It was the summer of 1964. My family was on our annual pilgrimage back to Texas and Oklahoma. This year, though, instead of heading to Texas first, we stopped in Tulsa to give Grandma’s yard a major trim and clean-up, and get the house ready for the coming winter.
Since I was born just after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, my first exposure to “gear-head-itis” was to the cars of the 1930s. At that time, all the car makers were vying for what few dollars there were available for new cars. During the Great Depression, many of America’s finest auto makers would perish from bankruptcy.
Every Reedley High School student from the late 1940s into the 1970s remembers Willie’s Drive In, directly across the street from the high school. This was the closest place, off campus, where the smokers could light up their cancer sticks.
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.
There was once a time, that small family farms surrounded the Reedley city limits. Does anyone remember where the Sellers, Fast or Nickel farms were? The home Johnny Rios lives in, in the triangle of North, D and 10th streets, was once a family farmhouse. Does anyone remember horses and cattle grazing in the pasture west of the Lincoln School playground next to Frankwood Avenue? Or the Harry Shuklian farm east of Lincoln School?
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.
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.
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.
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.
My first pets were little piglets out on the farm. Mom would rescue the runts rejected by the old sow and raise them in the kitchen. In those days, even the runt piglets were money in the bank when taken to the livestock auction.
