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Now, this was living! Emigrating with the middleclass masses, we came by horseback and covered wagons across the dry and deserted Salinas River, to a neighborhood of milk and money. The hammering, smell of hot tar, and scrap lumber for homemade carts were a boy's delight. We didn't even care about the missing sidewalks. There were backyard wilderness areas to explore, new friends to fight with, beautiful faces blushing just a few doors away and a new school to walk to. Famous names surrounded us, glared at us, yelled at us, fed us, loved us, played ball with us, built swimming pools and go-cart tracks for us, counseled us, warned us and mainly just put up with us. Thank you so much for keeping those guns in the closet!
Some of us were in Winifred Pifer's 1955 fourth grade class at Georgia Brown School when she had to leave. Mrs. Gates finished the year with us. I wish she had written a few words in the first quarter Teacher's Comments on my report card, even if they were negative. She must have been a wonderful person to put up with zillions of kids and get a school named after her. Winifred Pifer was a great school, especially during the summer and weekends. Roller skating up and down the corridors, playing baseball and basketball, riding bikes on the asphalt area in back without running into anything --- never once did anyone tell us to leave. Of course, we never vandalized anything and there weren't too many eyes to see us, but who would allow it today?
Holding hands wasn't for the fainthearted. Some of us needed a good excuse like dancing around a pole on May Day. Hormones were kicking in late for some of us. But sixth grade in all its lovesick glory would soon make us all crazy for each other. Thankfully, most families vowed to stay in Paso and in the neighborhood. New jobs and deaths were rare. But as more houses were built, a larger cache of friends arrived. The temptations to hang with the 'wrong' kids were great, especially for those of us who didn't have enough excitement or supervision on the home front. The wheels of Providence turned as lessons were learned or laughed at. I don't remember anyone who was listening to the Lesson Giver.
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Oak Parkl
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