Guest Post
by Richard Drake
Your stories about growing up in Clovis brought back memories. Here is one from my memory bank.
Right after we moved to Clovis my parents bought a house at 405 Hull St. The house is now gone but I have many fond memories about living in that neighborhood. First, the block across the street had no houses so we kids built a baseball field. We used everything we could get our hand on for bases usually an old pie tin or small pieces of lumber from people's back yards. The field backed up to the corner of Hull and Fourth Streets. We had no back stop so passed balls required a lot of chasing. At that time there was little traffic on Hull Street so we just ran with abandonment after each ball.
We had a good supply of equipment. I had a summer job tending the score board at Pioneer Field so I was able to keep our "field" well supplied with baseballs that were hit over the fence. Several kids usually watched the games through holes in the outfield fence so there was a mad dash to get to each ball. The first to the ball got "keepers". Also, my friends were the bat boys for the teams so we got plenty of bats that had been cracked. It wasn't until years later that I got to use a bat that didn't have the handle wrapped with electrical tape.
Since I was one of the smallest boys I did not get play in the field during our pickup games. During batting practice I was assigned the job of standing on the edge of the infield and relaying balls to the pitcher. On day, one of the big kids hit a line drive just over my head. It was a blast worthy of the major leagues. I had only time to jump and grab. It was pure instinct but I caught the ball much to my surprise and to all of the others. From that day forward they let me play in the field.
Another game we played was a three corner baseball game with a triangle infield - not square. It was played across Fourth Street. The back stop was the Shultz's garage. There was a first base and third base next to the alley way. A number of livestock pens and chicken coops were in the yards across the street. The rules evolved over time. A hit into the yard just over the fence behind first base and third bases were singles. One driven into the second row of pens was a double. One into the third row was a home run. A hit down the alley was all you could get. This game taught us how to use bat control which came in handy in later years.
At the time everyone was afraid of polio. The prevailing theory was that if one got too hot and tired you were more likely to contract the disease. We were not allowed to play in the hottest part of the afternoon and had to go home and take a nap. But we could go out and play in the evenings when it was cool. Only problem were the mosquitoes. How things have changed. The favorite game for the evening hours was cops and robbers played with rubber band guns made from rubber inner tubes. (They were made from real rubber in those days). We would take a long narrow board and carve notches along the top edge. We cut one-half inch wide rubber bands from an old inner tube We tied a long string from front end of the gun to the grip at the other end and stretched the rubber bands from the front end to each notch. Just aim and pull the string and BAM. We would hide and ambush our opponents. I made a gun with eight rubber bands. It was a "machine gun" that could deliver a lot of hurt. I was the most feared kid on the block until others copied my design which I had copied from a magazine. One night I got real sneaky and climbed up on the roof. I learned that if you missed you were an easy and open target. I am not kidding when I say I got shot off of the roof.
One of the treats from living on Hull Street was we could sit on our front porch and hear Norman Petty play his organ. His recording studio was on Seventh just past Hull. No one had air conditioning so windows were kept open to catch any breeze. He would play for one to two hours on most evenings. He was so talented. We thought we had it made over the rest of the world. Now occasionally, I will hear "Mood Indigo" while listening to the "Oldies" station and I am immediately sitting on that porch listening to every note.
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