Saturday, April 11, 2015

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - The "When I Was Young" Genea-Meme, Part 2

It's Saturday Night, 
time for more Genealogy Fun!!





Here's mine: 


First, I really wanted to be a baseball player.  My eyes jinxed that, I couldn't hit worth a damn.  With glasses or without.  

Next, I wanted to be President.  I achieved that in 2007 when I was elected President of the Chula Vista Genealogical Society.  

Finally, after taking my first airplane ride in 1956, I wanted to design airplanes.  With that as av goal, I studied math, physics, and chemistry, I graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Aerospace Engineering in 1966.  I worked for a small company designing a revolutionary aircraft.  That company folded, so I worked at Rohr designing and analyzing commercial aircraft parts.

Q7. Did you have a favourite teacher at school?

In elementary school, it was Mrs. Williams (I don't recall her first name).  She was excellent, and I was a good student.  I remember being so nervous doing a verbal report and she was encouraging.

In high school, my favorite teacher was Mrs. Johnsie Posey, who taught geometry and calculus.  Again, very encouraging and supportive in a challenging subject.

Q8. How did you get to school?

In elementary school, my mother walked me to school in the first two or three years.  After that, I rode my bike the 8 blocks down 30th Street to Brooklyn Elementary, and home.  

In junior high school, I took a school bus to Roosevelt Junior High School on Park Blvd.  It went up 30th Street to University Avenue to Park Blvd.  

In high school, I took the #2 San Diego city bus to San Diego High School, getting off at 12th and Broadway and walking the four blocks to school.  I occasionally walked the four miles home from high school.

Q9 What games did playtime involve?

Baseball, Football, Basketball, Dodge ball, Kickball, Tag, Ball Tag, Ping Pong, Bike tag, Hide and seek, Three flies up, Horse, many more.  All day long outside in the summer, until dark in the winter.  

At home, we played board games like parchesi and sorry, and card games like Canasta and hearts. I also created some dice games for Baseball and football, and announced the games (no one in the family listened...).

At the dinner table, we played a word game called Ghosts involving spelling a word one letter at a time, and whoever spelled an actual word got a Ghost.  Three ghosts and you were out.

We often set up the Lionel train set and ran the track all around the house, and tried to crash two engines into each other.  

Q10 Did you have a cubby house?

I think you mean what we call a tree house or a fort - special place to hide out and have fun.  Our upstairs apartment had a "cubby hole" off the living room and above the front stairs.  I would go there to read, and time the bus schedules when I was sick.

We built forts down in the back yard, but later down in Balboa Park.  We roamed the eastern side of the park around Grape Street, and had a number of forts built with brush and branches to hide from each other, then the game was to find one of the guys.


The best family holiday was the first vacation we took in 1954.  My parents took us to Bass Lake, about 20 miles south of Yosemite National Park.  We stayed in a cabin, had the lake to swim in, and the general store had great baseball cards - different from what we had collected in San Diego.  I learned to swim there.  


Christmas of 1955 was the best, because we got our Davy Crockett coonskin caps and Daisy Air Gun rifles.  We spent Christmas Eve and morning at the home of my grandparents, Lyle and Emily Carringer.  They had a chimney, so Santa could visit their house in the traditional way.  My grandmother would sing Christmas carols to put us to sleep.  

Q13. What childhood injuries do you remember?

I was remarkably free of injuries as a kid - I wasn't too courageous or stupid.  When I was 12, we had Flexible Flyers (essentially a sled with wheels and steering handles with springs).  We went everywhere on the flexies, which were only 6 inches off the ground, pushed by our feet.  Going down 30th Street to the nickel and dime store, I sailed off the sidewalk curb, veered out into the street, and was planning on going up the first driveway on the next block.  This maneuver really surprised the driver of the big bus just to my left...and surprised me that he was there.  I veered back toward the curb, hit it and flipped head over heels and landed on my head.  A concussion laid me up for a day or two.  I was very lucky!

Q14. What was your first pet?

We had cats all through the time I was a kid.  Usually more than one because there was no spaying at the time.  They invariably were killed on one of the streets on either side of the block.  The longest lived was Rootie-Toot-Toot who lived about 15 years.  He was a big gray and white cat.  We never had a dog.


Not that I recall.  Since my mother was an only child, and her parents were only children, and my father's family were in Massachusetts, there was no extended family to talk about ancient family times.  My parents didn't have many close friends.  Our free time was spent playing with our friends, and playing baseball at the park or at the Little League field.

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Copyright (c) 2015, Randall J. Seaver


Nancy said...

Hi Randy, You made me think about youth memories that haven't come up in a while. Like the board games and the cats that just roamed. Your Flexible Flyers story is crazy!! Here's mine:

Nancy Hurley

Lois Willis said...

This does bring up a lot of memories. Here's mine:

Lois Willis

Unknown said...

Randy life back then was so easy. Play outdoors for as long as we could. While I'm not familiar with all the names of the games you played, I would guess they're similar to what we had in Australia, probably just called something different.

But it does sound like you had a wonderful childhood growing up. Thanks for sharing your memories with us.
- Alona (aka

Anonymous said...

"When I was young" wasn't very long ago for me but here is mine:

Unknown said...

I also learned to swim in Bass Lake and we were there in 1954 camping in the Lakeside campground. The name of the country store was McDougals. Best time ever!