Well, when I was growing up we were all pretty close; a close-knit family. My grandmother and grandfather lived across the street from us, and my aunt and uncle lived next door to us with my cousins, so we had a family cluster there. We were all very close. Every Christmas it seemed like they all met at our house for some reason. On Thanksgiving we met at our house.

So, that’s where I grew up. I became very close to my grandfather that I really loved. He took me dove hunting. We did a lot of dove hunting together and I got a lot of stories out of him like we are doing now. I’d talk to him.

His name was Charlie Fuller and he was a blacksmith and he was such a strong person. He shod horses. One of the stories he told me while we were hunting is a guy brought a horse to be shod, but he said nobody can do it. My grandfather said, “Just go away and come back in an hour.”

So, the guy came back in an hour and the horse was all shod. My grandfather took the horse’s legs and flipped him on his side and tied him up and shod him and then untied him and he got up. The guy says, “I don’t believe it! Nobody ever could do that before!”

I wasn’t there but he was telling me this story while we were hunting. He shod a lot of horses. I used to run around at the shop barefoot. Sometimes there was something in the forge and he would maybe cut a piece of it off and it was red hot and it would drop on the floor which is covered with coal mostly. I ran around barefoot. I might have stepped on one of those hot pieces of iron.

He had this old shop that was really kind of ramshackle but he had a trip hammer, and a grinder, and a drill; he had about four major tools and he ran off of a pulley. It ran the full length of the shop and they had leather belts. When he wanted to go from the drill to the trip hammer he’d have this big long wooden handle and he’d move it and it would move the belt over and run the other tool. It was really quite ingenious for the time I thought.

Anyhow, my grandmother; I loved her. She was just a wonderful woman. Her name was Sophia, Sophie or Sophia, but I would call her grandmother. She was Irish, I think. 

My aunt  didn’t get married until she was about 45 or 50 years old; at least it seemed like that to me. She had a good job. She was assistant county recorder, then she became the county recorder. That’s Aunt Delana. She was the only professional in our family. She tried to run things and if things didn’t go her way she was unhappy.

Then my aunt and uncle next door; my uncle drove a laundry truck. That’s when they delivered laundry in those days. He was my father’s brother-in-law. We called him Early, Uncle Early. He was a good man, you know, but he wasn’t any barnburner type of person he just drove a truck. He was my dad’s brother-in-law. He married my dad’s sister, Lillian Robertson. The Fullers were across the street. The Fares were next to us.

It was funny, we had a big pine tree in our front yard about this big around. I don’t think there were any pine trees in Hanford at the time, but this one big tree must have been 100 feet tall. Radios were just coming out so my dad climbed that tree and put an aerial at the top of it so he could get the stronger signal on the radio. I can’t believe that he ever climbed the tree but he did. Then we got the radio. My aunt and uncle couldn’t afford a radio so my dad hooked up a wire from our house next door to theirs and attached it to a speaker and they could hear the radio but they had to listen to what we listened to! (Laughter)

My cousin Calvin, his grandfather I think lived in that neighborhood. I can’t remember exactly where but he had just about a block over a big vegetable garden. Calvin used to go over there when he was just a little kid and work his tail off in that vegetable garden. He loved farming so that’s what he did.

Keith never did much of anything he was just a real nice guy. Actually, later on in life Keith was one of the reasons why I got so professional at softball because he and I used to spend hours and try pitching and spot throwing and everything, batting, just by the hour. I developed a lot of skills through what we did.

Then our house, next door to the one you saw; my dad depended on the car for delivering mail. He was the mailman. Then in our back yard he had about a seven foot pit dug and boards to run the wheels on and then his car needed to work and he would run it over that pit and get down in there and work on the car. I can remember that so vividly, you know?

Then our garage was way to the back and there was an alley behind it. In those days almost every development had alleys. They don’t make alleys anymore, property is too expensive. So, we had the alley and we had like a two-car garage and it was just full of junk.

Then we had a bathroom that used to only have a bathtub. The toilet was out about 25 yards from the house. It was a wooden structure and connected to the sewer somehow. I don’t know, but I guess it did. They had the box up the top and you would pull the chain and it would flush the toilet.

MOM
My mom was like a lot of moms, probably the most giving and loving person you could ever want. She was just a mom. I mean, she didn’t do anything than just be a mom. She thought my dad was a saint, I know that. She did things like crocheting and quilt making but she never got involved in any kind of community activity or any kind of club. I don’t remember a whole lot about her at that particular time.

It’s amazing that I can remember that I was just learning to walk. So she took me out in the back yard and took me by the hand and I started to walk. We had a huge black walnut tree in the back yard and it would drop the walnuts. So, as I was holding her hand I walked along and I saw a walnut and I reached down to pick it up and I pulled her over and she fell flat! (Laughs) I was just a little baby! My mother laying there flat! What am I going to do? I remember that. I don’t remember how she ever got up. I think she got up.

BROTHERS AND SISTERS
Lois was born while we lived in that house down there. Then when we moved up Harris Street she was just an infant really and she moved up there with us. Doris was born while we were up there, I think. It’s funny how some of these memories are so clear and others are so fuzzy. I guess it depends a lot on your interest at the time.

I remember I used to tease Doris. I used to tease her until she’d cry almost and I never teased Lois. Then Doris growing up, well she was the fat little kid like I was growing up, and Lois was a beauty queen. She was homecoming queen and she was queen of the…what do we call the parade? The homecoming parade? Yeah. She went out on dates and she was popular and poor Doris was just left in the dust. She’s always resented that, you know? As she’s always like you say that we took all the pictures of Debbie and none of you, Penny. That’s what Doris says about Lois. But, Doris never was a big star in high school. She just got through it. You know, it’s amazing and she comes out of high school and a few years later she has this wonderful writing talent and she could write. She got something in school that stuck. So, that is what she finally wound up doing.