My Top 10 List - Add Your Memory

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Add a favorite hang-out or special memory of a time long since gone, but not forgotten. This is our catch all forum for topics not listed elsewhere. The moderator may move your topic to a specific forum category later, to assist other members in finding fun information. If you are in doubt, post here!
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Lost Fresno
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My Top 10 List - Add Your Memory

Post by Lost Fresno » Wed Dec 30, 2009 1:48 pm

Welcome to the most popular thread here at Lost Fresno! What follows are a 50 or so posts from a popular topic at a former website called FRESNO FAMOUS which was managed by Josh Tehee, a writer for the Fresno Bee. The thread was started by an individual called Reggie Dunbar, although that was not his real name. As many off us do, he posted under a nom de plume and had no idea that it would soon spawn a tremendous following.

After about 6 months of continuous posts, a person said "Hey, somebody ought to create a web site called Lost Fresno to include these posts”. I took on that challenge and it was a good thing too because after a couple of years, the Fresno Bee eliminated that forum and created a new/improved online blog called the Fresno Beehive. It can be found here:

https://www.fresnobee.com/entertainment ... no-beehive
Fresno Beehive Blog.jpg

I received permission from Josh Tehee to copy the posts from that old thread and include them here. That's why a number of posts list "Site Admin" as the author. Then folks began to add new Top 10 replies under their own name. Below is the Reggie Dunbar original post:

LOST FRESNO, MY TOP 10 LIST

1. The Giant Slide (Blackstone Ave)
2. Ferrells Ice Cream Parlor (Fig Garden)
3. Lester Burger (Blackstone & Clinton)
4. Carrosel Skating Rink (Cedar & Shields)
5. Arthurs Toys (Blackstone Ave)
6. Perry's Boys Smorgy (Manchester Mall)
7. Nicola's Restaurant (Maroa & Shields)
8. White Front Discount Store (Blackstone & Ashlan)
9. Al Radka Commercials (Oberti Olives, Lamours Cleaners, etc).
10. KKDJ - Dean and Don's Breakfast Club

Jackie
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Re: My Top 10 List - Add Your Memory

Post by Jackie » Fri Jan 01, 2010 10:20 am

1) Afternoon Movie with Nancy Allen
2) Nosey the elephant at Roeding Park Zoo
3) The palm trees that lined Kearney Blvd.
4) The old Country Boy market on Blackstone and ? The one that the irrigation canal ran behind and the two streets merged to become Blackstone somewhere between Olive and McKinnley (help anyone?)
5) My Papa Bert playing dominoes with his friends in the old courthouse park while I played around the fountain of the boy with the leaking boot.
6) The old yellow Victorian house my folks lived in when I was born on the corner of P and Mariposa streets (now a parking lot).
7) Fulton street before it was a mall.
8) Coney Island hot dog shop near the Greyhound bus station here Papa Bert took me for a hot dog and Orange Crush.
9) The nuns and priests at St. John's giving me cookies when I walked by on the way home from Jefferson Elementary School. (I think that was the school, memories are getting dusty with time.)
10) Bull Dog Donut Shop across the street from Radcliff Stadium.

Hamm On Wry
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Re: My Top 10 List - Add Your Memory

Post by Hamm On Wry » Wed Jan 06, 2010 4:28 pm

1) Fresno High vs. Roosevelt in the Little Big game, where the trophy was a stuffed pig. (and the semi vandalism that the two schools students played on each other....Teddy Roosevelt in a diaper anyone?)
2) Being able to ride our bikes anywhere in town at any hour... and not worrying our parents when we did so.
3) The Tower District. Anything you wanted to buy, you could get in about a 1/2 mile radius.
4) Delivering the Fresno Bee on my bike after school. Route 36, east side of Wilson Ave and west side of Roosevelt, Olive to McKinley Avenues.
5) Cutting lawns in the summer with a pushmower for $.50 a yard. Edging thrown in free!
6) At 15 and 16, riding my 10 speed out to Mendota, Friant or Piedra to fish on the weekends.
7) Getting a bucket of KFC and going out to the drive in at Olive and Clovis Aves to catch a show on one of TWO screens, sometimes trying to watch both movies at the same time.
8) Going out to the parking lot by the airport by the Air National Guard station and watching the planes taking off and landing... and wishing I was on one of them.
9) Carriage House Restaurant across from Farrels in Fig Garden. Owned and operated by Richard Woo and family. I had a huge crush on his daughter Susie, but that's a story for another time.
10) Riding my bike across town on Sunday mornings to go to church with my Grandma Lettie McDowell. Harvey-Millbrook Church of God.

EW1951

Re: My Top 10 List - Add Your Memory

Post by EW1951 » Thu Jan 07, 2010 10:10 pm

Movie Theaters & Drive-Ins:

1. White Theater was around for ages (next to Hotel Fresno). It was a famous spot for performers on the vaudeville circuit from around 1910-1930. I saw a three-bill monster movie bash with my dad there around 1958. They showed the original Frankenstein & Werewolf. Their price was 10cents then, at the time when it was 25cents at Crest Theater.
2. Hardys Theater. Was once called the Liberty Theater and that name is still engraved in the stone near the top (if the theater is still there). I haven't been in Fresno since 1997.
3. Sequoia Theater. Was a good place, close to the Mall. I remember that me and my cousin went there on the Saturday after JFK got shot, because the all the TV news coverage was too real. Saw Beatles Hard Day's Night there.
4. Wilson Theater: Saw plenty of Beach Party and early 60s Elvis there. Also, a live Halloween Show where the stage had performers dressed like monsters.
5. Warner's Theater: One of the most elaborate of the old-theaters. Saw Mad Mad World there and then it became a Cinerama theater around 1964. On late 1950s winter- weekends we'd exit around 5-6pm and Fulton Street was starting to fill up with older teens cruising the Main.
6. Tower Theater: Saw 'The Shaggy Dog' there. It was fun to play and jump on the colored tiles next to the ticket-sales box.
7. Moon-Glo Drive-In: Was popular in the 1950s and sold the world's worst pizza. haha.
8. Starlite Drive In: Now Macys(?) at Fashion Show Mall's west side.
9. Motor-Inn Drive In: Charged $1 per carload of people.
10. Sunnyside Drive-In. Opened around 1964 or 65. Was a great, clean, new place.

chevy29
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Re: My Top 10 List - Add Your Memory

Post by chevy29 » Sat Jan 16, 2010 3:45 pm

1. Dragging Belmont on Friday & Saturday nights. Forgetting to get into the left lane nearing the "Circle" and have to double back through the back streets to get back on Belmont.
2. Rollerskating at Wonderland and staying latefor the "Sock Hop"
3. McDonalds at Blackstone & Shields when your choices were few and cheap.
4. Going to Clovis Fairgrounds and watching the hardtops race. Getting hit by the mud that was thrown up going into turn one.
5 Watching Pombo & Sargent go at it at Kearny Bowl. Spending days picking the splinters out of your seat afterwards.
6. Having a really frosty mug of A&W Root Beer.
7. The dances at the Old Crimsom Castle on Van Ness.
8. Mars Drive-In Banana Splits - Nuff Said.
9. Crusin' Bob's Big Boy at Shaw & Blackstone.
10. Of course, can't leave out Perry Boys at Manchester.

Lost Fresno
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Re: My Top 10 List - Add Your Memory

Post by Lost Fresno » Mon Jan 18, 2010 8:47 am

1) Harpain's Dairy (not only some of the best chocolate milk ever, whole milk mind you not 2% like a melted Hershey bar it was), but a cool. Well, not exactly a petting zoo, but there were places where you could see the calves and cages with monkey's and a llama behind a fence, oh man. This place had tons of character (maple and ashlan. Sort of where that baseball/amusement area is now)
2)mini motor speedways. This is just at the brink of my kid-dom memory. Had these cars you could ride, but they were on a sort of track, like giant slot cars. It was sort of behind where that 7-11 is now just south of cedar and shaw.
3) Oh, cooler than that was, shoot what was it called? Pit Stop in the Ashlan Park shopping center (ashlan & cedar) This was a slot car place, didn't' they come back into vogue about 7 or 8 years ago?
4)Colonial Greens Miniature Golf. I think Blackbeard's sort of killed this one, it wasn't so far from the skate rink you mentioned (maple and shields)

Lost Fresno
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Re: My Top 10 List - Add Your Memory

Post by Lost Fresno » Mon Jan 18, 2010 8:48 am

I remember Colonial Greens and the Carousel Roller Rink. They were next to each other on the north side of Shields east of Maple. Also, Pit Stop and Harpain's Dairy. Went to all numerous times. Here are a few to tweek the little gray cells:

1)Do you recall the trademark shirts Harpain's employees wore?
2)Can you describe the first hole at Colonial Greens and what you won if you got a hole-in-one on that first hole? (Was there and did it!)
3)In the same vicinity, do you remember "Maple Plunge" and what you could get or do there?
4)Do you recall the old Bob's Big Boy restaurant, complete with car hops! At what intersection was it located? (Its not the one that just closed recently on Blackstone between Barstow & Bullard.)

Lost Fresno
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Re: My Top 10 List - Add Your Memory

Post by Lost Fresno » Mon Jan 18, 2010 8:51 am

A couple of other places that people might remember:

•Kearney Bowl Raceway
•Iron Horse Restaurants (breakfast/lunch, ca. 1970-80s)
•The large ballroom at the Hacienda Hotel as well as the Crazy Horse Saloon

Question: I think I remember a man-made lake where they raced boats, near Blackstone and Bullard. Does anyone remember this or know the name? These were full-sized flat-bottomed boats.

Lost Fresno
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Re: My Top 10 List - Add Your Memory

Post by Lost Fresno » Mon Jan 18, 2010 8:55 am

That large swimming pool on the Northwest corner of Clinton and Blackstone (where Albertsons is) was called Swimpark. It was the largest of all the Fresno swimming holes (it took up the whole block). It had a large square concrete platform in the middle and a fifty-foot high dive. It disappeared about 1960 to make way for a Ford dealership.

Lost Fresno
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Re: My Top 10 List - Add Your Memory

Post by Lost Fresno » Mon Jan 18, 2010 8:56 am

Things I miss in Fresno:

The old Pinedale Iceland (on Harrison)
The old Icelandia (when Carl and Fran ran it) (Clinton & Marks)
Wonderland Roller Rink and Swimming Pool (Blackstone & Shaw)
Chuck Wagon Restaurant (Blackstone)
The old A&W Drive in at Blackstone & Saginaw
Arthurs Toys on Blackstone
Bob's Village Hobby in the Fig Garden Village
Perry Boys in Manchester Center
Local Pro Wrestling on channel 47
KKDJ, Dean and Don, Mark Davis, and the rest of the KKDJ gang
Cadillac Club
Woodys's Roadhouse (Barstow & First)
MV Music (on Ashlan)

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