Bruce Wilson

Downstream Pony League Photo (thanks to Phil - long time no see, stay healthy)

It's hard to make out on Gary Earls chest, but that's the House of Music. Does anyone remember Paul Hall and Gary doing the Duke of Earl?

Ted's Termite Control? A new one on me. Don't forget Tunies sponsored a team also (thanks Nixon and C. Arnholt Smith). Anybody ever actually eat one?

Good catch on Mr. Kany, Terry. That's him all right. He assumed the Little League coaching job for Frank and I in year number two.

BTW: Michele and I hiked all the way down to the IB Library yesterday where the Star-News archives are supposed to be located, only to be told they were not there. Interesting phenomenon since there was an article indicating they were being moved from the Bonita Museum in 2011. 

From internet seaches,  Leon Stallings got three baseball related mentions in 1959 and a well-known couple got a nice write up regarding their wedding December 24, 1970.

Stay tuned. 

Bruce Wilson

I put this up before, but if you're everwondering what ever happened to Coronado.

http://hoteldel.com/live-webcam/

Jim Hawes

Wasn't this packing plant still around (South East corner of 3rd and "K") in the mid-1950's? The Jack-N-Box would have been located (later) screen left. The earlier photo confused me as it looked like CVHS in the background.

Bruce Wilson

Jim:

That's what I thought at first too (packing plant), but it didn't sync up.

I cannot remember when the Third & K plant came down.  I'm fairly certain that it was there in 1959. There was a little cafe (north) right across the street and a barber shop and the Lucky Market. Jack-in-the-Box supplanted the Try-Angle market.

Lane Field about the time we were playing Little League and 10 Inch.

Bruce Wilson

Tunies. Somebody ate 'em. They could have gotten away with these at White Front, but in Logan Heights?

From The Rhinelander Daily News Rhinelander Wisconsin, July 17, 1958.

CHULA VISTA, Calif. UP) — The lament of the hot dog vendor could be heard above the roar of the football crowd. Ten thousand hot dogs he had, and it was Santa Clara playing Loyola of Los Angeles on Friday night. Both are Cathoic colleges. Not a customer was in sight. William Lane, a Loyola student with the good sense to recognize the knock of oportunily, was impressed by the plight of the vendor. ' That was a Friday night in 1941. Last year, Lane placed on sale a hot dog that anyone can eat on Friday or any other night. ' It's a hot dog made of tuna fish. Lane calls them Tunies. The job wasn't easy. Lane recruited a German sausage making friend, Curt Schirmer, to help him. Before they had a product that satisfied them, they had used up 15,000 pounds of fish and four years worth of weekends. First, the tuna had to be purged of the fishy taste and smell. Next they had to season the fish so it would taste like a frankfurter. There are 1,700 different seasoning combinations used in hot dogs. Then they had to prepare the ground up tuna so it wouldn't fall apart when cooked, stay away from any animal fat whatever in the mixture, and make their franks skinless. After sampling nearly 150,000 tuna dogs, the two weekend cooks found all the answers. Lane's boss, San Diego financier C. A, Smith, offered to finance the new venture. Smith owns banks and tuna fleets. Smith, Lane and Schirmer formed the Tunie company, bought a sausage factory and began production. They have now reached a whopping 24,000 pounds daily. "Everyone told me that my idea was ridiculous," Lane said. "My boss kept telling me that only a man who didn't know it could not be done would keep on trying. "But I knew there had to be an answer to the Friday hot dog problem—too many Catholic schools have games on Friday night and what is a football or basketball game without hot dogs? "The average person in the United States ate seven pounds of hot dogs last year." Lane and company are branching out. They plan to open a factory in Boston.

Bruce Wilson

So one Yardage City location was near the Silver Dollar @ 315. Then they relocated up nearer to Chub's club?

I am also concluding that the store I bought my first Levis @ was Delbert's, 333 Third Avenue.

Another Sprouse Reitz, 205 East 8th Street National City

8-5-1954  Showing at the Vogue - THEM,  Harbor Drive-In - The Seige at Red River

Serving 22,000 "south bay homes". So I guess it was called the South Bay back in the good old days.

Bruce Wilson

Browsing The Star-News. I finally got a handle on it, though the results are hard to read. 

May 12, 1958 - Jim Eshbach hit two grandslams as the McAllister Mortuary Yankees opened the Chula Vista Ameircan Little League season against the Rohr Rockets. Food Basket had a team also.

So Frank and I played together in 1959. Bobby Brown (Yankess) pitched as well as Frank (Indians). (perhaps even better, BB threw a no-hitter 7-23-1959). So it looks like I jumped ship and played for the Indians in the second year. 

It looks like Don Parish pitched for the Tunies and also threw a no-hitter.

10 Inch Baseball and Pete Rombold's brother Mike (8-5-1954). 

George Bracey Gillow

Back to the corner of C and 4th.

The correct progression of stores is Unimart >White Front>FedMart>Target. 

Unimart started in 1960 so it was about then that they opened the store at C and 4th. Then it became a White Front when Unimart went out of business in the mid 1960s.

When Hugo Mann took over FedMart they purchased a number of White Front stores and converted them to FedMart stores.  

After Fedmart went out of business in the early 1980s, the building was taken over by Target.

Here is an aerial of that corner when it was a driving range.

Bruce Wilson

Good work George. You don't happen to recall what a bucket of balls went for in the fifties, do you? I was looking for some old photos of Frank for his daughter and noticed this guy Carl Blackwell on page 13 of The Shield you provided me. Check him out.

BTW, this Star-News archive search is turning into a real treasure trove for the Master Of All CV Trivia.

Trivial pursuit?

What well known Chula Vista teacher was arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon and petty theft?

What HHS graduate (and friend of the Master himself) was arrested for hitting a cop with a plate of food?

George Bracey Gillow

MORE GOLF DRIVING RANGE AT C AND 4TH

Bruce, thanks to your leading me to a source of archived Star News papers, I found an ad for a bucket of balls in 1973 from the Chula Vista municipal golf course at 85 cents per bucket.

The driving range at 4th and C was Beryl & Phil's Driving range.  Below is an ad. They sold equipment and probably Lucky Strike. As the other ad shows you would certainly hit a ball father with when smoking a Lucky.

Notice that the address is shown as C and Highland. The street north of C Street became 4th after the area was annexed into the City of Chula Vista in the late 1960s.

Bruce Wilson

More good work George.  I have seen that segment of Fourth north of C referred to as, what else, North Fourth.

I can't recall where.  In addition, in the river valley between CV and NC there was at one time a small airport, which most likely became the dairy.

It appears that the scans of the newspapers they did were pretty good.

There are tons of bits of trivia in those archives. 

I swear it wasn't Frank and I, but according to the Star-News, an empty market in Hilltop Circle was vandalized on or about June 27, 1957 to the tune of about $100. We had after all promised Mrs. McCan to lay off that area.

I do however, in hindsight, question whether breaking a window in a building that is scheduled to be demolished, should be considered vandalism. Taking a handle off a working pump though is definitely a no-no, since (did you guess it) a pump won't work without the handle.

Bruce Wilson

Tyce (CV) Airport (1930) and (1941). While located further west than Fourth Ave (32.633, -117.105):

it was close with a single northeast/southwest runway. Fourth/Highland was likely a dirt road through much of the airport's existence.

Bruce Wilson

National City Aiirport - 1964

32.71, -117.01

Philip George (Phil) Swanson (Swanson)

Some of you mentioned David Olmstead.  I remember him way back in 6th grade at Mueller Elementary at the foot of I St.  He was a real character back then, never saw him since. I remember being mad at him for breaking my special pencil I brought home from NYC.  He was definitly a bullly type.

Bruce Wilson

That's interesting Phil. I would never have thought of Dave Olmstead as a bully, Donny Walton yes, Butch Hindman (though it turned out he wasn't). 

There was some guy at Hilltop Drive Elementary who was older and bigger than us but still in sixth grade. I'm thinking his name was Ray. He picked on me. A whole bunch of Mexican kids from Otay picked on Frank when they temporarily attended school with us.

There was a big fight (that fizzled) at Castle Park. I'm thinking it might have been Joe Amador and Eddie Wilson. I missed the bus home to view it. It wasn't Ali & Frazier.

Accodring to the 1963 page, Kenny Hardesty was the all-time CV bully, though I personally never had any problem with him.

Fly by night, or day.

I only know of two pilots from our class, both women. I think their ID's would surprise folks.

Any guesses? Any male pilots.

Roberta Ann (Robin) Chavez (Groefsema)

For those of you who are in San Diego there is an article about my uncle in the paper.  He will be 104 tomorrow and is known to be the oldest living Pearl Harbor survivor.  He could give you some good history of San Diego.

Bruce Wilson

Thanks to you Robin and thanks and congrats to your uncle. Link to article below.

Happy Birthday Ray Chavez

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2016/mar/08/ray-chavez-pearl-harbor-veteran-104/

Terry Lee Maple

Dave Olmstead was super competitive as a kid, no doubt due to the talent of his older brother Fred who was much more even-tempered. I observed Dave mostly in Boys Club where he was a tremendous athlete. He always won the free-throw contest with unheard of accuracy for those times. His home was littlered with those little white certificates that the CV Recreation Department delilvered for various and sundry achievements. He was absolutely full of himself and talked trash all the time (unheard of for a white boy in those days). I began to appreciate his cocky demeaner when I played with him on the CV North All-star Pony leage team. He was a wily pitcher with every type of junk. He threw the ball where he wanted to and won a lot of games for us. He was also a very good quarterback with the confidence to lead but he had a weak arm and never played quarterback in high school. I saw Dave at one of the reunions and he was doing well. He played basketball at San Diego State with Rip Barrett. I really enjoyed seeing Rip again at the 50th. We had some real battles my senior year. Castle Park beat us twice in close games. He is a veterinarian in Sacramento so we were at UC Davis at the same time and didn't know it. Back to Phil's observation; if you were smaller than Dave he probably picked on you or mocked you. Fortunately I was bigger than him, but I didn't like his attitude. Thankfully, he turned out well.

Barbara Sindelar (Seagren)

Thanks, George, for coming up with "Beryl & Phil's" advertisement.

Beryl Hood ran a ballet studio on the golf range property and was my teacher for many years. She taught, demonstrated, coached and played accompanying piano -- a real multi-tasker. Although quite grey and wrinkled, she was full of grace and enthusiasm for The Dance. She would lift her skirt and tuck it into her garters so we students could see her legs clearly while she explained exactly how a movement should be done. Unlike studios today, she never held recitals or entered students into competition (did they even have dance competitions then?)... just encouraged us to feel how our bodies enjoyed moving.

P.S. I hope this doesn't publish under John's name. He NEVER took ballet lessons, honest! 

Barbara Seagren

John Carleton Cowherd

Barbara:  Thanks for your information about the ballet classes.  When we were in the 6th & 7th grades, Mr Benjamin used the dance studio for his classes in dancing and social graces.  I knew it was at the driving range, but couldn't figure out how there was a room that big.  Now I know.  Sometime last year I posted an article about Mr Benjamin's death.  I know that a lot of people who are active on this forum were part of his classes.  I don't want to slight any one, so I won't even try to name names.  Memory is not as good as it used to be.  Speak up if you were part of Mr Benjamin's class.   I was in the early class, 6 or 6:30 pm.

Bruce Wilson

IMO the most interesting trash talkers of all time were my brothers at UCI, Nitty (from Riverside) and Pickett (from New Orleans). They did not shut up the entire session, both on and off-court.

Hilarious.

Nitty called me "Cool Bruce" and Pickett called me "The Mechanic".

Wish I had a video or at least fotos. Alas.

Nitty would say, "yeah I was the best dancer in Benjamin's class", didn't matter.

Bruce Wilson

A little musical interlude, Steve Earle, dedicated to Butch (Clayton, not Dowayne) and Leon. We're not talkin' Billie Joe McAllister here folks.

Bruce Wilson

Mike's note about Frank and his name got me thinking, so just a little fun with the Names of CV (melted pot?).

Tsiennia (could never pronounce it, but loved her all the same - Hey Hey Mona)

Bilentnikoff [sic - The Shield spelling], 'Bucky' Buckaloo [sp?]

Charlotte Pescod (she was a babe, lived on First Ave., sister of Pam Tipton)

Corinne (what can I say, that I haven't already said to her)

Rockie Clinkscales (1955 CVJHS  "CHULA VISTAN')

Dowayne (sp?)

Longworth, Longbottom, Longerbone (no Longfellow or Longstreet)

Miss Jeanwood Squires (there was a time when I'd have said shame on you Butch, no more)

Pickerel (Jimmie?)

Pierre Gascoigne

Ilene Palmatier (likely sister of Ken, 1955 CHULA VISTAN)

Tsurodome

Xavier Urbina, Xalis

Zumstein, Zenovieff*, Zagner, Zapata, Zankiewicz, Zakarian,

Zinn, Zinns, Zubaugh, Zinkann, Zoberski, Zounes 

Oh yeah, whoops - Officer Bob Z.

*Interestingly, Betty Zenovieff was a Ninth Grader at CVJHS in 1955 and a teacher at CPJHS in 1959.

Honorable mention. Though he didn't live in CV, his baseball card did, Preacher Roe.

Apparently no John Smith at CPJHS in 1959.

YMMV - feel free to add-in (especially a phonetic for Ms. Pemberton) or complain.

EDIT: Don't you know, Bruce, that if you keep picking at it, it will never heal?

Please just one more. No Billie Joe, but the amazing Bill Foley, B-Baller way ahead of his time. I wonder where he's gotten off to.

Bruce Wilson

Lo-fi photos. Where is Newt when you need him?

Something about what young girls must do (1955).

Way up in the right hand corner of the photo is where the 10 inch league played at least some of it's games.

Diversity at it's finest (1955)

George Bracey Gillow

DANCING, GOLF AND MILK

At the corner of 4th (Highland) and C Street you could learn to dance, hit a bucket of golf balls and top it all off with refreshing Golden Arrow milk.

The Beryl Hood Dance studio (see Barbara's post # 1959) offered ballet and ballroom dancing. Berly Hood's full name was Beryl Hood McDaniel and with her husband also owned the Beryl and Phil's Golf Driving range (see my Post # 1950) and Cozine's Market in San Diego.

Next door was the Cloyed's Dairy which in 1959 became the Golden Arrow Dairy.

The picture below of the dance studio is from the Chula Vista Star News of February 17th, 1955. Notice the boys in the class. Hmmm, hope there were no bullies outside!

This is the Golden Arrow Dairy in 1959:

Interesting ad from the Dairy. Note the dairy extended from Highland to Broadway: