Memories from Montebello and the Simons Brickyard

By kiki

                                     

My Montebello memories must also include memories from the Simons Brickyard as they intertwine.

My earliest memories begin around 1942 when at age 5, I started kindergarten at Vail Elementary School. I remember starting kindergarten with Coy Diaz and Johnny Leyva et al. Coy and I became best friends in our teens for years. But in our preteen years at Vail, Coy was always urging Johnny to pick a fight with me, so it was that Johnny and I fought just about every day, and Johnny got his ass kicked just back every day.

During WWII, when we had blackouts, my older sister Rachel and I would sit by the window watching the searchlights aimed at unidentified planes.

I remember when I was at Vail, the teacher would rap our knuckles for speaking Spanish. It seems funny now because nowadays, you have a better chance of getting a job if you are bilingual and can speak both English and Spanish, at least in California, so we may have the last laugh after all.

I first learned about the birds and the bees from two teachers at Vail. These two teachers would sneak into the equipment room for their daily romp on the ping pong table. We guys would then sneak around the back to look through a window.

I became the school movie projectionist during my last two years at Vail Elementary. I would be pulled out of my class to run the movie projector for the other classes; it was fun and made me feel like I was somebody important. Of course! L.O.L.!!

I fondly remember catching the Montebello bus on Greenwood and Sycamore on Sundays after church with my mom to see movies at the Vogue in Montebello and other theaters in East Los Angeles.

I must have been in the 6th grade when I discovered girls. I remember going to the Vogue, holding hands, and sneaking in a kiss or two with any girl willing to do so.

Going skinny dipping in the summers at the local water hole, "The main ditch," was fun.

In 1950, I entered Montebello Junior High School.

Somehow some of my Vail schoolmates and I got a year behind in our school years. After 7th grade, some of my schoolmates and I were asked to skip the 8th grade and go straight into the 9th grade. I said yes. My friend Coy and others said no.

My two years at Montebello Junior High were not very memorable. Besides getting thrown off the school bus for shooting spitballs at the driver, finding a girlfriend that dropped me off after a couple of months for a high school guy because he had a car, she said, and seeing Mr. Martin, our English teacher, and another teacher whose name I can't recall—I'll just call him Mr. Dude—go after another teacher, whose name I can't remember either, so I'll call her Miss Dudette. Both were trying to win Miss Dudette's heart. Mr. Martin won out in the end, and he married Miss Dudette.

One day in Mr. Martin's English class, my friend Chano Diaz asked permission to go to the boy's room, which he got from Mr. Martin. On his return from the boy's room and sitting at his desk, Chano bolted up in the air, yelling, "Cabron, I am going to kill you!" at me. Someone put a thumbtack on his chair. Why he thought it was me, I've no idea. I was asked by Mr. Martin if I had put the tack on the chair or knew who had done it. I told him, "I ain't squawking." By the end of the class, Chano had gotten over it, and he didn't beat me up, which he could have quickly done as he was a big boy. By the way, Chano is a distant cousin.

The most exciting times at M.J.H. were in Mr. Archer's agriculture class. Mr. Archer had a plot of fenced land for his agriculture classes; the lot had a gate that was kept locked. Mr. Archer would count the number of students going in at the start and coming out at the end of class. At times he was one student shortcoming out of the fenced plot; he would look us over and ask, "Where is David?" Nobody would say they knew where David was, so he would send some of us to look for him. Of course, some of us knew where he was because some of us would tie David up in the tool shed during class. We would untie him once Mr. Archer asked for him. Some may say we were bullies, but we were just mischievous. It was all done in fun. Even David used to laugh at what we did to him.

Another fond memory of M.J.H. was trading my lunch with the gabacho boys. At the start of my 7th-grade year, my mom would pack me a "brown bag" lunch with tacos, now known as burritos. I would trade the tacos for sandwiches with the white boys. It was a good trade in that everybody was happy. But that didn't last long. About halfway into the school year, I started getting lunch money. Across the school was a mom-and-pop burger joint where we could buy a burger, fries, and a coke for 50 cents, and that's what I had for lunch for the rest of the time I was attending M.J.H.

My two years at Montebello Junior High went by fast. Finally, the spring of 1952 came around, and it was time to prepare for graduation. I needed to buy a suit, but before we could go to a men's store, a tailor making the rounds in Simons came to our door. My mom told him yes that I needed a suit for graduation. "How much?" she asked him. "$50.00," said the tailor. My mom said okay, even though we didn't have the $50.00. With the material picked, measurements were then taken; the tailor said that he would deliver C.O.D. in two weeks with a small deposit.

My mom then remembered that my paternal grandmother was holding $50.00 from a cow sale for me. "A cow sale?" When I was about 8 or 9, my grandma Lupe gave me one of her calves. After a couple of years, she sold my cow for $50.00 and told my mom and dad that she would hold that money until I graduated. When my mom told her we needed the money for my graduation, she said no, that I only graduated from junior high and not high school. So, in the end, she gave us $50.00 plus $20.00.

With the cost of the suit taken care of, I now needed a shirt, tie, and shoes. I settled on a white shirt, yellow knitted tie, and blue suede shoes to go with the light blue suit that had been tailor-made for me.

Graduation day was in mid-June. Ceremonies were held at Montebello City Park.

We sat on stage, and as our names were called, we walked to center stage to receive our diplomas from the principal. After receiving our certificates, we walked back to our seats. The principal's daughter, who also graduated with us (I can't remember the name of either one), skipped-hopped across the stage, and after receiving her diploma, she skipped-hopped back to her seat. She had everybody laughing.

1952 was the year the Simons Brickyard was closed for good. We were one of the last families to leave Simons; in early August, we left the brickyard and headed to Northern California to pick crops. After working in the fields, we returned to live in Pico, now Pico Rivers. I now had a decision: would I enroll in Pico Rivera's new high school, El Rancho High, or was I going to Montebello High? I wanted to enroll in Montebello High because all my friends were going there, but a problem arose. I was living in Pico Rivera, and M.H.S. wouldn't accept me. I was told I had to go to El Rancho High, so I talked to my grandma Lupe living in Montebello, and asked if I could tell M.H.S. I was living with her, even if I wasn't going to live with her. She said yes, but she wasn't happy with it. So I enrolled at Montebello High School in late September of 1952.

For the first few months, I walked from Pico Viejo to the Montebello Gardens to catch the Montebello bus on my way to school and would reverse that in the afternoons. Later in the year, I bought a 1938 four-door Chevy with the money I earned working weekends at Miller's Car Wash in Whittier. The Chevy cost me $55.00 at $5.00 a week. Then, in December, I got my driver's license and started driving to school. In early 1953 I was carrying only five classes. After getting out of school, I would go to Montebello City Park, park on Whittier Blvd, and then walk to the Spot to get something to eat while I waited for my friends to join me once they got out of school. Once they arrived, we would listen to the Hunter Hancock R & B radio show till 5 P.M. We would then head home at the show's end.

In the summer of '53, I worked full-time at the car wash, which gave me a bit more money to go out and meet girls and play pool at Nacho's Pool Hall in Simons. At the end of summer and the start of the new school year, I went back to Montebello High School for my junior year, as far as I got in school. In January of '54, I didn't return to school after the holidays. I instead went to work full-time at the car wash. I know it was a big mistake.

I met Connie in April of '54; after seeing her through the summer and fall, we married in December of '54. In 1955 I started working at a new car dealership (paint shop.) I then became an auto painter and, once owned, with my sons, a body shop. In my later years, I got a better gig. I became a Kept Man.

My last association with Montebello was in 1955-56 when Connie and I lived on 5th St, south of Whittier Blvd.