Medium Sized House in the Big Valley - my weird life growing up in Los Banos, California

Hi, I'm Cindy. I grew up in a small town in the San Joaquin Valley, also known as the Big Valley back when things were so different from how they are now. I never felt like we lacked anything. The house was considered big at the time, but in all honesty, it was medium sized. We had a black and white TV, a radio, a full-functioning kitchen that even had a portable dishwasher (and I don't mean me). We had two telephones! Just think! Life was good.

I can't help but reflect on things from those times. Back when I was born (mid 20th century) our street was at the edge of town and the town was on edge of becoming for it, kind of a big deal. A little background on the town first. Some people became instant millionaires (not us) when the vast land holdings they owned were purchased by the state to build the San Luis Reservoir and California Aqueduct to send water to the parched Los Angeles basin. The next big deal about all this was that at the time of the ground breaking for this construction that would cause the population to explode for a few years was that President Kennedy was in town for that. Being my parents were Republicans at the time, that little drive out to the ground breaking never happened. I would have loved to have gazed at that good looking man, even though I was only a small child at the time.

Now back to the edge of town business. Our road, 7th Street, came to an abrupt sharp right turn onto Page Avenue where 7th Street ended. We had our French Basque neighbors to the south of us, a vacant lot to the west of us that soon had a house 'moved' onto it. (was that something to watch!!). To the north of us was the Evans' house and to the east, empty land that would soon be filled with homes that bordered the soon to be constructed Los Banos High School.

Probably my first friends were the Evans girls, Katy and Mari. I barely remember them as I was probably 2 1/2 when they moved away and after that the neighbors in that particular house who had the most longevity were the Reid's and they were an older couple who had adult children. Boring!

Now to bounce back to the dam, my dad was involved indirectly in that. He worked for Holt Brothers Caterpillar Tractor that was on the edge of town (the other 'edge' from where our house was) and he would be called at any time during the night to head over to the store, as we called it, to provide a part or tool that was needed for this huge construction project. All this translates to that for about seven or eight years, I didn't see a lot of my dad. He worked very long hours.

As for the kids to hang out with, there were the Arbelbide's across the street, Jeanne and Martin and the other Cindy in the neighborhood, Cindy Adrian. Add to that Bobby Souza and if the older kids (they seemed so mature at the time to us little punks), Maureen, Pammy, Debi, Lisa, and the Lewis boys down the street deemed to give us the time of day, we had enough kids for lively round of kick ball in the street.

I'll just end it here for the day, let you think of how fun that was, playing on a very quiet street until dark on those summer nights....