I had an occasion this week to walk across town. My roommate reminded me that she had walked our best friend, Ranger, for the past couple of days and she would appreciate some assistance. She was pretty busy today working with the American Legion Auxiliary, digging and pulling up all the old plants at the Community Garden next to the swimming pool. Since she had finagled me to help with the cutting of the sunflower plants one day, I figured that I could at least watch the ladies completely turn the soil and do whatever else that was needed to plant another crop.
While on my walk, I discovered how our small town of Gonzales has grown. This has happened slowly and almost unnoticed by me. I don’t know how far I went, but it was further than I usually walk on a daily basis.
I usually walk out of my subdivision and turn left to walk next to Fanoe Road and then I walk to the beautiful old Fanoe Family home. I drove my truck one day to determine how far it was and discovered that it was a mile out and back to my house. Today was a little different as I went further in a different direction. I started walking upon the advice of my doctor and my bride. They convinced me that all the wild times I had as a young man were coming back to me as I grow old.
As I started my journey, I waved at the drivers, and I’m happy to tell you that more folks waved back than not. Of course, I was walking with my wonderful Ranger Dog, so I’m not positive they were waving at me. He gets a lot of attention when we are out walking. By the way, my plan to make Gonzales a waving town is bearing fruit. What we need is for more folks to give a friendly wave when they are traveling through town.
You ever walk a long distance? What do you think about when you are walking around town? I find myself just thinking of nothing in particular, but things that I have put aside during life come back to me. I was thinking of how Gonzales has grown. How when I moved here 34 years ago how happy I was to find this town. I would stop just about every day after getting off work from Crinklaw Farms down in King City. Bill was a great boss, he helped me figure out all the requirements of using my GI Loan. I finally got the OK and than the house was mine. All I had to do was pay for it.
I had bought our house and I wanted to see it built, so I would stop in to see what had been added. The carpenters would tell me that I wasn’t supposed to be in the construction area, but eventually they just waved at me. It was so exciting watching my house being built. Sometimes I would meet another buyer and we would discuss what kind of trees to plant. Of course, I didn’t know at that time how the city made those decisions for us.
I started thinking back to when my Pop would drive the family over to the ocean from Wasco to get out of the heat.
For some reason, I started thinking about Highway 101 and how it has changed, and how Alta Street was just an extension of old 101. Much has changed from the days that we would drive over to Salinas. When the old 101 was cracked and bumpy, before it was paved over and moved to the west. In days past and with poor shock absorbers, it was not unlike a caravan ride in our old car. One of the things that has always stayed with me is the best way to slow down the cars speeding north on the old 101 was to station a Highway Patrolman backed in to the side of the highway. If you remember that, perhaps you will remember the wooden sign that was painted by a very good artist to look just like a highway patrolman.
In those days you would probably be speeding because there weren’t so many cars on the road. When you started to go down, you would probably gain speed because the road came to a drop in the highway that seemed to go no place except San Ardo. If you had a dad like mine you would remember that sign. It was so lifelike you had to stop to determine whether it was real or not. I notice where that old road was every time we go down to Pismo or to Paso Robles, and the memories come. But even if you knew about the wooden patrolman and that it wasn’t real, it almost always caused you to slow down. Those were the good old days when people were inventive and the authorities were not necessarily out to give you a ticket.
One of the coolest things about those days for kids was to cruise Main Street. In Wasco, they tried to stop the kids from doing that and I still can’t figure out why. When I started dating Lorraine, I asked her if they ever did that in Salinas when she was growing up. She said it was the number one thing to do on a Friday night. They would drive down Main Street driving by Salinas High School and down to Fosters Freeze, where they would create such a traffic problem that the police would start telling folks to get off the street. Well, at least they had a reason.
In Wasco, you didn’t create a traffic problem because there weren’t enough cars. Of course, when one car would stop and start talking to the kids in another car, it would cause a jam. I suppose there was crime being committed, but mostly it was just the kids doing their mating rituals.
I don’t know what they did in Gonzales back in those days, but I can guess their actions were similar. It stopped almost everywhere when gas got more expensive everywhere.
God Bless.
