MORE EARLY MEMORIES

YO-YO Champ

Clyde Beatty Circus Poster

Gault Elementary School, Santa Cruz

MORE EARLY MEMORIES

My earliest memories wouldn’t be complete without talking about my dog Blackie, She and I were born at the same time... we got her when she was 6 weeks old. My father trained her and she was my constant companion. She followed me every where….when I would walk to school she would follow at my right side…if I stopped she would also and sit until I started again…when she was told to “Stay” she would sit and not budge until you told her to move…you could throw food at her while she was in the “Stay” mode and she would look at it and you waiting to be told that it was O.K. for her to move.

We had her until we were both 16 years old…she was blind and then lost control of her bowels, my Dad said that sadly, it was time to “Let her go”…he took her away, I couldn’t go with him….I know that she and I will see each other again and it will be a GREAT reunion.

When I was probably in the 3rd grade I was climbing a tree and fell breaking my left elbow…don’t believe that I climbed anymore trees.

Moving to Santa Cruz was pretty cool because there was so much to do…Ronnie and I went out for Little League tryouts…it was the first year that Little league came to Santa Cruz, 1952. My brother went to a minor league team because he was only 9..but I was picked up by the Red Sox. They gave us really cool uniforms that were made of wool and always smelled kinda funny and itched like crazy….but you could overlook that cause you were in the “Big Time”. They even built a real Little League baseball field at the Harvey West complex next to a regulation diamond. I loved playing baseball and always wanted to pitch…everyday I would ask my coach if I could pitch and he would say that I was needed at shortstop. Finally, when our chances of winning the league championship were gone, he told me that I was to pitch that day. The opposing team wasn’t used to someone that threw as slowly as I did so thier game was completely off…we were playing the hated “Yankees”.... they were the best team in the league…we won 4-3....only because my best friend came in and saved the game in the last inning after I had loaded the bases…WHAT FUN!

Santa Cruz was great a great place to be because it was small and I could ride my bike all over town and do things. We had the Boardwalk, with it’s "Big Dipper" roller coaster and the salt water pool......we also had the ocean to catch a few fish in with my dad off of the wharf. One day I went to the mouth of the river at the ocean and after swimming I found that I had misplaced my shoes…I walked across the wooden railroad trestle in my bare feet. I then had to walk home with all of the wooden splinters in the bottom of my feet. Dad had to take me to the doctors to get them removed and I got a tetanus shot…DAMN, that little incident hurt.

I was called into the Nurses office one Monday morning, when I was in the 6th grade and was told that the school had called my Mother...I had eaten lunch the previous Friday with a friend, Billy Hunt, and that he had come down with POLIO…what a shock….this was a horrible disease... the world was just beginning to get a grip on a cure. (This was before the Salk vaccine was being given to everyone.) My Mom took me to our Doctor’s office about a mile down the road from our house. The Doctor sat me down and showed me 2 GIANT bottles of a vaccine that he said they had been working on and it “Might” work….MIGHT?? (What an ugly word.) He said that since there was so much fluid he would have to give me a half a dose in each CHEEK! “Drop ‘em and roll over!”..The “MEAN MAN” said. It seemed that it took about 15 minutes for him to load up my buns!! When he was done I got off of the table and was rubbing each cheek…I told my Mom that I didn’t want to sit in the car, I’d rather walk home. She told me no and the Doc took her arm, they turned their backs to me and I heard him whisper rather loudly…”Oh yes, he DOES want to walk home. He’s got a lot of fluid in there and if it doesn’t get moved around it will just knot up in there.” I walked home and am sure that the walk helped. Fortunately the stuff worked because I was never bothered by that UGLY disease. A year or so later we moved and Billy was still in his “Iron Lung”.

My brother Bob was a pretty smart guy, designing airplane plans. He was also selling the orchids that he raised. The funniest thing that he ever did was to buy a used belly tank from an airplane and try and make it a “Sea going vessel”….he made a cut on the top and built a seat in it, kinda like a kyack…we all went down to the river for the maiden voyage…he got in and we pushed him out into the river…as he tried paddling it turned upside down and we thought that we’d lost him…What FUN!!

When Bob was getting close to his 16th birthday he spent a summer out commercial fishing, when he returned he had enough money to purchase a green 1939 Chevrolet Coupe…he lowered it and put on “Straight pipes” and sure made a helluva lot of noise. (That was cool!) One day at dinner time he announced that he wanted to quit school..(I think that he was a sophomore in high school) I was shocked when my Dad looked up from his food and said…OK! If I would have made a request like that my Dad would have said…”NO son, I think that you should stay in school as long as you can.” But my Dad and Mom knew my Brother, and his work ethic well, and knew that he’d be fine. He got a job at the Mission Printers, I believe it was and started his life in the printing trade. He later started a printing business in Santa Cruz and sold out to an employee and retired at the age of 47....tough life...play with planes, play golf and sail on the "Gandolph".

My career as a Yo-Yo champion…Back in the 1950’s Cheerio and Duncan Yo-Yo companies would send out “Pros” to hold Yo-Yo tournaments throughout the country.
If you won the competition at your school you moved on to the “City Championship” competition…well I did and I won. Got my picture in the paper…standing with the girl that won the other part of the tournament, (The girls part.) It was purdy embarrassing to see the picture come out and the girl was at least a head or maybe two taller than I was…funny how ALL my friends had to bring that to my attention.

I got a call from a photographer in town to have me come down to his studio to try and take "Time" photos of me as I did my “thing”. Back in those days there was a magazine called “LIFE” that would have unusual photos in the back and he was trying for a shot at it. It didn’t work, the thought of me doing my Yo-Yo thing in a magazine NOT standing next to that gargantuan girl, kinda appealed to me. The city championship qualified me for the State of California Championship Tourney in Sacramento …I went but was totally outclassed.

We then moved to San Francisco and upon arriving found that they had 2 tournaments… a guy that I met at the Presbyterian Church that I attended was real good and was entering the one at a movie theater downtown and he suggested that I do the one on TV…We did and both won… so I was the San Francisco Co-Champion I won a Raleigh bicycle, made in England…WOW cool bike!! That ended my career.

When I lived in Santa Cruz, the Clyde Beatty Circus was coming to town so my buddy, Curt and I got up at 4am on a Saturday and went down to the vacant lot that they were setting up the 3 ring circus under the “BIG TOP”. We got to help move things around and watch the elephants help set up the huge tent….it was fascinating to watch and we scored free passes for the “SHOW”. While we were working, the “STAR”, Clyde Beatty, Big game hunter, movie and circus star, drove up to us in his Cadillac convertible and called us over to talk. It was great looking at the inside of that car and seeing the lions mane floor boards and the leopard skin seats….it was COOL! (O.K. maybe not for the animals.)

(I remember the seats being Tiger skin but I defer to Curt's recollection of them being Leopard.)

My Relationship with Curt and his family was very good. They were a nice family and were very involved with their church, they would invite my brother Ron and myself to attend church with them. On one occasion I was asked to go with them to go to San Jose, to the Civic Auditorium, to listen to the man that led the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and his conversion to Christianity.

It was interesting to hear the gentelman speak of the changes in his life and to observe that even one that had helped cause so much pain and anguish, such a short time before this, could be forgiven by those he had hurt. Certainly a good lesson for me to learn. At the point of time in the meeting that people are encouraged to come forward to "Be Saved", Curt's Mom asked me if

I felt the desire to go forward....I told her that I didn't.

I attended many different denomination's services over my growing up years but never felt the urge to be involved in "Organized" religion. Funny that I would end up joining the most "Organized" religion in the world, but the only one that I knew, had the ability to return me to my "HOME", along with my family, to Our Father in Heaven.