"Bomber Memories"
August 14, 1998
John Bradley (65)
Jonnies was located in the Uptown Shopping Center around the corner from the Spudnut Shop. The original owner was Mr. Napoli, his son John graduated from RHS in 64. About in 64 or 65 he sold it to Jack, Jack was the original manager of the place, and came to Richland from New York City with the Napoli's. He lost it in 65 or so, and went to sears to work, then I lost track of him. It's been a few years and my memory is getting weak along with some other things. If you can find Ken Johnson (65), John Foster (65, or for that matter John Napoli (64), they could really fill in the gaps. I used to hang out there also, but that ended when my dad found out and all hell broke loose. Of course that was my normal state at that time. This is really a great site, and I enjoy it very much. I think though, I chased to many jeeps with the bug spray, and the effect shave been withstanding for too many years..
John Bradley
Rich Henderson (62)
Some of the teachers at Chief Jo and Col-Hi I well remember for their unique contribution, style and character.
* Chief Jo - Mr. Harvey. He was my 8th grade teacher, (1957-1958), and the most memorable of all I've ever had - that includes college. He was tragically killed in a bunkhouse fire trying to save boy scouts. I am sure his memory endures in many to this day.
* Chief Jo - Mr. Strankman. He was the P.E. teacher. The part where the boys and girls practiced dancing was awkward and funny - to me.
* Chief Jo - Mr. Pippo, (Mr. Twevo Pippo). He was the health teacher (1957-1958). He would warn us that the Russians were coming over the hill to invade Richland - or so it seemed so. Turns out he had good reason to fear; he was a fighter pilot in the Finnish Air Force during WW-II.
* Col-Hi - Vice Principal Tom Lyda. He always seemed so serious and official looking.
* Col-Hi - Venerable Art Dawald. Not only was he a living institution; he had a personality that an Army drill sergeant could love. I well remember his anticts and goofy style he would pull on us in U.S. Government class. I Could write a chapter on this alone. Long live his memory.
* Col-Hi - Dr. Ida Mae Meacham. She taught biology and physiology. She had this fish tank full of rare tropical species. I think it was her passion.
* Col-Hi - Ray Juricich. He was my safe-driving instructor. He was a hard taskmaster on us in both the classroom and behind the wheel. He would have the girls in tears when they goofed up while driving.
NOTE: his admonishments remain vivid to this day. (i.e., "you control your car by controlling your speed".)
Richland is my hometown no matter where I live. Let us continue the journey down memory lane.
Bombers uber alles,
Rich Henderson
Sherry Nugent Dupuy (62)
These memories being recalled bring home what a unique childhood we all shared. Especially chasing the mosquito spray truck.... people look at me as if I came from another planet when I relate that memory. God knows what we breathed in. Does anyone remember what the game was called when we chased around the well laid out blocks in town with our headlights off? And I remember watching Bob Irwin climb from one car to another as they were driving side by side at some ungodly speed. There IS a God and He HAD to be watching over us.
Sherry Nugent Dupuy
Chuck Crawley (67)
Does anyone else remember going to movies at the Uptown Theater on Saturday mornings in the summer for the price of showing a receipt from an Uptown District merchant? We would go to the Spudnut Shop (it's unanimous, the best donuts on the Planet), get a glazed raised for a couple of pennies and we were off to the movies. It was a long walk from Lee & Wright and no trip home was complete without trolling for tadpoles in the drainage ditch behind Kadlec Hospital. (Obviously, I was in high school at the time.)
Chuck Crawley, CtK, Carmichael
Peggy Sheeran Finch (63)
More memories: Taking a bus with other school kids to the Horse Heaven Hills as part of an evacuation practice in case of bombs dropping on us... Practicing bomb drills by lying in groups of 3 in the school halls, face down with a hand over the back of our neck (as though that was going to save us from the bomb)
Howard Chitty's blonde 3 yr. old daughter as our mascot at basketball games.
Dr. Ida Mecum keeping her lunch in the fridge along with dead mice, etc. (And I've done the very same thing in my classroom as a teacher of health related things). The Caducean Club supervised by her inspired me.
Saying "OOH" and "AAH" at the Bomber Bowl lying on the hill on a blanket during the fireworks on the 4th of July.
Initiation at Atomic Frontier Days (lipstick smeared faces).
Using tokens to get into the movies at the Richland and Village Theaters.
Otis, the only black man I remember seeing as a child, who shined shoes at the barber shop, and we had him over for a couple of Thanksgiving Dinners, I think.
Peggy Sheeran (Now Peg Finch)
Denny Hayward (62)
Really enjoy all the memories. Someone mentioned old Otis who ran the shoe shine stand at the Barber Shop. He lived down the basement of the shop and I was there a time or two with him and my dad - don't know why. I think my dad was helping him fix something. As a 10 year old I was amazed - but look back at his situation with sadness as it was little more than a cot in the corner and a pile of books.
John Fletcher (64)
There was a Wild Bills Market at the Richland "Y".
When I was about 11 years old (1957) I was heisting comic books under my coat. I had made 2 clean trips to the car while my folks shopped and I got nailed on the 3rd trip. A night to remember. I believe it was Wild Bill, the owner, who caught me by the coat collar and turned me over to my merciless Father. "Why didn't you ask me for a dime?" Yeah, right. I was stealing the big 25 cent comics. I was guilty, and did pay the price.
John Fletcher
Wife of Steve Cantrell ('68)
Although I graduated from Ki-Be in '68, I lived in Richland up until the second grade, attending the original Sacajawea Elementary school. My husband, Steve, a '68 Col-High graduate, and I remember the Frontier Days well. They used to have an old-time carnival come into Riverside (Howard Amon) Park just above where the Fingernail is now --- complete with all kinds game booths and only a few rides. Loved the atmosphere there --- kind of Pollyannaish. Also, the little train ride used to be located by the market on the corner of Symons and Goethals --- we lived on Torbett, just up from it. My first memories of Richland are looking out on the old trailer camp from my fenced yard (we lived in one of the trailers) when I was about three.
Arthur (TOM) Hughes (56)
My family moved into the Tri-Cities in late 1943. We first moved into Campbells Cabins on the Kennewick side of the old Pasco Kennewick Bridge. We lived there until our Pre-Fab was ready. Even had a bee hive in the wall of the cabin to keep things interesting. We moved into a 3 BR Pre-Fab on Smith just to the east of the "Grocery Store" behind Marcus Whitman Grade School. In First Grade Marcus Whitman was not yet finished so I had to walk to Sacajewa for that year. When Marcus Whitman opened they also opened a "Candy counter" in the back of the Grocery Store so kids could by candy at lunch and recess. We still lived there when the Bombs were dropped and I remember how excited everyone was that "Our Bomb" won the war. I remember the Navy planes from Pasco dive bombing the hill out by West Richland. They dropped little 25 pound bombs that had explosives in them and you could see the bombs go off. My best friend at this time, and for many years, was Duane Knott. He first lived in a 2 BR Pre-Fab but when his sister Jill was born the moved into a 3 BR just behind where they had lived.
I remember walking to the "Village Theater" on Saturday mornings. The Saturday special was 9 cents for the cartoons, the serial and two movies. We would get a dime and on the way home we would stop in the dime store and by a bubble gum. Walking up Lee Hill in the summertime, barefoot with all of the hot asphalt and cockleburrs will remain in my memory for all time. We would stop at the irrigation ditch to cool off and catch pollywogs.
There used to be free bus service all over town and you could just walk to the bus stop and get on and go where ever you wanted. There were always signs on the bus about "Loose Lips Sink Ships" and "You never know who the Enemy is". The kids were all told that secret agents would ride around on these buses listening to you to try to catch you saying something wrong. Of course we never understood what was "Right or Wrong" to say. Most of us did not even know where our parents worked. Dad got on a bus at the corner and came home on the bus and we had no idea of what was going on. My Dad worked "Shift Work" which meant that when he worked Graveyard shift we had to be quite while he slept. I still remember the Aluminum foil covered windows and the "Day Sleeper" signs.
From the Smith address we moved into an "A" house on Stevens Drive just a block north of Sacajewea so I moved back to Sacajewa for my schooling. I spent one year in the Quonset hut class rooms on the east end of the school. The Shegruds and Billy Everett were neighbors at that time. Billy and Burt Rivers lived with us for a time in the "A" house because of the housing shortage at the time.
After the "A" house we moved into a Brand New Pre-Cut on Willard just north of Marcus Whitman so back I went to Marcus Whitman. When my Mom decided she did not like the Pre-Cut because of the cold floors we traded houses with some people across the street. They took our Pre-Cut and we took their 3 BR Pre-Fab.
I lived there during the years I went to Carmichael and Columbia High. When I went away to school my Mom and Dad moved into a Ranch House on Olympia. They lived there until my Dad went to work for the State of California in 1969. Helen Cross and the Brileys were close friends from that neighborhood.
About the Merry-go-round and Trains at the bottom of the hill below the High School. Jess and Elva Brinkerhoff and Their family operated the amusement park for several years. I used to go down and help Reed, Virginia and Doris run the place every once in a while.
I remember that we used to go out to the old prison camp at Horn Rapids after the war. It was used during the war to hold Italian Prisoners of War. Most of them decided to stay in the United States after the war was over. We had some friends that rented one of the old homes out there and we used to go out there for picnics and for Easter egg hunts on Easter.
Other pleasent memories include the "Spudnut" shop, noon dances in the girls gym, "Daddy" Dewald and Coach Rish, the NEW swimming pool below the high school, the Uptown theater which was a vast improvement over the Richland and Village theaters, the Atomic Bowl and the Frontier Days celebrations in the park below downtown.
Thanks for the chance to remember some of these wonderful years. I didn't realize how good most of us that grew up in Richland had it. Our families had no mortgage worries, rents were cheap, jobs paid well and there was really no class distinction in the town for most of those years. For some of us the real world was a rude awakening.
Arthur (TOM) Hughes
Don Panther (62)
I checked with the Hanford Historian, Dr. Michelle Gerber, regarding the Horn Rapids prison camp. Here's what she has found in her research. There are so many "tales" about the prison camp that it would be good to pass this along....
The prison camp at Horn Rapids was known as Columbia Camp and housed prisoners from McNeil Island prison near Tacoma. These were Americans -- low risk criminals -- NOT POWS! They were ordinary offenders. They came here to care for and harvest the fruit trees during 1944 and into about Feb. 1945. Then Col. Matthias, the Site commander, proposed having them do some demolition work on some of the wartime structures that were no longer needed -- starting with demolishing the large construction camp that had housed WWII construction workers. However, labor issues were raised (I'm not sure by whom) and it was decided to send them back to McNeil Island in mid-1945.
There were a few Italian POWs housed at a camp up the Yakima Valley, but this was closer to Yakima and not in the Hanford area.
Jim "Pitts" Armstrong (63)
More on the DDT sprayers. They were quite efficient because they apparantly wiped out all the flying insects and drove away those thousands of beautiful nighthawks that came out every evening. Remember them? They've been gone ever since.
Interesting what Kenny Wright had to say about those govt. services. We lived in an H house on Haupt Ave. and my folks paid 50 bucks a month rent . My mom said even though the houses sold cheap they were sorry to give up that even cheaper rent.
Does anyone remember Garmo's, Food liner, The Hut, Rubinoff and His Violin, or Paul's Inc. [ I loved their electric train set up at Xmas]? How about the Goody Good Bakery in Uptown?
Earl Bennett (63)
1) Heard about a night when the coke machine in the police station started giving back more change than put in PLUS a coke; milked dry while hoping the desk sergeant didn't notice. Probably not the same machine - memory says the amounts were more significant than a nickel machine would generate.
7) Ah, yes, newsreels (vaguely recall some Korean war footage) and THE BIG PICTURE, INDUSTRY ON PARADE, etc.
14) Late August, 10-15 foot high piles of tumbleweed against the walls in the U-shaped area behind Chief Jo.
23) That's "What, me worry?" Alfred E. Neuman is alive and well on MAD TV - saw an episode by accident a couple of weeks ago. Believe Joe Ford was a dedicated proponent of the Alfred E. Neuman mystique.
Other notes: Paddy O'Cinnamon, The Cinnamon Bear, every afternoon/evening for several weeks before Christmas on (?KORD, KALE?). My sister Sue Meek ('68) taped a resurrection of the series a few years ago and sent it to me - fascinating! And I've seen Sunday Supplement ads for a stuffed Paddy O'Cinnamon (outrageous prices).
Gail Hollingsworth (56)
I moved to Kennewick in my Junior year, so didn't get to graduate with everyone I had gone to school with from 1st grade..... sighhhhh. But that's another story......
Been reading all this stuff, wondering if any of you remember HI Spot ? It was lots of fun...... learned to jitterbug there......and the bunny hop and a few other fun dances.
Speaking of babysitters....... my next door neighbors (when my son was about 4, and I was working at Anderson's {during the transformation to Bon Marche'} were the Crow's.....my son's babysitter was Gary Crow....... now a pretty well known dj in Seattle.
When we first got to Richland, in 44, my dad was living with a bunch of the other men in a house, each of them were waiting for the homes to be completed so they could move into them with their families...... My mom, and my sister and myself all lived at the Desert Inn for what seemed like forever, back then...... waiting for our house to be ready.
My Dad used to bring home cartoons with a character named Dupis Boomer.... does anyone remember that? Had great cartoons of our terrible wind storms, prefab roofs blowing down the street, etc...... funny jokes, but I really hated those hot sandy winds....... B.L (before lawns).
Oh, and one thing that was really wonderful about Richland........someone mentioned the fireworks in Bomber bowl........but did any of you go to any of the Sunrise Easter Sunday services there....... with the sun coming up....... it was really beautiful...
Well, that's about all I can think of at the moment..... hope we will be hearing from more of the grads from the 50s......Thanx for reading......
Gail Cherrington (Hollingsworth)
Denis "Sully" Sullivan
(62)
"Muscles", a.k.a. "Sonny", never without that bike.
PasPort plunge: My dad was a seaman at the Pasco Navy Yards during the war. I remember his telling me that the pool was used as a training facility--something about having to swim under burning oil a certain distance to demonstrate one could escape a torpedoed ship.
Potts' gas station: spent lot of time there filling my bike tires with air and pestering Potts. The grocery store across the street was not Safeway, but Campbell's, I think. We spent a lot of time pestering the produce guys--I still remember the smell of the place, riding our bikes with playing cards on the spokes through the parking lot and other annoying activities. There was barber shop on the Potts' side of the building and for a time a couple of us had a shoe shine operation where more polish got on socks than shoes.
The Village Theater, at 11 cents a matinee, was king until it gave way to the "free show" at the Uptown Theater. The merchants sponsored it to draw the parents to the stores.
Captain Midnight became Jet Jackson (or vice versa) in syndication. Kenny Wright and I pestered our mothers to buy Ovaltine so we could get the decoder rings that could create an image when you held it up to the sun. I remember how ripped off I felt when the first message I decoded was: "Drink your Ovaltine!"
Remember the Bomber Mascot: the green and gold bomb shell, in the middle of the floor before every basketball game? The bomb shell gave way to sensitivities, but we have never gotten rid of the mushroom cloud. Most non-Richlanders I know still cannot fathom that one!
I always thought the Spudnut Shop was a Richland original. A franchise?
Picnics at Hat Rock.
Thanks for the memories and keep them coming.
David Clark (56)
These little vignettes have brought back a flood of fond memories of growing up in Richland and I'll pass on a few from my own memory bank.
1. The great flood and 'miracle mile' in 52-54? Not sure of the date. We lived at 1319 Hains St and watched the Corps put in the miracle mile dike to save our home and much of downtown Richland. Went right through our front yard. The Columbia was full of floating debris and we used to fish out boxes of apples floating down from Wenatchee.
2. The winters with the big freeze sometime in the early fifties. Had several small ponds along the Columbia in front of our home that would freeze over every winter - great ice skating/hockey. What happened to winters like those?
3. Horse back riding at the riding academy near West Richland. Used to love taking out the horses for riding in the areas around the academy. Fulfilled fantasy's of Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Durango Kid, Cisco Kid, and other cowboy heros we saw every Sat at teh Village theatre.
4. Flat Top in West Richland. Used to take my old '37 Ford out on the trails to rabbit hunt, look for old bombs, etc. As a youngster, we also used to shoot fireworks out there and had the unfortunate experience of causing a brush fire which brought folks from all around to fight it.
5. Fishing with Bob Butler in the small creeks near the Uptown Shopping center. Remember Bob trying all summer to catch this large trout we could see but not catch. Well, Bob stayed after it and did finally catch him. Was over 20 inches as I recall.
6. Grade school at Lewis/Clark and Jefferson. Butler and I would spend a lot of time exploring Jefferson after hours, particularly in the gym and stage areas. Jr. High, first at Carmichael where my academic career changed with Mr. Bressler. Home room teacher, small guy in stature but huge in character. After one year, moved ot the new school, Chief Joseph. At CJ, remember the first boys Home Ec class with Ms. Spain. Still remember the cooking one semester where we always doubled the recipe for cakes (ate half the dough and cooked the other half), sewing classes with the pins and needles flying and finally making/modeling shirts that we had made. High school with Dawald as Home Room and Civics teacher, Mrs. Buscher, the beloved math teacher, Mr. Morris, the tennis coach, typing teacher who nailed me and several others for throwing snowballs in class by checking the temperatures of our hands, and Mr Scott, the physics teacher whom we wired his chair to the Van de Graf generator.
7. First class at CBC over at the old Pasco naval base. Think we had around 350 students of which there were only 3 or 4 girls. Mostly Korean war vets and us young guys. Ping Pong between and sometimes during classes. Anyone remember our first Ping Pong Tournament.
Gregor Hanson (65)
Another item I remembered last evening when reading the posts about early childhood days in Richland were the listening rooms at Korten's Music Store in Uptown Richland where you could play the latest 45 records on a phonograph in a sound proof room!! They also had sound proof rooms available for the practice playing of instruments - especially if you didn't have a bass cello or a tuba at home!!
Berta Hettinger (64)
Thought I would add a few of my own. I lived in a B house at 1205 Benham. We were the last house on our side of the street. I think Benham ran into Duane. If I crossed Duane there was a shelter belt of trees. Helped to break some of the sand my Mother hated to clean.
Beyond that was the railroad tracks and eventually Wellsian Way. When I used to walk to Carmichael Junior High I would take a short cut across the tracks and walk down Wellsian Way. I too spent many hours in the swamp land collecting pollywogs and making trails through the dried cattails in the Fall. There were many adventures to be had beyond the railroad tracks. The government had some buildings near the tracks. We kids were always trespassing , playing in the giant crates filled with packing material. In those days our parents felt safe to let us play unsupervised. I think they would have changed their minds if they knew all that we did! We would stay out until dark during the hot summer evenings, playing hide and seek and various other children's' games. It was a wonderful childhood. One time I woke up to a herd of horses in the vacant field outside my window. Some men had to come and round them up. We used to pick wild asparagus near the Yakima River. My Dad, with a little help from me, dug our basement out one bucket load at a time. He then built two bedrooms downstairs. We had a coal bin in one corner of the basement. I can remember when the coal deliveries were made and loading the furnace. My Mother's screams were heard after the cat fell down the chimney into the cold furnace. I ran to the top of the stairs to see what had happened and there she stood with coal dust from head to toe. The cat was unharmed and Mom said that she had had a catastrophe! Along with sand, Mom did not like dealing with coal dust. Dad took Cathy Biehn and I hiking in the Horse Heaven Hills a couple of times. Cathy and I used to go horseback riding at the Riding Academy in West Richland. We used to walk or ride our bikes to Lewis and Clark and come home for lunch on nice days. I can remember going to the gas station next to Campbell's grocery store and getting the used oil cans. We would stomp our shoes into the sides of the cans and wear them around on our feet for the added height and noise they made. Does anyone remember "White Christmas" showing at the uptown theatre during many a Christmas season? The Spudnut Shop is a delicious memory for me too. The closest thing to them is Dunkin' Donuts glazed in New England. My Mom used to buy sample shoes (her feet were so small) from the Bootery in Uptown. My friends and I would stop at Tastee Freeze and buy nickel ice creams on our way home from the big pool. I better stop rambling.
Berta
Carol Converse Maurer (64)
I remember going to the movies a few times in North Richland. I remember my mother made me stay real close by, as the soldiers were there also. I can't remember how old I was at that time. Not very. Maxine McCune and I would ride our bikes out there in Jr. High school and early High school. All that remained were the concrete pads.
Carol Converse Maurer
MLou Williams (60)
Response to Kenny's #13 - In 1958 when the Bombers were AAA all-state basketball champions, there was a celebration party at the Kennewick Social Center(?) and our All-American Norris Brown and his brother, C.W. weren't allowed in! Were they the only black family in Richland then? Anyway, it nearly caused a riot and suddenly the Tri Cities and we sheltered children from the only town in the world that was its own suburbs became aware of discrimination. In 1962 CBC students held a peaceful demonstration, marching in Kennewick. It was covered by the Tri-City Herald and the now defunct Columbia Basin News. And those spudnuts, which along with Coke in bottles were our dance refreshments at Chief Joe, started out at 52 cents a dozen. That was with 2 cents tax.
Muscles, also called Sonny, lived in a house near Jason Lee, I believe. There was a pet monkey there, in a cage we used to stop by on the way to and from school and one day the monkey grabbed my glasses and really wrecked them. Boy, was I scared to go home! It cost $15 to replace them. Muscles died in Richland many years later - I remember his obit in the TCH.
It's great to be reminded of all those good, bad and otherwise times when we were growing up.
MLou (formerly Mary Lou) Williams
Michael Figg (70)
Just like Mike Franco, I also remember very much about growing up on Davison St. For Mike, his Davison St gang was probably Dick Boston and Paul Wittenbrock plus a few others. For me, a quarter mile south on Davison it was the Twins, William and Richard Rathvon, Bob Gustavson and others. Growing up on Davison there is one thing that really sticks out, as it probably did for many others in the neighborhood and all over town, The River! It was only about 150 yards from my back door - through the Raile's back yard, across Hunt St and up and over the hill next to the Salinas'. It seems like I grew up on that river, sailing or swimming over to the first island.
The other favorite memory was going to Bomber games and walking home eating sunflower seeds, then stopping at the Spudnut Shop to satisfy the other essential food groups needed in a well balanced diet. And if that didn't do it the Artic Circle wasn't far away either. It seems like by about 1975 there were two places I didn't want to live in; eastern Washington and Southern California. I've changed now, after 14 years in Columbus, Ohio, even Southern California sounds good. I can't imagine what it would be like to live back in Richland, but I wouldn't mind trying.
Mike Figg
Dale Hosack (69)
5) Riding the Dryers for a dime: we called it "Turning Orbits" (Now I build satellites for a living...)
7) Free movies in the "Uptown" theater on Saturdays with any receipt from an uptown merchant. We used to go around the corner to the five and dime and snatch a receipt off the floor to get in.
12) Bomber bowl Fireworks: A spinner came off the post one year and burned my next door neighbor Bill DeHollander above the eye.
16) Running behind the DDT Jeeps until I was covered with slimy oil.... Maybe that explains my fondness for peanut butter, pickle and mayo sandwiches.....
26) Surgical tubing squirt guns that shot a 1/4" stream of water 25 feet.
27) Building Snow Jumps on Col Hi and Carmichael hills for sledding. I remember Larry Worley coming about 6 feet off his sled. Landed where you don't want to land...If 'ya know what I mean.
28) The trampolines next to the Atomic Lanes.
29) Ice skating at Wellsian and the "Y".
Finally....
Whatever Happened to "Sure Lloyd"
