This is the season when our patriotic blood seems to flow the strongest and we seem to pay more attention to memorials dedicated to fallen patriots. Since we celebrate the birth of our Nation in July, we often reminisce about wars and conflicts, how and where those patriots served. I’ve been thinking about ships.
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.
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.
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.
My first parade experience was during WWII in Fort Worth, Texas at P.T. Barnum’s circus. It was under the big top and the ringmaster shouted “Strike up the Band!” The parade was led by elephants ridden by beautiful girls wearing brightly colored head dresses of ostrich plumes. They were followed by other circus performers, wild animals and clowns. It was quite a sight.
Back in 1976, the year our nation celebrated its bicentennial, we looked around locally and realized that many of Reedley’s historic building landmarks had slipped away.
Gone was the headquarters ranch house of the town’s namesake, T.L. Reed, along with the bunkhouse and barn that once housed harness and tack for hundreds of draft animals needed for a farm operation of close to 30,000 acres. These buildings were demolished in the name of progress--to make way for the expansion of Reedley College.
