20: Grade six

Episode #29: Joining the Boy Scout/School Camp/.

For me and my brother, there was no change in our school when we moved from Guymon street in the Glenncliff subdivision to the Roswell St in the Emerald Hills area of San Diego. Instead of the family living on the west side of Horton Elementary we were now on the east side of the school.

I really enjoyed 6th grade and my favorite activity of all times in elementary school was 6th grade camp. We in San Diego had the opportunity to attend camp for a week in the mountains—the cost was $45.00 ($477 in 2025 dollars.) My class attended Camp Marston. If my memory serves me correctly, those camps were former CCC camps, but Camp Marston was a YMCA camp. We lived in cabins, did craftwork, hiked at night, studied nature, cut trails to name some of the activities. By the way, each cabin was assigned specific duties on a rotating basis to keep the camp, kitchen, and dining room clean. In fact I was so impressed with what we did at the camp and the learning that took place, that when I was offered a position as a naturalist at a Florida School district 120 acre environmental site, I jumped at the opportunity. In doing so I eventually became it’s director, but due to politics I left in 1998. It was the best job ever. And never did I ever think I would have been in such a position.

Now that I was in 6th grade, I was finally old enough to join the Boy Scout. I was so excited about joining Scouts, that I passed the Tenderfoot test the night I joined. My parents had purchased the manual before I joined so thatI could pass the required examination that night.

Let me digress for just a minute and write about two of my Boy Scout experiences. We would travel to our camps in the bed of a pickup truck, which you can’t do today, but it was such fun traveling down the highway with the wind blowing through one’s hair. My first camping experience was at Green Valley Falls in the Cuyamaca Mountains of Eastern San Diego County. Well, our first day was exhausting and that night I fell quickly to sleep.

Me in my Boy Scout Tenderfoot badge sewn unto the left One of the great advantages of being in the scouts during those days was that we would head to the mountains in the bed of a pick-up truck – that was soooo much fun. Unfortunately, that can’t be done today. And there’s that black & yellow ‘58 Mercury.

To my surprise, the next morning I found myself tied to the center of my pup tent. I must have been really exhausted to not have been awake during that episode.

My second experience was the Boy Scout Fair, held on the football field of San Diego State College stadium. Back in those days we were not very concerned about not being supervised by Scout leaders. So at the end of our fair day on that Friday night, all the Scout leaders had gone home leaving three eleven year olds on our own to clean up and be ready for the next day.

There were no cell phones, heck there were no telephone booths to call our parents to come get us. So the three of us started walking home – it is midnight and the walk would be 4-5 miles back to Horton Elementary and then the walk home. Do you think this would be allowed today, not a chance. Today, parents would probably be arrested for child neglect.

We had walked as far as maybe 1 – 2 miles before coming to University Ave on 54th street, when this guy in a convertible pulled up next to us and offered to give us a ride back to school. All I could think about was my parents’ warnings to never accept a ride from a stranger. But my friends kept insisting that we accept, after all we still had about three miles of walking to get to school and it was past midnight. I relented, but never could get out of my mind the kidnapping of a young girl name Mary Lou who lived in the National City area. I always thought she was never found, although I have recently learned that she was eventually found in a dry river bed near the Tijuana border. I was recently provided a newspaper link to Mary Lou’s disappearance and subsequently the finding of her body. I have never forgotten the loss of this girl, maybe because she was my age at the time and the name of the street, Marilou off of Federal Blvd and 47th street where I use to ride my bike to the hardware store and the music store where I took some of my accordion lessons.

However we all made it home safely and at about 1:00 am – 1:30 am in the morning I unlocked the front door to my home and went to bed. I don’t think our parents ever discovered we were left on our own at midnight.

One last writing about living in Glenncliff – actually two. At the entrance to the Glennclifd subdivision, there was a duplex at the corner of Guymon and 47th street (left side). That duplex housed the rental office and the lawn care rental shop. Lawnmowers were the push rotary type. The cost to rent was $1.00. To make money for my little incidentals, I would rent a lawnmower on Saturday mornings and walk the neighborhood offering to cut lawns for $1.00. On a good Saturday I could make about $10.00. On a not so good Saturday only a couple of bucks – barely enough to cover my expenses.The other way I earned an income was to sell the Sunday paper.

I had approached the guy who was in charge of dropping off the newspaper to the kids about standing on the corner of Market and 47th to sell the Sunday paper, but that corner was already taken, and besides I was too young. So I made a deal with him -drop off maybe 10-15 newspapers on Sunday and I’ll walk door-door offering to sell them that way. The newspaper cost $ 0.25 and I would earn $0.05 / paper sold. That doesn’t sound like a lot of money, but heck, sell 15 papers and I earned $0.75 ($7.95 2025 spending value). That was a lot of money for a 10-11 year old kid to spend on suckers, comic books, gifts for my parents, models, etc. Unfortunately, when we moved, I had to give all that up. Also, I sold Christmas cards door-door during the holiday season. I earned enough money to purchase a car racing track set.

Now that my source of income had disappeared when we moved to the Emerald Hills area, I convinced my parents to allow me to cash the savings bond money my grandmother had been saving for me. Those extra funds allowed me to purchase a telescope. I wanted a refractor and not a reflector telescope because I also wanted to see things up close other than it use for astronomy. Having a telescope and living on a hillside, not only allowed me look at the craters on the moon, see the rings of Saturn, and watch the sunset into the pacific ocean; not a good idea, but I was amazed to be able to see sunspots. I was able to see magnified views of downtown buildings a distances of about five miles NW from where I lived.

The other object I could watch, were the movies at the Rancho Drive-in at the corner of Federal Blvd and Euclid Ave. Unfortunately few kids of today will ever enjoy being able to play on the playground in front of the screen and then find themselves quickly running back to the car to watch the movie. Back in those days movie theaters always had double features and showed the films twice. If your family stayed to watch the films twice, you didn’t get home until around 4:00 in the morning. The one movie I remember watching was Mondo Cane (The film consists of a series of travelogue scenes that provide glimpses into cultural practices around the world with the intention to shock or surprise Western film audiences-Wikipedia). The theme music was “More” and it was a sensational hit. I remember listening to the music many, many times, it was so melodic.

One last note before moving on to junior high: I had to make up my bed every day, including Saturdays and Sundays. Actually, there are two last things. Through grade six, I was not allowed out of my bedroom (shared with my brother) until my parents got up on Sunday mornings. I used that time to read—a lot. I didn’t know it then, but my French mother, Sophie, would send me books for my birthday and Christmas. I always thought they were from my grandmother, Addie Mae.