Arvin Cowboy - Sloigo's Blog - Bakersfield.com

Walking to the Library

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:53:31 PST

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.

The End

Mr. Barle and the Hearing Aid

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 20:37:12 PST

The summers at Arvin are forever unbearably hot. In the 1950’s the lawns at the DiGorgioCountyPark were watered via flood irrigation and the kids would always watch the maintenance crew as they prepared each section of their lawn for watering. The water was usually only nine to twelve inches deep, but it was cool as you swam on your hands and knees, splashing and playing tag in the water, until it began soaking into the sandy soil. The maintenance tender would eventually chase you out, because you were messing up their wet grass and making a muddy mess.

Several times per year the parks and recreation would sponsor bus trips for afternoon swim outings where you could, for 75 cents, ride in a big yellow school bus, to the closest school swimming pool. This was at the Rio Bravo Elementary school, which is about 30 miles from Arvin on the southwest edge of Bakersfield. The DiGorgio Ranch Labor Camp, about five miles north, also had a private swimming pool, mainly for their employees. My mother, Blanche Norris, taught me to swim at the DiGorgio swimming pool.

In the spring of 1959, the Arvin community got its first swimming pool on the southeast corner of the park. They advertised the beginning of a Life Saving Class in the Arvin Tiller Newspaper prior to opening the pool. This course was mainly for the teachers from the Arvin High School P.E. Department, so that they could offer swimming in next years physical education classes. Now, I could not pass an opportunity like this, to get to use the new pool, several months before it formally opened, so I signed up for the class.

I was 14 years old, so they would only sign me up as a Junior Lifesaver, even though I was probably one of the strongest swimmers in the class. I was teamed with Mr. Frank Barle, who was the head of the Arvin High School Boy’s Physical Education Department. The Barle’s were family friends of ours, from whom we had gotten my Dachshund hound dog “Fritz”.

We were a perfect match, I weighed 115 pounds soaking wet, skinny as a rail, I had no body fat at all, and sank like a lead brick, right to the bottom of the pool. I was however; a very strong swimmer and I could swim two lengths of the new pool underwater on one breath. Mr. Barle was middle-aged and overweight. He probably weighed 200 pounds, but could float with the best of them. So when I had to tow him in a lifesaving tow from one end of the pool to the other, I was just pulling a barge, as he floated all the way.

Mr. Barle, on the other hand, at that time, was a poor swimmer and that is where my special talent came into play. I would hold by breath and he would tow me totally underwater the full length of the pool. I would see the water over my head, and hear a constant bluuup, bluuup, bluup, as the water and air swirled by my head after each arm stroke as Mr. Klinger, the instructor was hollering, “Frank!!! He has to have air sometime!!!!!”

We both successfully passed the course and the ArvinHigh School’s boy’s P.E. classes had a certified lifeguard, so they could include swimming in our curriculum. I fortunately did not ever have to use the lifesaving skills, but I did join the Arvin High School swimming team and lettered Varsity the first year.

The following year, 1960, was my freshman year at Arvin High School. This is when the radio manufacturers came out with small, seven transistors, AM radios that fit in the palm of your hand and took a 9 volt battery. They came with a real leather belt pouch and a single earpiece speaker bud. I got one for my birthday, right before the start of school and I wore it everyplace. When I dressed in the morning, I would drop the single earphone wire lead down my back, inside my shirt and then it was plugged into to the radio located on my belt at my right hip.

I concealed its presence by leaving my shirt un-tucked, covering the radio. Everyone knew it was there, because I was always fidgeting with the volume and channel knobs. Likewise, being the typical teenager, my response to anything, that anyone said to me was the standard “huh”? As I fiddled with the knobs to turn the volume down, so I could hear them.

I never gave it any thought, why none of the teachers ever bothered me about listening to my radio during class. But, hey! This was my freshman year at Arvin High School and my brother; Leo had told me everything was more relaxed in high school. Mr. Klinger, my previous instructor in the lifesaving course was now my math teacher in second period, as well as being one of the physical education teachers and coaches. Mr. Barle was now my PE instructor.

Mr. Klinger’s math class was one of my favorites. Not because other subject, nor the teacher, but he always allowed us extensive time to quietly do the math assignments in the class. The Arthur Godfrey’s Breakfast Club Show, “Broadcast LIVE from Honolulu, Hawaii” was on at that time and was always tuned in on my radio. I could intensely listen to the show, rather than try to hear what the Mr. Klinger was saying. I remember one morning it was during one of these quiet study sessions, someone on the Arthur Godfrey show told a real knee-slapping, belly-wrenching joke and I wildly broke out in laughter. Everybody turned and stared at me. Mr. Klinger peered over the papers that he was grading with a grim look.

Oh!! my Gawd!! Busted!!! I sunk down into my seat, took the ear bud out of my ear and held my breath and tried to become invisible. Several of the kids around me were trying to look over my shoulder to see what page I was on in the math book, thinking I had seen something funny in that dry-toast math book, so hey! Why not play along! I pointed to a four step math problem that we were working. Soon the whole class was studying that one problem, trying to see what I had seen so funny with it.

Finally, everyone just assumed I was the weird geeky kid that they had nick- named “the professor” because I carried all of my books in a briefcase at school. This was because I had lost the books several times off the back of my red Honda 55cc motorcycle getting to school. They finally shrugged their shoulders, writing my outburst off to my weird sense of humor and everyone returned to their own problem solving.

My mother sold Avon in the community and was over at the Barle’s house one afternoon selling her products to Mrs. Barle when Mr. Barle passed by and commented that he was so sorry that he had given me such a hard time in the lifesaving class, because he did not know I was hard-of-hearing. My mother said, “He’s not hard-of-hearing”. And Mr. Barle asked “then why is he wearing a hearing aid?” My mother said that’s not a hearing aid, that’s a transistor radio.”

It was not long after that, that the word got through the smoke-filled teachers lounge and I was greeted at the door to each class with a “good morning! And take that radio out of your ear!” I still miss getting to listen to the live broadcast of the Arthur Godfrey’s Breakfast Club direct from Honolulu, Hawaii each morning, but I probably learned more than I would have otherwise. THE END

Trick-or-Treat

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 07:47:28 PDT

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.

The End

The El Rancho Theater

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 22:17:14 PDT

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.

The Law of Supply and Demand

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 20:38:28 PDT

In 1957, at the tender age of 11, Capitalism had hit me hard. I learned that people would pay you to mow their lawns. I loved this task so much, that I would have paid them for the privilege. I was outside and got to handle heavy equipment. Well, at least the equipment was heavy for an 11-year-old boy. Not only did I have a lawn-mowing service in Arvin, but also, when my parents went traveling. We would barely get into the house of the relative that we were visiting, before I was asking if I could mow their lawns. They were glad to agree, if for no other reason that to get me out from under-foot.

Some lawns proved to be quite tricky for a geeky, 90-pound boy from Arvin where everything in the town was flat. Our relatives lived in the cities back east and their small lawns were on such a slope that if you slipped on the wet grass, you slid all the way to the sidewalk on your rear end. I left more than one home with green grass streaks down the backside of my pants. Others lived on farms that had grass up to your knees. Still, I loved the smell of new-mown grass and the steady whirr that the lawnmower blades made as they spun.

Then there was the issue of different equipment. I used everything; from swing sickles, to push mowers, rotary mowers, reel mowers, electric mowers and even mowers that used a white-gas and oil mix. I became quite adept at small engine repair and troubleshooting. This talent proved quite useful, such as the time that I accidentally reversed, the non-vented gas can lid with the vented gas tank lid, not noticing that the lids were the same size. The mower, which had been working fine, suddenly would not start, after I had filled the gas tank.

When we got back to my Grandfathers farm outside Louisville, Kentucky, my Uncle Dee dragged out my Grandfather’s old white gas/oil rotary mower. He started the mower on the patio, eased it into the front lawn, cutting a patch about three feet square. He then handed me the starter rope that was used to start the mower and the one-gallon can of gas/oil mix. He pointed to the Dixie Highway that ran in front of my Grandfather’s farm, about five acres away and said, “Go that a-way!”

There stood before me, grass that was almost a foot tall, as far as my little eyes could see. If the mower was stalled, you would have to drag the mower clear back to the patio, then wind the rope around the starter pulley to get a single pull effort to get it going again. In addition, there was no throttle cable, only a string with a loop tied in it, near the rear cross handlebar which ran to the carburetor. With the loop around your finger, you constantly played with it to keep the mower running, racing the engine as you plowed into the tall grass. When the mower ran out of gas, I had to walk three miles down a hill to the Conco Gas station, where I could buy the white gas and oil separately. I was never so glad to hear my parents tell me it was time to go home that year.

One of the yards that I mowed each Wednesday after school in Arvin, was Mrs. Bishop’s yard. She lived right across from my Aunt Helen and Uncle Bud Warns on the corner of Myer Street and Orange Avenue. Her lawn was quite large and I would mow it, once a week, for $1.50. Her adult son came over one Wednesday and watched me mow the lawn from her porch. He pointed out, that I should lower the mower one notch, and mowed the lawn both directions, rather than my customary one direction. By doing this, I would only have to mow the lawn every other week, as he handed me my usual $1.50 for that week, even though he had doubled my time and effort while cutting my wages in half.

I told my Father and Brother about this and they convinced me that I was foolish to agree to those terms. They insisted that I should go right back over there and demand double wages for double effort. I marched back over and told them my terms and they told me that they would think about it.

The following Wednesday, after getting out of school, I rode my red-Schwinn bicycle over to mow Mrs. Bishop’s lawn, as I had every other week. There was Butch, the kid that lived behind my Aunt and Uncle who had a wooden leg due to an auto accident several years earlier, there mowing MY lawn. I watched from my Uncles driveway, as he gladly mowed the yard both directions and received his $1.50 wages. This was his only yard that he had to mow, and like me, when I started, he would have probably paid them for the privilege to mow it.

Rather than being happy that my handicapped friend had a job, I felt betrayed and cheated. Then, I should have been glad that I was not the one being required to do the double effort for half the original wages. I unfortunately, dwelt on the fact that I had lost a client and a friend at the same time. These are the same feelings that everyone feels when they lose their job to people who are willing to do the same job, or more, for the same or less money and this was my first big lesson of the Law of Supply and Demand.

THE END

The Contact Lense

Sun, 26 Aug 2007 22:45:01 PDT

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.

THE END

Locking your Doors

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 18:36:28 PDT

In the 1950’s, Arvin was a very nice place to live. Everyone knew and trusted each other. By keeping a simple ear out, you could hear clear across town. You could tell where your friends were playing, whose parents were having a fight, or measure the progress if someone was coming over to your house to pick you up in their car, by going outside and sit on your porch stoop. You would hear the car start, back out, drive – shifting gears and increasing speed, stopping for stop signs and starting all over again following their progress with your ears until they turned onto your street and you first saw their car.

No one ever had to wonder where their car keys were. They were in the ignition key slot!! Why would anyone keep them anywhere else? Likewise, no one ever locked their house. My parents would leave for weeks at a time with our house totally open. We did not own any keys to our house. Upon returning, we would find all of the newspapers neatly stacked against one couch arm and all of our mail stacked against the other arm. The milkman had brought in momma’s half-and-half, butter and eggs, changing out anything that was outdated. Nothing was out of place. My parakeet and hamster were well fed and all was good with the world.

Arvin experienced its first wave of Big City Crime in the form of a cat burglar. A man so brazen that he was crawling into bedrooms on his hands and knees and was sneaking men’s wallets out of their pants pockets that were hung over their head post of the bed in which they were sleeping. Money out of women’s purses, all while the people were in their home. He would crawl through the houses and seemed to know where the women had their household money hidden.

One woman got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and came nose to nose with a strange man standing in her hallway. First, there was the blood-curdling scream and the man’s mad dash from the house. I doubt if either of them still needed to visit the bathroom. Finally, the burglar was caught and prosecuted, but Arvin’s innocence was over for good. The man could have made out better on a door lock sales commission program than he could have on any of the money he netted out of those poor men’s wallets.

My friend Dwight Ratliff lived with his parents in the second house on the west side of Morton Place. An Harry Swanson development of 10 houses, plus his own family house on the North end. To save money, there were only two house blueprint designs. One night Dwight came home in his convertible around 3 am, about three sheets to the wind, dead drunk. He always parked his car in front of his house. He got out, slamming his car door. As he stumbled around, fishing for his house keys, he became disoriented, turned and walked across the street to the house of Lillian Hughes who was a widowed friend of my mother’s.

He stuck in his key, unlocking the door and stumbled right in. In the dark, and being heavily intoxication, he did not notice the differences in furniture also since the house floor plan was the same; he found his way down the hallway to his bedroom. He sat heavily onto the bed and began taking his shoes off. Lillian awoke to the sight of a man sitting on the edge of her bed in the dark. She screamed and reached for her pistol that she kept in the nightstand. Dwight, still not sure, what was going on and why there was a strange middle-aged woman in his bed, panicked and ran from the house wearing only one shoe. I do not think either of them needed to visit the bathroom either.

Dwight stayed hidden over at his house, while my mom and several other women went over to Lillian’s house to see what was wrong. Finally, the police arrived. By this time, Dwight was Cold-Slap sober. The police were first sure they had nabbed some kind of perverted rapist until they checked out his story and tried his key in Lillian’s door lock and sure enough it opened her door. They retrieved his shoe and on the promise that he would stay at home and go to bed, they did not arrest him.

In order to save money and minimize the quantity of keys necessary to give to all of the subcontractors performing all of the work tasks necessary to build a house, all of the houses door locks had the same key and these door locks had never been changed out. The following day the police came back and everyone started comparing keys and found that out of the 11 houses, only two of the individual owners had thought to change out their own door locks themselves. Dwight had his 15 minutes of fame and the gossip circles literally burned up the phone lines talking about Lillian’s adventure. For a long time, when anyone met, the first thing they did was to compare their keys, to see if they had the same set as the next person.

The End

Arvin's First Community Center

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 05:46:17 PDT

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.

The End

The 500 yard Dash Accident

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 23:49:13 PDT

At ArvinHigh School in the 1960’s everyone was expected to participate in the Physical Education program which was chaired by Mr. Frank Barley, Department Head. Mr. Klinger, Mr. Dameon and Mr. Cameron also had assisted him. Each teacher had PE classes and were also coaches for various sport teams.

I was a very lanky 6’2” 130 pound kid back in those days and was very active in the sports programs. I even lettered Varsity in Swimming and Wrestling during the years I participated.

Each year a big part of your PE grade was the 500 yard dash where every student from all classes was compared against each other and was ranked by speed against all of the other students. This was before the metric system was adopted which made the 500 meter dash around 550 yards long. While I was rated the second fastest student in the school in all of the PE classes, I never went out for track/cross country since the season conflicted with Wrestling and the Swimming season.

On the day of our big race, Mr. Barley lined us all up of the west 50 yard line of the track that surrounded the football field. With a starter’s pistol, Mr. Barley fired a single shot into the air, and the race was on!!! George McElhoe, Arvin’s ace track star immediately jumped to the lead. I was right on his heels, but simply could not pass him. A third runner was sprinting close behind me.

I thought, “I might not be in the lead, but I was not going to let him pass me!” The rest of the class was slowly jogging in a herd, surrounding James Gregory who probably weighed over 350 pounds. No matter how hard I tried, each time I challenged George, he sped up and pulled away from me. The third runner was now about two or three strides behind me.

As we rounded the North end of the football field track, we all began to sprint to the finish, when suddenly the third runner grabbed the back of his upper leg and started screaming “Oww!, Oww!, Oww!!! George and I left him in the dust as he fell back and we finished the race.

We figured that he had gotten a cramp in his hamstring muscle. George, as usual finished number one and I number two. George and I were bent over trying to regain our breaths with Mr. Barley barking to keep moving and to “Walk it off!!”

The number three guy finally limped past us and ran on into the Gymnasium Locker Room still crying , Oww, Oww, Oww as he passed. We wondered why he did not stop when he got to the finish line if he had such a bad cramp, but we had out own problems to worry about as we cooled down.

When George and I were finishing, “the pack” was just at the 50 yard line on the East side of the field slowly proceeding around the track. Finally they reached the North end of the track.

The guy in the front of the pack suddenly screamed “TURD!!!!!” and began back peddling, trying to get away from it. Being in front of a lumbering herd that is not paying attention to anything in particular is not the ideal place to try to stop. He got pushed forward and bodies started falling left and right, complete with James Gregory landing on top of the heap.

As the dust started settling and bodies began emerging for the pile, limping off to the side with sprained ankles and wrists, we finally figured out what had happened. Now, I am not sure what happened to the fore mentioned item, but we were all encouraged to take our gym clothes home to be washed at the end of the class.

THE END

Momma and the Pillsbury Poppin Biscuits

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 23:34:01 PDT

If you have ever lived in a small town such as Arvin, California, you know the value of advanced planning. With a single hardware store so poorly stocked that you had as good a chance finding what you needed next door at the Sprouse Riese five and dime cent store. When the family went to Bakersfield, twenty miles away, everyone made the most of their trips. My mother would spend the best of a day contacting all of her friends before going and would develop elaborate list and plans with various things to pick up for each of her friends. Grocery shopping was equally a challenge because while Arvin had a Safeway Supermarket the prices of various food items were very high.

In Bakersfield where the grocery markets actually competed against each other they had coupon sales. But this meant taking your food home in cars before air conditioning, when the outside temperature often rose above 108^o F. The only cooling was 4-60 (four-windows/ sixty miles per hour) this limited the time you could spend or the amount of perishable fruits, vegetables or meats you could purchase.

In 1954, Pillsbury introduced their new creation “Poppin Fresh Biscuits” which were canned in a spiral wound cardboard tube which you hit against the edge of the kitchen counter, it would pop open and voila, ten instant biscuits, ready for the oven. Not as good as momma’s biscuits made from scratch with yeast and Gold Medal Flour, mind you, but a pleasant change, regardless.

One day momma noticed a super sale coupon at the Green Frog Market which was located on the corner of Brundage Lane and South “H” Street in Bakersfield. “Pillsbury Poppin Fresh Biscuits – Regular – eight cents per can, ON SALE !!! Three cans for twenty five cents – Limit nine cans per person.” Now this was a big sale and it required a lot of planning and scheming. She called all of her friends, and begged for the coupons from all of our neighbor’s newspapers. They had six checkout stands at the market so she had to buy several extra newspapers so that she would have enough coupons.

Finally all of the orders were received and coupons procured. Mom and I drove to Bakersfield. She carefully explained her plan as we drove. By each of us going once to each of the checkers in a random pattern carrying our nine cans of biscuits, the busy checkers would not realize we had already gotten our limit of nine cans of biscuits each. We would then meet up out in the parking lot, lock the bags of cans in the car and she would give me the exact change for the next round so that they could not cheat me, and we would repeat the process again and again.

The checkers were probably wondering what a eight year old boy was doing buying all of those biscuits, but Oh well, this was the big city where stranger things, I am told, happen. We finally got our quota of biscuits and started home. Momma was so proud of how she had “beat-the-system” until she realized 3 x 8 cents = 24 cents. We had lost 3 cents each coupon we used over their regular price, not counting the newspapers she bought, the gas and our time. We had really made a killing. Not only that, she had cheated so she could not even go back and complain.

She was still shaking her head about how bad she had screwed up, when there came a Giant “Kapow”!! I said “Momma they are shooting at us!” I just knew that the grocery store clerks had figured out our deception and were following us with guns to get their biscuits back, or maybe they had called the police and they were chasing us. I had visions of a criminal career and rap sheet at the tender age of eight. “Pow, POP, Pop”; “They are shooting at us again!!!” Mom was swerving all over the road looking back, but there were no other cars close to us. Then we began smelling the unmistakable odor of biscuit dough.

The first cans of frozen biscuits we had taken to the car had completely thawed, expanded and were exploding. With each bump, jostle and every turn, one can would explode, setting off its neighboring cans. “POW!, Pop, Pop, Poof” Now the race was on. Mom had no time for stop signs or traffic. I think that was the fastest I had ever seen my mother drive. It was kinda like Mr. Toad’s Wild Adventure Ride at Disneyland. When we got home, we rushed the bags into the house.

Mom tried to pry the unexploded cans from the grasp of the congealed biscuit dough. She greased every cookie pan she had in the house and started the oven. “Alright Mom!! – Poppin fresh biscuits and it wasn’t even dinnertime.” I ate so many buttered biscuits that I thought I was going to explode and yet when dinnertime came there, in the center of the table, was another giant bowl of Poppin biscuits with momma encouraging everyone to “Eat up! – There is a lot of food here!”

The following morning, Yep! you guessed it, Biscuits and Gravy. Mom always said, “I hate to waste food more than anyone.” By noon we were all having constipation problems in the bathroom and the biscuits that were left were beginning to resemble flaky hockey pucks in the summer heat, but momma wasn’t about to give up. She would say there are people going hungry down in Mexico tonight, so eat up!”

I think I burst her bubble when I brought her a small box and suggested that we should send those people down in Mexico the rest of the biscuits. I am not sure what she did with the rest of the biscuits, but you know, I don’t ever remember eating another Poppin Fresh biscuit until I got married and moved away from home.

THE END

Coming Clean

Sat, 11 Aug 2007 22:44:52 PDT

They say confession is good for the soul. Back in Junior High School at Haven Drive, then finally at Arvin High School in 1960, my friend, Gary D. Smith and I were members of “The Untouchables”. This was Arvin’s very own, model airplane club, where we met once a week at the Arvin Community Center and built model airplanes, which you either bought at Fox Appliances or Gannon’s Cycle Shop. You built these using model airplane glue and with 20 people building models at the weekly meeting at the Center, you could get quite a buzz in a closed up room, no one thought of “Getting High” from the sniffing the glue fumes, after all, you could always go outside where all of the advisors were smoking and breathe that instead.

Back in those days they did not have RC (Radio Controlled) airplanes. We built “U” control planes that were flown in a circle attached either two wires or two string control lines, free flights (motorized gliders) or un-motored gliders. Either of the last two, you released into the wind, never to see again, but the event usually involved a 10 mile chase in cars and pickups careening down narrow roads and through farm fields with three or four guys screaming directions to the driver, who was also looking up for the plane. Eventually they would realize they had been following a crow or turkey vulture instead of their plane and would return back to our Saturday flying area. This was the grass covered physical education playing fields just north of the boy’s locker room at Arvin High School, where we had room to fly our planes in an open, cushioned field with no trees.

This was also the time when America and USSR had started the space race with the “Soviet Sputnik(October 4, 1957)” and “American Echo(August 12, 1960)” and so a few of us were into building quite basic rockets. Our first rockets were water pressure powered. You filled the rocket most of the way up with water, then pumped it up with air and released it, getting soaked during your effort. Next came fizzy rockets with baking soda and vinegar, Alka Selser or anything else that created pressure, then on to solid rocket fuel engines. We would go to Dick Miller’s Drug Store and buy jars of Salt Peter (Potassium Nitrate) powder, then roll moistened cotton twine into the powder until it became heavily coated. We would then use these as fuses to light off our rockets.

Ah, but I have digressed!

It is now our freshman year at Arvin High School and our first exposure to science. As an experiment, the teacher had each of us go to the Arvin Dry Cleaners on the southeast corner of Haven Drive Boulevard and Bear Mountain Highway to buy one dry cleaners bag which they sold us for 10 cents each. As a school project, everyone filled their bags with natural gas from the Bunsen burner spigots in the Chem Lab classroom, and then tied the open end tightly with string, the other end of the string was tied to a pill vial in which each student placed a note asking anyone who found this to write back with the location it was found. In a mass release, everyone turned their balloons loose at the same time in the quad area of Arvin High School. Several students did receive responses from thousands of miles away, but alas, Gary and I did not.

We were real disappointed that our balloons were not found, so we decided to release additional balloons from my home at 301 Grove Street on our own. Pretty quick it became an obsession, and Gary and I were spending all our lunch money every day buying more bags. But we never received back any responses, even though there was not a pill vial left in the house and piles of pills out of their bottles in the bathroom medicine cabinet. We never thought that we could have blown the house totally down, if our stove, where we filled the balloons, would of had been equipped with pilot lights, and with 8 or 10 bags floating in the living room, while we finished filling the bags.

Gary was making some fuses with a new bottle of powder we had just purchased while I was filling the bags, when I thought, “Heck, Why not tie a fuse to a bag?” At first we tied a short fuse to one balloon, lit the fuse and released the balloon into the air. Up-up it went. Finally at about a thousand feet we saw a flash of light and small ”Boom!”. “Wow! That was exciting! Lets’ tie all the rest of them together, use a longer fuse and see what happens!” By this time it was getting dusky dark, but determination prevails and we finally got all of the balloons ready, lit the fuse and off it went. The balloons finally climbed out of sight and we figured the fuse had gone out when suddenly there was this giant flash in the night sky with a giant boom.

Alright! That was fun! Shortly later the siren from the Arvin Volunteer Fire Department sounded and we thought, “Wow! There’s a fire someplace!” when I heard our telephone ring. I answered it and found that the fire chief was looking for my father who was the County Road Foreman. It seems that their phone lines had lit up with calls about a mid-air collision, flaming debris seen plummeting toward the ground. The search for the crash scene and possible survivors was on. All of the police and volunteer firemen were scouring every back road and field. Reports were coming from everywhere. “It was north of Town! - No!” “East of Town –No!” “Tell your dad to try South of town.”

This event had taken a life of its own, with crews driving aimlessly around looking, most of the night. The following Wednesday, the Arvin Tiller lead with a story about the flaming mid-air collision. Was it a UFO, single plane explosion or two plane collisions? No wreckage had been found despite hundreds of hours of searching, costing thousands of dollars. The last line of the article was a plea for anyone with information to come forward.

This was the end of our model rocketing and amateur ballooning for awhile, but most of all, I hope that the statute of limitations has expired by now.

The End

Aunt Mae and the Masked Avenger

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 19:16:12 PDT

Several years ago, someone mentioned the term “Latch Key Kid” and I said “What is that?” They explained “OH! That is a kid who gets home after school while both parents are still at work, so they wear a door latch key around their neck, tied to a shoestring so they can get into the house.” I thought about my days back in Arvin, California where I had grown up in the 50’s and remembered, neither of my parents were home when I got home. “Why, I was a latch key kid!!!” But, wait – I never had a key, because none of our doors had locks on them, not even the bathroom door. If it was closed – it was occupied, and you were supposed to hold it.

We use to go away for mini-vacations a weekend or even up to a week and when we got home, our mail was neatly stacked on one end of the couch, leaned against the arm and the newspapers were stacked against the other end’s arm. The milkman would have come in and changed out your milk, butter and filled the egg bin from the refrigerator. In the earlier days the ice man also let himself in and added ice to the top of your ice box as needed, and emptied the drip pan of waste water. With all of these people in our house, unsupervised, and yet nothing was ever missing.

In 1957 my Aunt Mae DeRossette came from Shivley, Kentucky and lived with us for a year or so, after my brother, Leo got married and moved out of his room. She was a very rotund woman who had developed a fixation on television sports, which back in those days was solely devoted to Wrestling and Roller Derby. I remember walking home from school and hearing her, more that a half mile away from home, hooping and hollering at the top of her lungs about the dirty tactics being used by the players on teams which were named things like “The Thunderbirds” and “The Outlaws”.

She took her sports very seriously and she knew that if she would scream loud enough the players would hear her warnings to watch out for this player or than obstacle, thus she could save them from disaster. Then she cursed the players who had planned dirty tactics, condemning them to Hell, for plotting against “Sweet Nell” or “Molly Mae”. They were all voluminous women in tight-fitting narrow waist skating outfits who were the team big scorers. And who knows, the shows were being broadcast from Strelich Stadium in Bakersfield, only 30 miles away and the players might have occasionally thought, “Wait, what was that I just heard???”

Her enthusiasm only increased with Tag Team Wrestling. Long before the World of WWF, we had very colourful wrestlers such as “Georgeous George”, “The Masked Avenger”, “The Crippler”, “Tricky Nick Bockwinkle” and “Cowboy Ellis”. I came in one day and she was sitting on the edge of the couch, almost foaming at the mouth wriggling and twisting to help the Thunderbird players win. I committed the ultimate sacrilege by telling her that it was all staged, and that the winners were rigged. One week, one team was the hero and the other the villain, and next week it was all reversed. Never did they win by more than two points and it was always a last minute cliff hanger save, when the hero or heroine clinched the winning points from the evil opponent pulling out a win from a certain crushing defeat. You would have thought I had said a bad word at supper. I was in the dog house, but what did a 12 year old kid know?

Now, I told you that in preparation for this. Our bathroom was very small. You went in a narrow corridor, past the shower which was off to the right, and the toilet was tucked in the end with a sink directly in front of it. The sink had two faucets, HOT and COLD about 6 inches apart. You had your choice, freeze or scald, but nothing in-between. Slightly beneath the sink on the far wall was a unvented, ceramic gas wall heater that you lit with big wooden bluetop kitchen matches.

It was the warmest room in the house in the winter and my favorite reading room my “Mad” magazines in because I could rest the comic book on the rim of the sink, lean forward and read while I was on the pot. My father finally figured out why I was taking so long in the bathroom and used to sneak down the hall and burst into the bathroom and confiscate my magazine.

I got use to listening for him because the metal grate over the floor furnace in the hallway would creak as he snuck down the hallway and I would hide the magazine before he burst in. One Saturday morning, I had assumed my favorite position in “the reading room” when I heard my Aunt Mae doing her little pee-pee dance in the hallway, so I got up and gave up the bathroom to her. She rushed past me as I opened the door. I went back to my bedroom, which was located diagonally across the hallway.

I closed the door, thinking “The smell that is going to come out of there in the next couple of minutes wasn’t going to be pleasant.” I laid on my bed and resumed reading my latest Superman Comic. The creaking of the grate in the hallway did not even register as I read onward. Dad had snuck down the hallway and in a giant burst of energy he ripped the door to the bathroom open, leaping in to snatch my comic book.

Now, Aunt Mae was quite large and kind of assumed the available space around the toilet when she sat down. When dad burst through the door, she stood up screaming with her pantaloons around her ankles. As she stood up, she ripped the sink off the wall in front of her and water began spewing all over the floor. Dad instinctively dove to the floor to turn the faucet valves off and Aunt Mae started jumping up and down screaming bloody murder at the top of her lungs. Whether she was trying to get away from the hot water or my dad was not clear, but she wound up stepping on his hand.

My mom came running as well as three of the next door ladies. I opened my door just as dad was leaving the bathroom, holding his hand, Aunt Mae screaming in the background and Mom and the neighbor ladies pumping questions from the front. Dad gave me a death stare as he passed. Sure enough, bright and early the next day, the bathroom had a big chrome latch on the door.

I was truly a latch key kid and me and my “Mad” magazines never got disturbed again.

The End

Chicken Ranching vs. Chicken Farming

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 22:09:12 PDT

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

Sun, 22 Jul 2007 16:21:52 PDT

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 Memory of Old Trucks

Sun, 08 Jul 2007 16:38:09 PDT

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

English as a Second Language

Tue, 03 Jul 2007 18:18:34 PDT

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.