Page 63 - People & Places In Time

At the center of this page: my grandmoth- ers sewing machine chair.
Philip Coble and me in my grandparents back yard in the early 1950’s
by Grapefruit, Orange, Tangerine, Fig and Peach trees with a multitude of flowers spaced for good measure all around and between. There was an old and as I remem- ber quite-a-large, wood covered, and a bit dilapidated garage with a dirt floor that opened to the alley behind the Coble house, I mention this because I didn’t like to go inside this empty and dark place. I found it scary. Next to the garage were two very tall and wide Grape- fruit trees, the heavy limbs hung clear to the ground
so you could venture beneath them and walk around. Perhaps this is the spot where I discovered my
taste for Grapefruit.
Gordon Coble worked for Water- man Industries and lived here with his wife Lois, and children Patsy, Peggy, Pamala and Philip, in declining order
by age. Like most of the houses on
this portion of ‘B’ street, there was
a porch along the front, and for
this house, down a portion of
each side as well. It was a large
grey house with ship lap siding,
common then, but not so much
now, there was a screened in
back porch and all this sat two
or three steps above ground.
My first fish, a Blue Gill
was caught when Gordon Coble
took Philip and Me to McKay’s
Point along the Kaweah River just
past Lemon Cove. I used a piece of
string with a hook tied to a branch with
the bark whittled off. It was cut from a
Mulberry tree in my Grandparents back
yard. I brought my catch home to grandma;
she cleaned and fried it for my lunch. You’d think this might have been the catalyst to my becoming a fisherman . . . . not so, I was never into fishing.
Unfortunately, when I was older, Gordon was killed in an automobile accident.
A chicken coop extended across the back of my grandparents’ garage from where I helped my grand- mother gather eggs. With remodeling, this space would
be annexed into the garage as part of my grandfather’s shop, built on his retirement and following the closure of his larger cabinet shop which had been part of Smith & Whitney Contractors & Builders.
My grandmothers Boysenberry patch along the alley was a special place for us to sit between the rows while eating our fill. This berry patch was the source
of many jars of Boysenberry jam found in my grand- parents’ cellar alongside shelves of canned peaches
and bottles of Concord grape juice produced in my grandmother’s kitchen. Every house should
have a cellar for a young boy to explore, if not just to sit in on a hot summer af-
ternoon. Grandmothers cellar, with its slight musty smell, still felt fresh
and cool, it was accessed down wood steps beneath a large
trap door in the linoleum floor on the back porch. Shelv-
ing, floor to ceiling, covered three walls. In addition to the many jars of fruit and bottles
of grape juice there was a lot of stuff; large pots and big spoons used for canning.
There were empty jars and bottles waiting for next sea- son’s crop, not to mention all
sorts of stuff for me to simply look at and hold when explor- ing. The last place I checked out
before walking away from my grandparents’ home forever, when the
house was sold, was down in the cellar. The porch at the rear of their
house was originally screened-in and was redone along with the entire house by my grandfather in about 1912 or 13. Glass windows replaced the screen, later on when the porch became a place to sleep. The entire space being about twelve feet wide and by as best I can recall, twenty-two or three feet long. Even today memories of this porch and cellar reside in the part of me that treasures all the best places I’ve spent time.
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