A California Online Magazine with Local Focus and Global Appeal
Shoe shiners have been around for quite a while. Ever king or noble required his expensive, handmade shoes or boots to have the perfect shine. Throughout the 19th century, shoeshine boys could be seen on most city streets. However with the industrial revolution, shoes were being turned out by the hundreds. Shoe polish was invented by the 1900s and shoe shining became a brand new trade.
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So, Lorie, our esteemed editor and publisher, and I were discussing possible subjects for an article relating to Earth Day, April 22. I guess I am about as “green” as most people. I recycle paper, aluminum and plastic. We went solar two years ago. Last summer we replaced our front lawn with pavers, drought-tolerant native plants and bark. But I was drawing a complete blank as far as something to write about. Of course Lorie had an idea ? that’s why she is our editor and publisher ? write something about our local thrift stores. Brilliant!
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Salt. It is one thing that all of us have in common ? we need it to survive. In pretty close to every kitchen in America, there is a salt shaker sitting on the table or next to the stove. And, I am willing to bet, that many of those shakers have been filled by a blue box with a little girl carrying an umbrella on the label.
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Here I am, continuing my school days saga, getting ready to start junior high school and evolving from adolescence into becoming a young adult. General Grant was the only junior high in Reedley, so both elementary schools attended seventh and eighth grade there.
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Lincoln is my favorite elementary school. Since I have shared many stories in Kings River Life, this may be a bit repetitious, but I owe more than just an education to the school district. Since both of my parents were teachers, it provided a roof over my family’s head, clothes on our backs and food on the table.
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As the holidays beckon amid a swirl of falling leaves and sparkling frost, Fresno’s historic Meux Home Museum is gearing up for Christmas with its upcoming holiday tours and its annual Victorian Christmas Tea. Kings River Life spoke with Meux Home Museum president Quintin Hoskins about the Home and the holidays.
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The Reedley area was first plotted by U.S. Army teams and contract surveyors around the 1850s. The area was like a giant magnet, drawing all kinds of settlers from all kinds of backgrounds. Some were farmers and some were tradesmen, but they all wanted a good place to raise families.
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Halloween is the night before All Hallow’s Day or Hallowmas which occurs on November 1. Today, those of us in the modern church call this All Saints Day. This is a time we remember and celebrate the lives of the faithful men and women who have recently passed away. The feast day was established by Pope Gregory III around the 8th century. Halloween, or to be more correct, Hallowe’en is short for Hallows Eve.
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When I lived in the Bronx, every once in a while in the hour before the morning light leaked across the horizon of the midnight blue sky, I’d be awoken by a train whistle. I used to think it was a dream or perhaps simply my sleepy mind confusing the raggedy sound of a car horn for a Pullman. But there were no trains in that area. There hadn’t been any trains in more than a hundred years. You see I lived on the edge of Van Cortlandt Park, a haunted section of 1,000 acres that spreads out across the most northerly section of New York City in the Borough of the Bronx.
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My forefathers arrived in Jamestown in 1608 when King James granted them land for financing passage to tradesmen that were badly needed in the New World. This land was on the outer banks of Virginia and that is where my family started burying their dead. Part of Diana’s family arrived on the Mayflower. All 12 of them survived the ocean journey, but only four survived that first winter.
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St. John the Baptist De La Salle was born into a wealthy and noble family in Rheims, France. By age 16 he was named a canon of Rheims Cathedral and was ordained into priesthood by age 26. La Salle gave up a promising, and possibly brilliant, ecclesiastical career to take up a life filled with poverty, persecution, and contempt. He also became the educational genius of the seventeenth century and the founder of modern methods of teaching.
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When I was a child, my experience with dogs was somewhat limited. We did have a dog on the farm in Texas, but he wasn’t considered a pet. Shep was a shepherd-mix, just a farm dog. He had work to do. He was the protector, announcing the arrival of people coming down the driveway and clearing out the occasional rattlesnake so it would be safe to go outside to play in the yard. When we left the farm to move to Pantex, Shep stayed behind to continue his dog duties.
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Summer is truly upon us. Three digit days are to be expected in the Central Valley and many of us are relying on time-tested measures to get us through the heat of the day. Some people are lucky enough to have air conditioning or a backyard pool. I live in an old house–air conditioning was unheard of in 1910. We also gave up the pool when we moved into town. So I have to rely on my ceiling fans and iced tea.
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This saga starts in the old Lincoln School back in 1949. Mr. Hank Rasmussen, the bank manager at Bank of America, had set up a teller’s booth in the hallway of Lincoln and Washington schools, offering savings accounts to the students in order to teach them responsibility and good banking habits. Remember this was an era when credit cards were in their infancy and an ATM was unheard of.
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One of the most curious items to be found on a Victorian lady’s dressing table was a hair receiver. This was a small bowl with a hole in the lid. It was often part of a dressing table set, with a matching powder box. And why you ask, would anyone need a hair receiver? Well, some kind of receptacle was needed to collect and save the hair that accumulated in a lady’s brush or comb after the required daily 100 strokes.
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My friend Bruce was back from Vietnam and I was out of AIT, so we decided to go back to college. When we enrolled at Reedley College, we found that we both needed to take English A, and there was a new English teacher on staff. A little background here: English A is basic English for those with aspirations of transferring from junior college to a four-year college.
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