chickens could squat for two moments. My egg gathering turned into a Easter egg hunt without coloring on the eggs. My mother was selling eggs and fryer chickens to all of the neighbors and friends as fast as she could. We had every chicken and egg dish for dinner known to mankind. Finally, they had all reached full fryer size and my dad checked the prices they paid for fryers in Bakersfield and he found that the market had gone down to the point that if you had them killed and cleaned by the wholesalers, you might wind up owing them money for the service rather than getting any return for your chickens to pay for the feed and time raising the chickens to maturity.
One Saturday Dad showed up with this great big boiling cauldron pot and started a wood fire beneath it in our back yard. He showed Leo and me how to ring the chicken’s necks and then let them run around without heads until they bled out. Occasionally the headless chickens would fly up and land in the English walnut tree in our backyard. My brother would either climb up and knock out the headless chickens or hit them with a football, thrown to get them to fall out. The dead chickens were then dropped into the boiling cauldron where dad and mom would hand pluck out all of their feathers before putting them into the freezer. Many neighbors came over and bought the cleaned chicken fryers right then. The rest were sold to the wholesaler on Monday. I think we at least recovered the cost of the feed for our efforts. I was back to my original 12 hens and one forever mad rooster.
Now, as you remember, I said I was a Chicken Rancher. I am guessing you are wondering what the difference is between a Chicken Rancher and a Chicken Farmer. There is this story I once heard about the ole country veterinarian who was downtown in the town feed store.
He ran into Clem, a farmer in the local community. The Vet went over to say “Hi!” Clem told him that he had decided, with the price of chickens so high, that he was going branch out and try his hand at farming chickens. The Vet wished him well and said he should have great success, since they were so easy to raise. About a month later, the Vet again ran into Clem in town and asked how his new venture was coming. Clem hung is head in shame and said, “Not too good Doc, they all died.” The Vet said, “What happened? Did you get some virus or disease?” Clem said, “I ain’t for sure what happened, but I think I either planted them too deep or too far apart”. THE END
The Ghost in My Garage
In the winter of 1952 when I was only 6 years old, our garage at 301 Grove Street, caught fire destroying the garage. It also destroyed our family 1946 Plymouth car and my brother, Leo’s Servic-Cycle, which was a cross between a motorcycle and scooter that had a leather drive belt to power the rear wheel rather than the customary chain and sprocket. He had purchased it from Houston Townsend, a family friend, who eventually owned the Arvin Barber Shop, across from the Wrights Dry Good Store on the east end of Arvin in the 1960’s.
Fires, especially ones at night, are very traumatic to small children and I was no exception. My family stood in our backyard, watching the garage burn. My mother held me in her arms as I clutched tightly around her neck with my arms, still in my pajamas, with sleep in my eyes. We watched as the Arvin Volunteer Fire Department fought the blaze. The Sheriff provided traffic control for the endless stream of cars with headlights that drove by to gawk at our loss. Red and yellow flashing and twirling lights illuminated all of the buildings, as they flashed or spun, lighting up the faces of my Mother and Father from the dark. It highlighted their concerns that the gas tank would explode or that the fire would spread to our house or to our next-door neighbor, the Harmon’s garage.
The fire cracked and popped and even though the walls toward our house and the alley were made of concrete block, the heat was intense. I felt searing heat to the back of my pajamas. My cheeks were rosy to the point of sunburn by the time the fire was extinguished. The smoke was thick with the smell of burning cedar shingles and red ambers drifted high into the night sky.
There was one window on the house side of the garage, where you could see the fiery turmoil going on the inside. You could see a sea awash with the light from the flames and shadows dancing about. Looking at this I was sure that I saw someone peering out from the window, but he could not come out because we were standing there. He had his arm up on the centerboard of the window and his skin on his face was already ablaze. Of this, I was positive! No one ever exited the only door that they could have come out during the blaze and I was sure they had not made it out of the inferno.
Finally, the fire was put out and only a few firemen remained to perform mop-up actions in case the fire reignited. We went back into our house to return to bed. Our house, hair and clothes all smelled like a wood and cedar shingle fire. My mom instead went to the kitchen and made her coffee and a big bowl of sugar popcorn for everyone. The firemen were invited in, one at a time to warm themselves and to have coffee and a snack. I don’t know if any of us got any sleep for several nights thereafter. I could not sleep by myself for weeks afterwards. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the flames and that person standing at the window.
The next morning we went out to survey the destruction. The roof had collapsed, as had the large double-car garage door. Dad’s 1946 Plymouth stood silent where it had been parked, no glass in any of the windows, nor any interior left. The gas tank had not exploded because my Dad had filled it the day before the fire, so the gas simply burnt, fueling the fire. There was little paint left on it and the surfaces had already begun to rust from all of the water that had been sprayed onto the fire. Leo’s Servic-Cycle still stood on it’s kickstand in front of the workbench, the underside of which, I had used as a playhouse, when my friends came over, by draping quilts over the edge that my mother had sown. The timber was black and charred, smelling of a humid wood fire. Everything you touched left a smudge on your hands and in your heart.
No human bones were ever found, as the debris was removed. The exact cause of the fire was never determined, but no one could convince me that I had not seen someone peering at me from inside the garage that night. I could still see him standing there, with his arm up on the window board, looking, looking and trying to figure out how to get out from the blazing turmoil without getting caught.
After analyzing the structure, it was determined that the concrete walls were still sound and the insurance company rebuilt the garage and they helped us buy a 1952 Dodge car to replace the one that was lost. Leo’s Servic-Cycle and my memories were not replaceable. The odor of the burnt cedar shingles lingered for months after the fire, in every drawer and closet in our house. Life returned to normal and I also eventually to my own bed, but I was never able to convince my soul, that there was not a ghost living in the garage. No matter how hard I tried, I could not go out to the dark garage at night. My Mother or brother would have to walk out there, turn the light on, and look, before I would venture out of the house.
Our house had a central hallway that started at the living room and lead off to each of our three bedrooms, along with the bathroom. It also housed the central floor heater and a closet. At the end of the hallway was my parent’s bedroom that had a window, covered by a shear curtain, which looked out across the backyard to that same garage window. Each time I walked down the darkened hallway at night, I would spot light and movement in the garage through that window. I was convinced that there was someone there! Both of my parents and my brother made numerous trips out to the garage to look around, never finding anything.
One night, my brother and I were both standing next to the floor furnace in the hallway to warm up and Leo saw my ghost in the window. The shadowy figure was definitely there! When you raised your arm and waved, it he waved back with the arm on its opposite side! If you bobbed and weaved to escape his view, he would also try to hide from our view by hiding behind something in the darkened garage. If you were sneaky though, you could catch him peeking over the garage window ledge to see where you were. This freaked my brother out and he called our Mom and Dad to come see the ghost. Strangely enough, the ghost had also called his family to look at us. This is when my Father figured out that we were looking at our own backlit reflections from the light cast by the television in the living room, with the window in the garage serving as a mirror.
Sure enough, if you waved at him, the reflection waved back at you, which I did every time I walked down the hallway at night to prove my Dad’s theory and this relieved my mind somewhat. Convincing your mind with common sense is one thing, but convincing your soul is quite another. For years after that, I would exit my back door of the bedroom, sprint diagonally across the backyard at top speed to reach the garage door, where I would reach my hand around the jamb, and turn the light on. From the corner of my eye, as I ran, I would catch sight of the ghost also running for the same doorway, but I had a head start on him.
After all, everyone knows that ghost can only attack you in the dark, so I was safe to go into the garage after I turned on the lights. I finally managed to control my fear, but if I returned tonight, I bet the ghost in the garage, much older now, would be there to greet me with a creative game of peek-a-boo.
THE END
In 1961, I bought my first pickum-up truck from Howard Wells; who was a janitor at ArvinHigh School. It was a 1951 forest green, deluxe cab, Chevrolet half-ton, narrow-bed, pick up truck. It only had a few problems when I got it. The 6-cylinder engine block was cracked and constantly leaked water. Also, the radio did not work, so I bought one out of an old Pontiac sedan in a Arvin junkyard, but with all the static from the engine wiring, it was not much of an improvement. The worse thing wrong with it was that the gas gauge either would not work or was very inaccurate when it did work.
This was not normally a problem since the gas tank was right behind the seat and the float bounced and continuously clanged against the wall of the tank or against the bottom when it got seriously dry. With my usual state of finances, I never kept much gas in the tank even though gas only cost 11.9 cents per gallon. There were rumors that the gas was going to hike all the way up to 15.9 cents per gallon, but no one seriously believed that would ever happen.
I became quite proficient in listening to the clangs of the float against the tank wall in order to guesstimate the quantity of gas I had left as you bounced down Arvin’s back roads or even after I parked in the back row at the Lamont Drive-In Theatre. I could estimate to the quart, how much gas I had left in my tank. You could also always count on a couple extra gallons left in the tank even when the gas gauge needle hit the “E” or the empty mark.
After getting married and starting my own business, I bought a new 1991 Ford F250, ¾ ton pick-up truck. On one trip to Los Angeles to visit my brother-in-law and his family, my wife Valerie, along with my two small children, Michael and Katie, were all crammed in the front seat of my new truck. We got a later than normal start heading back home, on a dark, moonless night. The rain beat mercilessly against the windshield. The windshield wipers hard pressed to keep the water off the glass.
Lightning constantly flashed, lighting the fields and hills for miles around my truck, as we sped past Lebec, crossing “The Grapevine,” on our way back to Bakersfield. We had just passed FortTejon when the engine began to cough and the truck began to lurch and lose power. I looked down to the fuel gauge resting sadly on the giant “E” as the truck began coasting slower and slower. I swerved the truck back and forth; wildly pumping the gas pedal, as if I were driving a pedal car, but alas with one last gasp and shutter the engine gave up the ghost and laid still.
You could hear the tires rumbling down the wet road at an ever slower and slower rate until we coasted to a stop along a narrow stretch of the highway with my emergency lights flashing. We waited for quite some time, then, I finally decided that I needed to walk for gas. As I exited my pickup in my light jacket and dress slacks, the wind immediately blew my baseball cap off my head and across a barbed wire fence. I never saw it touch the ground before it disappeared into the night.
I shouted through the window to Valerie to “hang tight”, that I was going to get gas. I looked back up the highway, just as lightning luminated the green sign on the far side which advised “FortTejon - One mile, No Services Available.” So I began walking downhill in the driving rain, buffeted by the high winds and splashed by the spray of the cars and trucks speeding past me, many blaring their horns and careening as they changed their lights to high-beams, forcing me further into the flooded gutter, my dress shoes were now totally soaked and full of muddy water. I finally gave up sticking my thumb out trying to hitch-a-ride when I realized no one would want a half-drowned rat in their dry car.
Finally the lights of the Union 76 gas station at the base of the Grapevine came into view, just as the batteries of my old two-cell Eveready Flashlight dimmed to the point it was no longer worth holding. I slipped the flashlight into my rear pocket. The rain had totally soaked my clothes. My socks had ridden down to the point, that they were now crammed into the points of my dress shoes. Rather than walking the entire cloverleaf exit, I figured I should just take a shortcut down the closest slope. When I started down the slope, the rocky mud gave way beneath me and my feet went over my head. I slid most of the way down.
Fortunately, my flashlight cushioned my fall and I left parts of my flashlight along with its batteries scattered down the entire slope. I picked myself up near the bottom and tried to regain some of my dignity as I limped closer to the station thinking to myself, “At least no one saw me do that!” Just then, I saw the station attendant and a tow truck driver who had been watching me from the station office, laughing hilariously, the driver slapping the attendant on the back and simulating my slip-and-slide adventure down the steep slope.
I started to turn and walk away, after all the next station was in Mettler which was only 12 miles away. After several moments standing in the driving rain, which had not yet let up, but was doing an effective job of washing the mud off the backside of my dress pants, I swallowed what was left of my pride and I went into the station where the two young men were still smirking and chuckling.
I explained my predicament and the tow truck driver offered to take me back up to my truck for only $35.00. As I got into the tattered rider’s seat of the tow truck, I tried to identify the sickening sweet smell emanating from the horshair saddle blanket which covered the springs in the upholstery bare seat. James, my newest found friend, jumped into the driver’s seat and as he was lighting a rum soaked Swisher Sweet cigar, he chuckled and made another off-handed comment about my spectacular arrival to the station.
He started the truck and then grinding the gearshift into first gear, he popped the clutch and the truck lurched forward into the black night, Merle Haggard blaring on the crackly speaker just behind my head. We finally got back to the truck where I put in the gallon of gas I had purchased in the old can that had previously been used to hold diesel, which now had gotten all over my clothes.
I gave James the can back and wiped my hands on my pants. Valerie and the kids had all been asleep when we arrived, but now both kids were bouncing up and down in the seat and Valerie leaned over and told me to hurry because everyone had to use the bathroom.
As I jumped in, the wind and rain still howling, they all looked at me and Michael said, “yewwwu! What is that smell?” I told him to “Shut up and go back to sleep.” I finally got the truck started and James rapped on the window and said he would follow me back to the station. Back down the hill, everyone headed toward their respective bathrooms. The attendant was on the phone to someone, wildly waving his arms and legs as he spoke. I was only glad that the Channel 23 Eye Witness News van had not arrived yet.
James said he would fill the tank as I got cleaned up. As we all came from the bathrooms, James said, “Did you want me to top off the second tank also?”
My wife wisely never mentioned this incident, unless she was in serious danger of losing an argument, which seldom happened, since I had now been properly instilled with an adequate quantity of husbandly dignity.
The End
In high school, I soon found that I had a very hard time in the study of English. I simply could not grasp all of the rules that were supposed to apply. Some might argue, that I still have yet to have mastered the subject. I can envision the English teachers at Arvin High School, passing out 30 copies of each weeks Arvin Tiller, then saying, “And now class, we are going to correct the grammar and English usage of Mr. Norris’s latest story.”
Fortunately, Mr. Wright, my freshman English teacher, took a special interest in my problem and gave me some one-on-one English tutoring after school. During these sessions, he kept saying, “You know Dave; you make the same errors in tense usage that we quite often see with foreign exchange students.” Now, I was born in Owensboro, Kentucky. My mother and I moved to California, crossing the California border on my birthday, at the tender age of one. Other than the occasional summer trip back to Kentucky, I have never left California.
When I was in the Future Farmers of American, Parliamentary Procedure Team, part of the prepared speech each officer had to say, required me to say the word, “south”, but, I pronounced it “souf” and Mr. Dake would go ballistic each time I said my spiel. Likewise, I said “Hawayee” for Hawaii. More than once, Mr. Dake lost it and would stomp out of the room muttering to himself in frustration. When I finally did figure out what I was doing wrong, I could not figure out where I had picked up all of my bad speech habits.
One night at dinner, my Mom and Dad, both of whom had only completed the eighth grade, were talking about that days happening. As mom said, “Warsh yer face n’ hans …. and come ta dinner.” I started hearing in my parents speech, the same errors that the teachers had been trying to correct in my language. I discovered, right then and there, that the King’s English was my second language. My homeland language was “Okie!”
This explained why I was having such a hard time in school. True, I did not have the tobacco drool coming from the corner of my mouth, well – not most of the time anyway. It became clear to me that the English teachers were trying to teach me “onea them furrin languages” that I had heard about.
When I got to BakersfieldJunior College, they shook their heads at my English scores and started me out with English-XA, then English-XB, better known as “Bonehead English.” I was the only one I knew at BakersfieldCollege that had English-S, (Spelling) all four semesters in a row.
The first day of each semester, we were given a spelling test and if you did not pass it, you were automatically signed up into English-S. Mr. Culver, my counselor, taught that class. He would hold roll call to familiarize himself with all of the student’s names and faces on the first day. Before starting the roll call, he would peer into the quite large room and say, “ Oh, Hi Dave, I see your back.”
Finally, on the last semester I passed the English-S in mid-term, much to Mr. Culver’s amazement. On a more favorable note, I found that speech also fulfilled the English requirement. I had few problems with the spoken word, provided I stayed away from the words south and Hawaii, so I cruised thru the second year English requirements with few problems.
Since leaving college, my profession has required me to write extremely critical reports, under the watchful-eye of trial lawyers and Engineers. Unbelievably, I was hired as the company proofreader for a company with 10 inspectors. One of our most experienced inspectors could not be convinced that “vertical” could not be spelled “verticle”. After four years, I still had to ferret all of the misspellings out of his reports, week, after week, after week.
The kids today have it easy with their portable electronic dictionaries and laptop computers, which not only note common misspellings for them, but some of those devices also auto-correct the words in questions without the writer having to perform different keystrokes to change the spelling.
While these are great labor saving device for the kids, the kids do not have to learn through trial and error. It is important to achieve sweat equity, learning how to spell the words in question correctly and this is part of the demise of America today. Just like the McDonald’s cashier, trying to make change from their cash drawer when the power goes out and the computer does not tell them how much change to give back.
As strange as it may seem, I now have people actually asking me how to spell words and I am actually correctly able to help them, provided we stay away from “souf” and “Hawayee,” because there is still some “Arvin-Okie” in me.
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