Page 76 - People & Places In Time

Growing Up In Exeter
to eventually return, even if only to be buried. Then
of course, there were those of us, who, like our fathers went off to war. For us it was Viet Nam and as with all wars some returned, but as always, a few don’t make it back home alive.
One of the perks available to living down the street from the ballpark was the 4th of July. Back then, my favorite holiday of the year. The excitement started early morning with a loud bang from the first mortar shot, as John Shultz and his crew began testing. I think the Lions Club in Exeter has been putting on this show since the Star Spangled Banner was written. As dusk approached, we would join the rest of the town, many filled the bleachers, while others like us sat on blankets placed on the grass. Dad would be working in the Cot- ton Candy booth, so when he finally came home after the show, the pink hair like candy strands would cover his arms.
When I was older and playing Little League baseball, the all-star game was played before the fire- works show began. Playing in the game before all those people, nearly all of them waiting for the fireworks show to begin later, was a special moment for any thirteen- year-old boy. Then following the game, wearing my “Firemans” club uniform around for the rest of the night was all pretty cool.
Because of our home’s proximity, downwind from the show, a firetruck would park at the end of the street. Fire was always a possibility and at least twice, that I recall, still smoldering firework debris had to be dealt with on our roof.
The show continued the next morning when neighbor and friend Dave Shultz and I searched the
area where the fireworks had been set off. We could find all kinds of neat stuff that hadn’t ignited and fell to the ground. We gathered this bounty to light on our own, continuing the excitement for at least one more day. I’m sure no one knew of this or our secret adventure would have been cut short.
Tucked against the baseball field seats was the municipal swimming pool; a very large pool of perhaps sixty feet wide by one hundred fifty feet long. There was a low diving board and the high dive, I’m thinking it
was eight to ten feet high. Anyhow it sure seemed high the first time I gathered the nerve to climb up. Always coordinated and athletic, I was doing double flips off the high dive by my early teens. I could also dive in from the shallow end, to complete nearly two lengths up and back before taking a breath. During the summertime, as I became old enough, the pool was my destination for perhaps four to six hours a day.
I had begun going to the pool when we lived on Palm; I’m sure a great place for Mom to park me, while allowing her several hours of peace on a summer day. By the time we were living on Lenox, this was just a short walk across the outfield. In the summertime when I awoke in the morning, I pulled on my bathing suit and t-shirt mornings can never again be so easy as in summer for young boys had breakfast and headed for the pool for swim team practice with coach Jim Mulligan. I was a good swimmer, but this was not really my sport. My parents would buy a summer pass, so, morning to evening I was gone. Following swim prac- tice, I did go home for lunch, then back to the pool for an afternoon of swimming with friends. The pool was open at night until eight or nine, so often after dinner, I could be found at the pool until closing. Having a pool at home just wasn’t necessary.
Exeter is a quiet town; even by todays hectic standard it remains quiet. But it’s not like the 1950’s and earlier when there were no air conditioners, loud radios or traffic. If a siren was heard it was to call the volunteer fire department or to announce 12:00 noon, as it still does today. In the night time while lying in bed with the window open, I could listen as the semi-trucks with just loaded trailers or freight trains leave the packinghouse docks. They were loaded with fruit headed for who knows where. As I lay drifting off, listening, I could hear the receding sound of their diesel engines all the way out to Venida Corner, as it lulled me asleep.
Often, it’s sounds that tweak or define our memories. A few years ago, while at funeral services for Margret Schelling; while standing at her grave side in the Exeter cemetery, I looked around at the faces of the same people I’ve known for ever. Across the street were the Orange trees that had stood surrounding the
cemetery for years. . . then I heard the sound of a train horn as it crossed Kaweah Avenue. All of a sudden with the sound of that horn I could have been standing in that spot fifty years prior. . . nothing had changed.
The move from Palm Street to Lenox Avenue, I suppose, came at just the right time in my life. I was ten years old and ready to extend my boundaries. I contin- ued to spend time at my grandparents, but now I had an expanded group of neighborhood friends, and new places to explore.
My First Kiss
There comes, in our lifetime certain transitions that take us to new unexpected places. Often to places from which we can never retreat. When seven, eight or nine years old, we’re children and that’s all we’ve known. Then, during one summers vacation, that had begun as usual with swimming, riding our bikes, all that the warm days allow, we come upon a bend in our path for which we’ve not been prepared. We’re twelve years old, but on this particular morning, we wake up to thirteen. On one day in the month of June we leave the sixth grade at Lincoln Grammar School; then, suddenly it’s September
Nickies picture from our 1963 yearbook
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