"SO MANY FRAGMENTS OF THE SPIRIT HAVE
HAVE I SCATTERED IN THESE STREETS."
........Khalil Gibran
***********************
Ever since that splendid event---
The "Main Dragging of 2014,"
The old Clovis boy has been
practicing up for the next one---
June---2015!
Driving his restored 1950 Sky-Blue Chevrolet
pickup, like he drove at the farm---it
was a' shining...all polished up, as in
"Sunday-go-to-meetin' "
and with a good blurbly, quiet muffler...
And he drives up and down Main almost
ev'ry day...
"Over and over," people said, "And like,
in no hurry.........."
A closer look at him reveals...he seems
relaxed...but thinking! And there are
plenty memories in his head, under
that Clovis Pioneer baseball cap!
(Where did he get that?!)
He's made his turn in front of the old
creamery building, and is headed north...
passing Clovis Steam, Busy Bee, and ah...
he's slowed down and looking up
at Hotel Clovis...it was the tallest building
he'd ever seen in the summer of '38...
Now he's passing Slaughter Murray's,
where his dad hung out, and Coney
Island Hot Dogs--- Clovis Tailoring where
Mr. Vaughter sold him his first suit...
and Clovis National Bank and his first
car payments...Howard Martin fixed
that up...
Now he's crossed that awful dip at Third
and Main---a place filled with raging
water and stalled cars, more hot summer
afternoons than he could ever recall---
(for he worked right there for Jack Holt
off 'n on for four years)
Now he's passin'. old Monkey Wards, there
on the east side, an American symbol
almost like mother, apple pie, and Chevrolet.
On down past Clovis Printing, where
they sold fine fountain pens, which he
checked-on and coveted every Saturday!
On the west side of Main in the 300 block
were historic Citizens Bank, Jack Holt's,
Carrington's Barber shop, where Jim King
worked; Carmack's, and Sutter's Jewelry
where he bought his fiancee's rings....
Duckworth Drug, Holmberg's, Frear's,
Dunlap's, May Bros Jewelry...
Right across the street was Woolworth's,
(the seeming center-of-the-world
to a little kid in 1938!) where Grady Maples,
R.B McAlister had KICA studios---upstairs,
and bantered with the merchants down on
the street, walking to work. and the
Pickering Family sang every morning...
Woolworth's, and its big red signs with gold
lettering, had the best post-Lyceum movie
ham salad sans @ 20 cents apiece!
Every town should have had a Barry Hardware.
Just across fourth from "Wooly's ", it was
on the corner where our driver was standing mid-August
1945, when KICA blocked Main with its
speaker-van, announcing "THE JAPS HAVE
SURRENDERED!"
He almost stopped, people noted, in his
frequent times of cruising Main---when
he passed the Lyceum....there was almost
a reverence emanating from the
pickup...as he slowed...for this may have
been his favorite place in the whole
world! No one else he ever knew was that
fond of the Lyceum, except for, maybe
Robert Stebbins!
Many happy double features were enjoyed
there, and in later years, B movies
at night--bargain rates.
Looking over to his left on the west side
of the 400 block, he could see
(as it was 65 years ago)...Fox Drug, the
little Magazine/Comics Book store,
Anthony's, Levines, Sunshine Theater,
and Thrifty Drug, where He bought
his first camera, and paid $5.95 for it!
Then he looked to his right as he crossed
Fifth, going north, and remembered. the
vacant lot where in late '44, a Jap Zero
had been brought in, and platform and
stairs had been rigged to the cockpit...
He paid his twenty-five cents...and
looked into the cockpit...it was a bigger
plane that he expected...but a tiny
cockpit.
As one watches this old-Clovis-timer
driving easily down Main, across
bricks that he has passed a thousand
times, one almost feels a sense
of history and fond memories coming from
that shiny blue cab...
He goes on past the State Theater,
Standridges (where it was),
Green Stamp Store, Gateway Auto,
and parks facing north by
the Silver Grill..looking across Seventh
at where CHS used to be...
His head is leaning against the driver's
window....as he looks to where his
Alma Mater once stood...is he dozing---
this old Clovis Kid from the 40's...?
No, he is thinking of old times, long gone,
when America was a land of morals,
values, Biblical principles, patriotism...
He thought: "We'd a' laughed at
'political correctness.' "
He is remembering the best teachers in the
world, from La Casita to Clovis High School
(both now torn down)--- and young, energetic,
fun-filled, ambitious classmates---now
more than half his class, CHS '51, departed....
He hears the "Boys' Chorus," echoing
from the bandshell, far off in his memory---the
harmony from long ago wafts back across the
years---
"As the blackbird in the spring, 'neath the willow
tree...sat and piped, I heard him sing...
sing of Auralee...
Auralee, Auralee, maid of golden haiir;
Sunshine came along with thee
and swallows in the air."
And then the boys were singing from
somewhere---it came to him...
"Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do...
I'm half crazy, all for the love
of you..."
"I want a girl just like the girl that
married dear old Dad...
She was a pearl and the only girl
That Daddy ever had..."
He almost fell asleep there, by the
Grill, when he heard from
the ether--- his own quartet, singing:
"There is nothing like a dame,
Nothing in the world...
There is nothing you can name
That is anything like a dame."
He'll be back, from time to time,
Driving over those famous
red bricks, installed in 1918...
He'll be back doin' his own "main
dragging" if'n the city quits it...
Don't worry if he likes to remember...
Old Clovis and its great people
deserve remembering....
A finer place, I don't know of...
******************
BY MIL
6/07/15
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