by Guest » Fri Jan 08, 2010 8:13 pm
My family moved to Fresno in the summer of ’56 when I was three and a half. Our first house was a small rental on Alhambra St., around the corner from the intersection of Palm and Olive. Our next door neighbor’s back yard consisted of a huge thicket of bamboo with multiple pathways slashed through it -- where my two older brothers and I would play endless games of cops & robbers and cowboys & Indians. The house beyond that was rented by a bunch of Fresno City College football players who would play football with my brothers and me on their front lawn. These huge jocks seemed to get a big kick out of letting us little kids tackle them, score touchdowns, and feel like tough guys.
But in the fall my brothers enrolled at John Muir School and I was left home alone with my mom, who would drag me along while she shopped and we got acquainted with our new neighborhood. I soon had Olive Ave. between our house and the Tower Theater wired to my liking. I had an old red tricycle with only one pedal, which in my little fantasy world was my trusty palomino horse named Blacky. After a few chaperoned trial runs, mom would give me 25 cents to ride around the corner all by myself to the little bakery to get us a loaf of bread.
On the way I would yell “Wo Blacky!” as I screeched to a halt in front of a little pizzeria where I would watch through the window with fascination as the man would prime the dough by hand and shape it into rounds by throwing it in the air. Then just before the bakery was the barber shop where my dad always got his flat top cropped. Cecil Tubbs, the barber, would wave at me and smile as I rode by. The bakery always smelled wonderful and the lady behind the counter would give me a free doughnut hole or a broken piece of a fresh pastry whenever I went in there. When I turned four my mom taught me how to use the crosswalks and I started venturing farther down Olive Ave. toward the Tower. The man at the meat counter in Mayfair market would always give me a free weenie or piece of baloney whenever I stopped in there. On the next block was a flower shop where the guy would sometimes give me a half-wilted flower to take home to mom.
I must have been a pretty cute little kid for all those neighborhood venders to take such an interest my well-being. One thing for sure, though; it was a different world back then. How many parents today would feel safe letting their preschooler wander up and down a busy city street by himself? That year I too saw my first film at the Tower Theatre – a Disney kid’s movie about boy and his horse, Tonka. In the spring my folks bought a house across town, off Fresno St. north of Shields. But I revisited the Tower many more times during my childhood for 35 cent and 50 cent matinees. One Saturday afternoon when I was 13 I met a girl from Fort Miller Jr. High there, and we held hands all through the movie. What a thrill! The following summer my family moved to LA. I never set foot in the Tower again, and I’ve always wondered whatever became of that girl!
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My family moved to Fresno in the summer of ’56 when I was three and a half. Our first house was a small rental on Alhambra St., around the corner from the intersection of Palm and Olive. Our next door neighbor’s back yard consisted of a huge thicket of bamboo with multiple pathways slashed through it -- where my two older brothers and I would play endless games of cops & robbers and cowboys & Indians. The house beyond that was rented by a bunch of Fresno City College football players who would play football with my brothers and me on their front lawn. These huge jocks seemed to get a big kick out of letting us little kids tackle them, score touchdowns, and feel like tough guys.
But in the fall my brothers enrolled at John Muir School and I was left home alone with my mom, who would drag me along while she shopped and we got acquainted with our new neighborhood. I soon had Olive Ave. between our house and the Tower Theater wired to my liking. I had an old red tricycle with only one pedal, which in my little fantasy world was my trusty palomino horse named Blacky. After a few chaperoned trial runs, mom would give me 25 cents to ride around the corner all by myself to the little bakery to get us a loaf of bread.
On the way I would yell “Wo Blacky!” as I screeched to a halt in front of a little pizzeria where I would watch through the window with fascination as the man would prime the dough by hand and shape it into rounds by throwing it in the air. Then just before the bakery was the barber shop where my dad always got his flat top cropped. Cecil Tubbs, the barber, would wave at me and smile as I rode by. The bakery always smelled wonderful and the lady behind the counter would give me a free doughnut hole or a broken piece of a fresh pastry whenever I went in there. When I turned four my mom taught me how to use the crosswalks and I started venturing farther down Olive Ave. toward the Tower. The man at the meat counter in Mayfair market would always give me a free weenie or piece of baloney whenever I stopped in there. On the next block was a flower shop where the guy would sometimes give me a half-wilted flower to take home to mom.
I must have been a pretty cute little kid for all those neighborhood venders to take such an interest my well-being. One thing for sure, though; it was a different world back then. How many parents today would feel safe letting their preschooler wander up and down a busy city street by himself? That year I too saw my first film at the Tower Theatre – a Disney kid’s movie about boy and his horse, Tonka. In the spring my folks bought a house across town, off Fresno St. north of Shields. But I revisited the Tower many more times during my childhood for 35 cent and 50 cent matinees. One Saturday afternoon when I was 13 I met a girl from Fort Miller Jr. High there, and we held hands all through the movie. What a thrill! The following summer my family moved to LA. I never set foot in the Tower again, and I’ve always wondered whatever became of that girl!