1950's Fresno Photos

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Steve H.
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Re: 1950's Fresno Photos

Post by Steve H. » Mon Sep 29, 2014 8:26 am

ice cream 1953 R72.jpg
Remember ice cream trucks? What would a Fresno summer be without them? This picture is from 1953 at 2253 South Lily Ave. on the West Side. I'm the super blonde kid, 3rd from left.

Steve H.
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Re: 1950's Fresno Photos

Post by Steve H. » Tue Sep 30, 2014 1:39 pm

canvas water bag.jpg
I left something important out! When traveling involved crossing the desert, which our travels usually did, we ALWAYS tied a canvas water bag to the front bumper. The water stayed nice and cool!

Steve H.
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Re: 1950's Fresno Photos

Post by Steve H. » Tue Sep 30, 2014 3:34 pm

As my parents had the camera longer the pictures got better. I love the Purity story! I hope I find a photo (I'm scanning in date-order) of the guy who got my dad into photography. His name was Klaus and he had a son named Wolfie. He worked at a camera store (I'll try to find out the name) and was originally in the U.S. as a German P.O.W. He could hear a song one time and play it AMAZINGLY well on the piano.

Steve H.
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Re: 1950's Fresno Photos

Post by Steve H. » Wed Oct 01, 2014 11:15 am

viewmaster900; mark; steve; fresno; 1957.jpg
viewmaster899; mark; steve; fresno; 1957.jpg
In 1957 no one we knew had a pool in their yard. I remember we went to a party one time at John Bonadelli's house and he not only had a pool, but a slot machine and a FIRE TRUCK...but John was the exception. On those hot Fresno summer days before water meters, before the drought, before water shortages, we made do with what we had.

Steve H.
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Re: 1950's Fresno Photos

Post by Steve H. » Thu Oct 02, 2014 1:28 pm

viewmaster017; fresno; corner cedar princeton; 1957.jpg
This is the corner of North Cedar and Princeton (pre-McLane). See the black car across the street? We kids used to watch a show on tv called "Boston Blackie." The bad guy drove a "black sedan." We really didn't have any idea what a sedan was, but figured that guy over there must be a crook because of his car.

Steve H.
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Re: 1950's Fresno Photos

Post by Steve H. » Fri Oct 03, 2014 10:39 am

viewmaster051; forts; mark; curt; butch; fresno; 1957.jpg
One of our favorite activities was building forts. The soil was sandy, and it was cool if you went very deep (thanks, Underground Gardens). After they bulldozed the vineyard where McLane is they leveled it. This was a great place to dig. The contractors weren't too crazy about our excavations...oh, well.
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Steve H.
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Re: 1950's Fresno Photos

Post by Steve H. » Mon Oct 06, 2014 8:29 am

Skate Keys

Come summer every kid wore a skate key around his neck. All summer long. Skate keys were properly hung on a shoestring. Sure, you could use a piece of string or a chain, but real kids used shoestrings.

For the people who might not be familiar with skate keys, they were basically a small wrench. Metal, unpainted, about two inches long, had a stop sign-shaped hole in the middle for the bottom of the skate and the end was for clamping the skate to your shoes.

Every kid skated in Fresno. Nobody stayed inside. Not everyone had a TV. There were only 3 channels (!). There was nothing on during the day for kids. You played outside. And by the way, there were NO fat kids.

The skates we had were made of metal and were designed to clamp onto hard shoes. You wore your oldest pair of shoes because they were going to get really beat up. And every kid had hard shoes. Buster Browns. First you adjusted the length of the skate to your shoe (you really only did this once, unless you had a brother or sister who stole your skates), and that's when you used that hole on the side of the skate key. Then you strapped the skate around the top of your foot and closed two clamps around your toes with the end of the skate key. The skates would frequently come loose so you needed to keep that key with you for when your toe clamps came loose.

Then you flew. Faster. Faster. Faster! Corner!! Click-click. Click-click. Down the sidewalk. Driveways were great because they didn't have lines in them and you could get going real fast. The best place, the very very best place, was Fresno State. Fresno State was a COLLEGE. It was WAY down Cedar Avenue, and you had to be really determined to get there. You couldn't do it on skates because most of the way was dirt and sand. Sand because when you took away the canals, Fresno was a desert.

So we rode our bikes. Fat tired bikes that we could just about change the tires on in the dark because we did it so many times. There were these things called "puncture vines" that could put a hole in your hard shoe or your bike tire growing everywhere. We put this goop in the tubes to plug up the holes but we patched those tubes frequently.
Past the Episcopalian Cathedral that was being built. Past Harpain's Dairy. Finally...the biggest expanse of wide, super-smooth, seldom seamed, concrete in the world: Fresno State College. Pretty much deserted in the summer. We skated like hell. Sometimes you would get going so fast you couldn't stop and you smashed into a chain link fence the wrong way and a skate wheel would get stuck in the fence. Sometimes you'd hit the ground and get a pretty bad scrape. War wounds.

When the day was winding down and the sky was turning red we'd sit down on the cool grass at the corner of Cedar and Princeton and take off our skates. We sat when we did it, and we stayed sitting down for a while after we took them off. We didn't want to start walking because your legs felt like they were made of lead when deprived of your metal wings. We laughed and threw grass at each other, and then went to Bruce's house for some of Elaine's Kool-Aid. But first we put our skate keys back around our necks.

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viewmaster049; roller skating; fresno; 1957.jpg
viewmaster047; margie english; fresno; 1957.jpg
viewmaster046; butch; steve; margie; skate; fresno; 1957.jpg

Steve H.
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Re: 1950's Fresno Photos

Post by Steve H. » Tue Oct 07, 2014 8:04 am

So, we're minding our own business on North Cedar Avenue in 1957 when a guy comes along with a huge bull pulling two wagons down the street. Anyone remember anything about this?
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viewmaster100; bull; wagon; cedar; fresno; 1957.jpg

Steve H.
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Re: 1950's Fresno Photos

Post by Steve H. » Wed Oct 08, 2014 9:14 am

Fresno County Fair, 1957

In the background is the "Freak Show." I remember the two-headed baby that turned out to be a deformed fetus in the big jar of formaldehyde. The "performers" mostly looked bored out of their minds.
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viewmaster122; steve; mark; leo; fresno fair; 1957.jpg

Steve H.
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Re: 1950's Fresno Photos

Post by Steve H. » Thu Oct 09, 2014 7:43 am

Fresno County Fair, 1957
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viewmaster123; bonnie; fresno fair; 1957.jpg

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