Do you remember those stories some of our parents would tell us that went something like, When I was your age we had to get up at 4:00 am and walk 10 miles to school through 5 feet of snow! or something along those lines. My mothers favorite story like that was when Grandpa was taking her and Aunt Ora to school in a two wheeled buggy. On the way a rim fell off of one of the wheels. Grandpa kept going and got them to school. I assume he made it back home, since Mom didnt say otherwise. Don, Bill, and I had our own stories about getting to school. Don was ambitious and had a paper route for the San Francisco Examiner. Hed be up and gone super early every morning to roll papers, put rubber bands on them, and load the papers into bags on the tandem of his bike. After his delivery route hed ride his bike to school. Bill and I usually walked---or roller skated. It took a while, as we lived over on Santa Fe Drive, close to Fords Cash Market, and our school was on Gustine Highway, across the highway from the Harley Davidson Place. We had to trek Im guessing about 3 miles across town. If we were lucky Mom would give us a ride in her 56 Buick part way. Shed drop us off over by the courthouse park at the corner of N & 22nd Streets. Other days we would walk the whole way. The mode of travel changed over time, as we attended that school throughout most of our elementary years. The years where Mom could afford to buy us skates were my favorite. Sears made skates you could clip onto your shoes back then. Mom would get us the good kind, with big gray hard rubber tires. When skating we usually took a route straight through Merced, staying in residential areas where the sidewalks were best. Sometimes we would divert our route at the courthouse park and take advantage of the sidewalks crisscrossing the grass, playing tag, and generally skate rodding around the park, testing our prowess at cornering. For a visual placement in time, These were the days there was a wooden bandstand in the middle of the square between N & O Streets. I became a very good skater during those days. However, it was a special treat when my departure from home coincided with Don beginning his bike ride. He would let me hang onto that big black tandem on the back of his bike and tow me all the way to school. We must have been a sight with him riding fast through the streets, and me hanging on for dear life on the back. Not only was it fun, but I felt 10 feet tall that my big brother would do that for me. When Bill and I were on foot we sometimes followed the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks. We were both really good at walking on the tracks without falling off. I recall walking past what we then called bums and hobos, sleeping off the previous night under sheets of cardboard---or just laid out on the ground. No one ever bothered us. I recall a time when Bill had to holler at me to get off the tracks as a train rapidly approached from the rear. Thanks, Bill! We would check out the old roundhouse, a large corrugated tin building with huge doors and lots of windows over on 16th street. I cant explain why, but there was a curved elbow of a large pipe in the lot nearby that always had tar dripping from it. I thought it was good to try to chew, like gum. Theres no accounting for my tastebuds back then. Perhaps that roundhouse had something to do with the old Yosemite Valley Railroad. Im not sure. It was all that leg work, I believe, that led to my love for hiking. I spent my early youth hiking to the tops of waterfalls, or Half Dome, in Yosemite. For the last 36 years Ive been hiking around the Grand Canyon. But I digress again.
Posted on: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 21:29:41 +0000
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