Softball was very big during that time I was growing up and the whole family used to go to the game. As the youngest and the last one at home I still had to go, whether I wanted to or not.

My brother Gene played for the Hanford Kings, and they went on to win the softball world series back east somewhere. But I don’t think the Gene went with the team. I think he was leaving to take a job in San Francisco.

Hanford was crazy about softball and they used to get very large crowds out at the stadium. Of course people didn’t have the air conditioning at the time and people were glad for an excuse to get out of the house at night. We were great supporters of the team. We used to go to places like Porterville or Dinuba. If Hanford won, you could tell by watching the cars on the way home. People would honk and carry on as if they had won the World Series.

I wasn’t athletic. But we had fun. Being in a small town kids didn’t get into trouble very much. If you were out and you looked like you might get into trouble the town policemen might stop you and tell you to get home or he might call your father. There wasn’t any serious juvenile trouble.

I grew up at the Fox Theater. The mat names were wonderful. If you were under age eleven I think the movie cost 10¢. Then it went up to 25¢. If you had 50¢ to spend you spent time in the loge seats. The fox theater opened just about the same time that movies with sound came in, the “talkies.” I remember going to the man is on Saturday afternoon and the theater would be filled with kids. We saw “Buck Rodgers and the Mudmen.” Or their workout boy pictures with Gene Autry.

The theater was built like a palace. I remember when air conditioning became the big thing there. The theater used to have a big banner sign across the front: “it’s 70 degrees cooler inside.” And it may have been 70 degrees cooler because it was pretty cold. There was also a drinking fountain with chilled water inside the theater. The water was so cold that would give you a headache when you drink it. Of course everyone had to see how tough they were… to see if they could take a drink and not get a headache.

The theater had thick carpeting that you use to sink into when you walked through the building. It was really nice. On Sundays we had the big “A” movies… the musicals. I was in junior high school when “Gone with the Wind” came out. All the schools took the afternoon off and went to the theater to see Gone with the Wind. We were all waiting breathlessly for Clark Gable’s famous line, “frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn!” When he said it everyone in the theater gasped. It was the first swear word we had ever heard in the movies.

Of course we also saw Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz. That was exciting.

I grew up with the movies. I had a lot favorite actors but I never liked the Frankenstein movies and the other horror films. They were just too scary for me. I thought I was going to grow up and be Ginger Rogers.

So the movies were earning entertainment until they built the plunge also known as the city swimming pool. In the summertime when it was hot kids would take swimming lessons, but the movies, those were the big thing!