Spurlock, Steve and Margaret OH12_014

Abstract

Steve and Margaret Spurlock August 29, 2013 ; Business at the Crossroads - Ogden City is a project to collect oral histories related to changes in the Ogden business district since World War II. From the 1870s to World War II, Ogden was a major railroad town, with nine rail systems. With both east-west and north-south rail lines, business and commercial houses flourished as Ogden became a shipping and commerce hub. ; The following is an oral history interview with Steve and Margaret Spurlock. The interview was conducted on August 29, 2013, by Lorrie Rands, in the Spurlock�s home. Steve and Margaret discuss their experiences with 25th Street. ; 28p.; 29cm.; 2 bound transcripts; 4 file folders. 1 videodisc: digital; 4 3/4 in. ; Oral History Program Steve and Margaret Spurlock Interviewed by Lorrie Rands 29 August 2013 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Steve and Margaret Spurlock Interviewed by Lorrie Rands 29 August 2013 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in Special Collections. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description Business at the Crossroads - Ogden City is a project to collect oral histories related to changes in the Ogden business district since World War II. From the 1870s to World War II, Ogden was a major railroad town, with nine rail systems. With both east-west and north-south rail lines, business and commercial houses flourished as Ogden became a shipping and commerce hub. After World War II, the railroad business declined. Some government agencies and businesses related to the defense industry continued to gravitate to Ogden after the war—including the Internal Revenue Regional Center, the Marquardt Corporation, Boeing Corporation, Volvo-White Truck Corporation, Morton-Thiokol, and several other smaller operations. However, the economy became more service oriented, with small businesses developing that appealed to changing demographics, including the growing Hispanic population. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management Special Collections All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Spurlock, Steve and Margaret, an oral history by Lorrie Rands, 29 August 2013 , WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Steve and Margaret Spurlock August 29, 2013 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Steve and Margaret Spurlock. The interview was conducted on August 29, 2013, by Lorrie Rands, in the Spurlock's home. Steve and Margaret discuss their experiences with 25th Street. LR: It is August 29, 2013. We are in the home of Margaret and Steve Spurlock doing an oral history interview on 25th Street and Ogden. My name is Lorrie Rands, I'm conducting the interview and Rebecca Fuller is filming. So, let's being simply and because most of my questions are centered on Steve, you can both answer them. MS: If that's who you prepared for, that's fine. LR: I love the fact that you're going to help each other. SS: We've been married since we were about 12, so that's okay. LR: Where and when were you born? SS: I was born in Ogden, August 21, 1947. LR: How many siblings do you have? SS: Two. LR: Really? That's not a typical Utah family. SS: No, and we had two children. That's not either, huh? MS: Well, I'll change it. I was born in Ogden in 1946 and I have five siblings. 1 SS: There you go. LR: Where did you grow up? SS: Where in town, you mean? LR: Yes SS: By the old St. Benedict's Hospital just off 30th Street on Circle Way. LR: Really? SS: Yes, just a block down from the old hospital. LR: And you? MS: I grew up where Harmon's is now, that's where my house was, at the Harmon's 2nd Street at Five Points in the rural part of Ogden. It was really rural out there at that time. LR: What did your parents do for a living? SS: My father was a sheep and cattle broker at the Ogden stock yards, which was a big deal in those days. In the 40's, 50's and 60's, it was a major driver of the economy in Ogden. LR: Why is that? SS: We were the biggest stock yards between Denver and the west coast, one of the first, and one of two biggest stock yards in the west. Why? I think because of the rail service. When I was a kid I worked down there and we unloaded a lot of cattle and sheep off of the railroad cars to feed them. LR: What did you parents do? 2 MS: My dad worked for the railway postal system. My mom was a housewife all her life. LR: What is the railway postal system? MS: Before airplanes, when they used to send the mail on the trains, we used to sort the mail when it would get to the station to send it to different areas. It was a collection area down there and then they would sort it and send it off to the different states on different trains. It doesn't exist anymore. LR: What did you used to do for fun when you were growing up? SS: What did we do for fun? MS: I was outside all of the time playing hide and seek. I lived on a large lot, we had like 3 acres and we had irrigation rights to Lynn Irrigation System and my father would irrigate and we would play in the irrigation water. We'd stay out at night and play hide and seek and we'd ride our bikes. We were out all the time playing. SS: It's interesting because we're different in that regard because she was more of a country girl although she was in the city limits, but I was in a new neighborhood that was built in the early 50's. Similar thing though, I was out until dark, parents didn't have to worry about you. There wasn't all the weird stuff that goes on now and even when we raised our two sons here, it was like the street lights came on and it's time to come home. We didn't worry about them, they were responsible and they would come home. LR: So it was okay to just kind of wander around except for 25th Street? 3 MS: Yes. Actually, we would ride our bikes clear out into Farr West and Harrisville and Plain City for four or five hours at a time and our parents didn't worry about us. SS: We, being you and who? MS: My friends in the neighborhood, the girls that lived down the street. SS: See, today you wouldn't let a young girl, there's no way you can do that. LR: Okay, so let's get into some of the 25th Street questions. Do you remember any businesses or buildings on 25th Street? SS: I remember the bus station being there that's now the business incubator there on the corner. LR: The camera Depot thing? SS: Yes. In fact, I remember getting on a bus there. LR: What about that jogs your memory? SS: It's a cool building for one thing, it's kind of an art deco building and it was just one of those things that was great about that street that's not there anymore. When I think about a bus station, that's the one that comes to mind. LR: Do you remember any other buildings on that street that just come to mind? SS: Yes, the liquor store next to the bus building. When we were teenagers we'd go try and give a wino some money and have him buy us an illegal bottle, but you had to put somebody at the back door too so he didn't just go out the back door with the money. That's now a comedy club, I think. 4 LR: Wiseguys. Yes. Do you remember any people that used to live or work on 25th Street? SS: More stories. It's interesting because we looked up a friend of my older brother's from high school and he lived on Lincoln. When I was in high school he lived on Lincoln and we recently found out he died. My brother just had his 50th year reunion for Ogden High, so Margaret does quite a bit of genealogical research, so she just put on her research hat and found out a ton about him and his father and grandfather had both worked and lived on 25th Street. MS: Yes. They lived above a bar on 25th Street. That's about the only association I have with 25th Street. SS: Me too, because as she said, it was just a place that if we were feeling daring we might drive down red light alley in high school. MS: I don't even know if it was still active at that time, but it had a reputation. LR: So you would walk there or drive? MS: We'd drive our cars through real fast and hope you didn't break down. It was a scary place. LR: Do you remember the name of the individual that you were referring to earlier? SS: His name was Larry Bloom. LR: Okay. Did you ever hang out downtown? SS: Oh yeah, downtown a lot. MS: Yes. 5 LR: What do you remember about that? MS: It was fun. SS: Christmas was wonderful. LR: Why's that? SS: Because you'd go from building to building and everybody had a great window display. MS: The high school choirs were caroling down there. SS: I was in the Ogden High School a cappella choir and we'd break into small groups of six or eight and go sing Christmas carols in the stores and on the sidewalks. It was just really fun. MS: The police would direct traffic because it was so busy. The traffic was so busy I remember the police on 24th and Washington directing traffic because there were so many cars and people downtown. It was fun even when you're younger just after a parade you'd go to a movie and then just catch the bus and go home. It was fun because it gave you freedom. LR: Why was it so busy at Christmas time? SS: I think probably because there weren't all the outlying shopping places. There were no Walmart's, no strip mall here and strip mall there and if you wanted to shop, you went downtown. LR: So it was literally you'd go into this building and then go into the next shop. SS: Yes, you'd go shop and you'd do the whole— 6 MS: Downtown existed from 25th Street to 22nd Street, both sides of the street. Most of the stores were on the west side between 22nd and 25th, but on the east side between 24th and 25th there were some nice stores like Fred M. Nye and Wolfer's and— SS: Auerbach's, that was on the west. MS: That's was L.R. Samuels. LR: Okay. That sounds fun. MS: It was fun. LR: You mentioned theaters. Which theaters would you attend? MS: The Egyptian, the Orpheum, the Paramount and the Ogden. LR: What do you remember about those? MS: The smell of the popcorn. The Orpheum was fun to walk in because it had a big ramp that went up into the lobby. I remember the Ogden and the Paramount weren't the best theaters in town, but sometimes they would have some decent movies. We didn't go there as often. SS: They weren't first-run movies I don't think. They were whatever they thought would bring some people in. LR: The Orpheum, that was on— MS: It was by the hotel Ben Lomond. SS: South of it on the east side of Washington, across from the city and county building. 7 LR: Thank you. SS: There was a tunnel, in fact, they were talking about this on that remembering Ogden group recently and I can remember that there was a tunnel between the buildings. MS: I don't remember it. SS: She doesn't remember it, but you could walk back to Ogden Avenue and you'd park back there and you'd walk through the tunnel into town next to the theater. It was kind of like the one on 25th Street between the Athenian and Tom Hardy's Salon, which is still there and it says, according to that book, was how they'd get back to the red light alley. LR: Were the theaters kind of a place to hang out as young kids? MS: That's where we'd go on dates. I don't know if we really hung out there. I guess some of the younger kids would go, I never went to the Saturday morning cartoons, but I think they had those. SS: I didn't either, but our kids did. They were born around 1970. LR: Where would you hang out with your friends' downtown, if you did at all? Was there a specific place that all the teenagers would hang out? SS: By the time we were teenagers, we had wheels and we were up and down Washington Boulevard at night. In fact, we met at Mason's drive-in, both of us in different cars. That was just the thing at the time. By the time we were teenagers, we really probably didn't, unless we were going downtown for something. 8 MS: I don't know what the boys would do, but the girls would go downtown and shop, but there wasn't any place to hang out, you'd just go from store to store. LR: Okay. Besides the Christmas memories, what are some of your favorite memories of downtown Ogden? MS: The tube going through J.C. Penny, the pneumatic tube that took the receipts. SS: If they'd get too much money in their cash register and needed to send some to the office, that was the coolest thing they had like the banks do now, the pneumatic tubes and they'd come down by each cash register and they'd put stuff in it and push the button and you could watch it go up into the ceiling and we thought that was pretty cool. The elevator operators— MS: Elevator operators in J.C. Penny's. I loved the nut and candy section of J.C. Penny's, I liked the smell of the cashews. The squeak of the floors in C.C. Anderson's, they had wood floors, so you'd go in and they'd squeak. SS: That was where the Bon Marche went and the mall went and what's there now? Part of the Junction, I guess. MS: I was trying to think. Oh, Reliable Furniture. I was a girl scout and a brownie scout at the Episcopal Church on 24th and Lincoln and I'd ride the bus to my meetings and then I would have to catch the bus home. I always caught it on the corner of 23rd and Washington because Reliable Furniture was there and in the back of Reliable Furniture they had a record department and you could go in while you were waiting for the bus and they would let you listen. If you decided you wanted to buy a record or listen to a record you could take a record and go in 9 a booth and listen to your 45's. I thought that was really fun to sit there and listen to the records. You didn't have to buy them, you could just try them and go out and catch the bus. SS: The place I thought was cool was the fact that KLO was in the Ben Lomond Hotel—the radio station. I think KJQ was later, but they would give away 45's, you know, "Be the third one to call in and we'll give them to you." You had to go down and get them and you could go down to the third floor of the Ben Lomond Hotel and they'd be broadcasting live and you could stand there and watch and pick up your 45's and I thought that was pretty neat. At least we thought so at the time. The Fun Shop, there was the Fun Shop downtown. It was there by the Orpheum and they had rubber vomit and all kinds of great gross things that you could buy. There's nothing like that anymore, I guess. MS: I was trying to think of what else. I liked going into the old Commercial Security Bank when it was really old. SS: The one that was in the middle of the block before they moved over on the corner. MS: Yes. Basically just because it was such a classy building. It was a fun building. SS: There was stained glass in the ceiling and there was a skylight. I remember it when they were getting ready to tear it down, there was a skylight with stained glass in it that was really pretty. It was essentially next to the Egyptian, wasn't it? It was just south of it. 10 MS: Yes. There was a butcher shop someplace close to 22nd and Washington on the west side that my parents would buy meat in. I know you wouldn't be allowed to this nowadays, but when I would go in with my dad, the butcher would give me a hot dog to eat. I liked that. No way they'd do it nowadays. SS: They wouldn't do it and neither would you. MS: No. LR: As they started to tear down some of these buildings, was it sad to watch some of them go? SS: Or was it progress? That's a really good question. MS: It seems sad now, but at the time I think we just accepted it. SS: It was progress, I mean, I vaguely remember the Broom Hotel which they tore down for the Commercial Security. Architecturally, the one was spectacular and the other one is kind of blah. Now you look back and think, "Geez, why didn't we save those?" The Orpheum Theater was architecturally a really neat building and it sat and sat and sat. I think what tends to happen is they're no longer economically viable and they sit long enough that then they become structurally unsound and unless you get somebody like Van Summerhill that gets involved in the Egyptian and saves it, they're just gone. LR: On that same vein, has Ogden changed a lot from when you were younger? SS: Ogden, but probably every other city in the country as well. MS: Ogden used to be more centrally located. Now it's spread out a lot. When we were younger there were only four high schools, I guess. Bonneville was brand 11 new and then there was Weber, Ben Lomond, and Ogden High. Even Weber was within the city. It was on 12th and Washington, so the city has changed a lot. The inner city used to be not crime-ridden, it was very livable. It wasn't as, I don't want to say scary, but it had a different atmosphere at the time. I think Ogden has changed quite a bit. The Junction is viable and it's going, but it's not the same atmosphere at all. SS: 25th Street is downtown Ogden now I think. If somebody says, "Let's go downtown," I think that's what you think now is, "Let's go on 25th Street." Which is wonderful because you're not afraid to walk down there. There are some shops to go in and out of and some nice restaurants. I guess that really is downtown. Another thing I was thinking about of downtown that I thought was cool was the White City Ballroom, because it was so huge. MS: I never went in it. SS: Didn't you? I used to sluff church and go in there. It was just huge. It was a dance floor before it was a bowling alley, right? It was a big dome with and unobstructed dance floor and they later added the bowling alleys. It's another one of those things that seem great in retrospect, but whether they truly were or not, if you could go back now, I don't know. Probably everybody goes through that as you get older you look back fondly on things you remember. LR: You mentioned that it's not the same, the atmosphere downtown. What had changed? 12 MS: The upkeep of the houses in the middle of the town. The downtown is not there anymore, so I think that kind of, I don't know, I think taking away the downtown did something to the inner city and the people from the inner city have moved out and the people who have moved in just don't maintain it like they did. It's just, I used to walk from 30th Street to 20th Street along either Monroe or Quincy and I wouldn't do that now. It's deteriorated and I don't know exactly if it's the people living there or if it's just, I don't know what it is. SS: I think a lot of it is our times. There's a lot of drugs going on and a lot of stuff that just didn't exist then. You've got to tell her your story about your dad dropping you off at the church and how you got home. The priest and the Indians, well, you can tell her. MS: Well, I was a Brownie and I was like eight years old and he dropped me off at the Episcopal Church because that's where I went to Brownies and evidently my parents didn't get the notice that we were meeting someplace else that day, so the church was locked up. I went to Kammeyer's Sporting Goods next door, because we didn't have cell phones or anything, and asked if I could use their phone to call my parents and there was a Catholic priest from Brigham City and about three Navajo Indian men, because they had the Intermountain Indian School at Brigham City at that time. I don't know what they were doing in the sporting goods store, but they were in there for some reason and the priest asked if he could help me. I was upset, I don't remember if I was crying or what, but I told him that I had no way to get home and my parents had dropped me off and I was calling my mom. He talked to my mother and said, "If you can find out 13 where the Brownie meeting is, we'll take her there or else we can bring her home." She called back and it was at another Brownie Scout's house and so she let me get in the car with these men, even though she trusted the priest and the Indians, and they took me up to— SS: She had to sit on one of the Indian's laps. MS: I had to sit on one of the Indian boy's laps and they took me up to the house. Nowadays, you wouldn't even be downtown at eight years old. SS: Yeah, your parents wouldn't drop you off. MS: It was just things like that; it was just so completely different. It scared me half to death because I used to watch and play cowboys and Indians and I didn't want to be scalped. It was something I remember. LR: That's a great story, thank you for sharing that. Do you have any other memories that are coming to mind? MS: I used to ride the bus all the time from the time I was seven years old. We had one car and my dad worked and he had the car, so my transportation was the bus. My mother used to let me ride the bus all over town. You'd trust the bus drivers and you'd tell them where you wanted to go and they'd give you a transfer and tell you which bus to transfer on. I'd go to birthday parties because friends that were in my scout group would live like on—I remember going to one on 22nd Street above Harrison and I lived out on 2nd Street. I'd ride the bus downtown to go to the Brownie meetings and to go home and I did that until I got a driver's license. 14 LR: So when you started doing this, how old were you? MS: Probably about seven. LR: By yourself? MS: By myself, yes. SS: That's such a different experience from me in the same timeframe. With me, we my dad was traveling and we had two cars and I think the first time I ever rode the bus I was like 14. LR: That's different. So, was it different having two cars in a family back then, it wasn't common, was it? MS: No. SS: It was in my neighborhood because it was a new neighborhood and probably a more affluent neighborhood. We had two doctors next to us and as she said there were a lot of neighborhoods where it wasn't common. MS: My mom walked, Wangsgard's Grocery Store was just up the street and she'd walk to the store every day to get our produce and meat and walk back. I'm sure Steve's mom didn't walk to any store. SS: Well, there wasn't anywhere close enough. MS: Most of my friends only had one car, one bathroom, so—I'm sure you were raised with more than one bathroom. LR: So, same city, but completely different circumstances. SS: Yeah, it's kind of interesting. 15 LR: That is just mind blowing. SS: Older home. That house was probably built in the 1910's or so. MS: I think about 1925 or something. SS: Cool old two-story, white frame house that creaked and leaked. MS: We played in fields, you know, it was all open area and he (Steve) had neighborhoods, but he got to go in the foothills, so he played in the foothills a lot. LR: I bet that has changed a lot, the foothills. SS: It has. We used to regularly hike up what is now Mt. Ogden Park. I don't think it was then, was it? MS: No. SS: Clearly wasn't planted. It was literally a block to get to the foothills and go up to Waterfall canyon and go get in the canal and float along. That was our playground, we did that a lot. MS: In the Fall, we'd have big bonfires where we lived because it was more rural and orchards and that, and around Halloween time we'd have big bonfires and do hot dogs and marshmallows and I'm sure you didn't do that. SS: No. There were unapproved snow dances up in the foothills with bonfires, but the police usually made them put them out. MS: We were raised completely differently in the same town. LR: That's fascinating. I just think that's great. MS: I think I had the best childhood. 16 LR: Is there anything else that you guys can think of? SS: Just general interest, in the early to mid-60's, by that point downtown was pretty much the same because the mall—the dreaded mall—hadn't come, but once you got the driving license everything changed. Your range expanded and everybody knows that. We met at a drive-in called Mason's, that's how you'd meet girls from other schools, was on the boulevard. Sometimes, if you really wanted to get out, (I went to Ogden High and she went to Ben Lomond), if you really wanted to get out of your territory we'd go clear out to 2nd Street way out in the boonies where she lived. Generally you'd turn around at Combe's Drive-In which was on 12th and kitty-corner from Weber High School and the turn around on the other end of town would be Rusty's, which was on Riverdale Road and Wall, which is Warren's now. We literally met on Valentine's Day in 1964 at Mason's. I had these two friends and I had these stupid cards printed. We'd gone to, was it J.L. Woody? MS: I have no idea, this is not a memory. SS: We'd had these cards printed and she still has one in her wallet and it says, "This is a date card. If you keep this card, you owe me a date. If you throw this card away, you owe me a kiss— MS: "If you give it back to me, you owe me both." Something like that. SS: Then it says, "When do I collect?" We thought this was really cool and we had like 1,000 of them printed. The first one out of the box I gave to her. You see, I didn't get to use the rest. 17 LR: That's good story. You mentioned the pictures you have of some of the parades. Were there a lot of parades in Ogden? MS: Well, most of these are the 24th of July parade. Some of them are the Christmas parade, which I don't remember going to Christmas parades since I was in high school, but there's evidence that I must have gone when I was younger. Until I got into junior high, at the end of May there was a parade called the Loyalty Day parade, I don't know what we were loyal to, I don't know what it was, but it was just students and every school in town participated in it and there was a—Ray Minter had a drum and bugle corps— SS: You've heard of the Ray Minter drum and bugle corps? LR: I've heard of it, yes. MS: Every school would have their drum and bugle corps and every school would have different colored uniforms. There would be a big banner that said, like I went to Lynn Elementary and there'd be a big banner that said, "Lynn Elementary," and behind that banner would be the drum and bugle corps. Behind the drum and bugle corps would be every student in the school from 3rd grade to 6th grade. I don't know if the high schools participated, but the junior highs did, I guess the high schools did to, but the last time I can remember participating in it was when I was in 7th grade. Every student in that school would march in that parade. I don't think you were allowed to do it until you were in 3rd grade. It was fun and I was in the drum and bugle corps, I did the baton. SS: She had a really funny hat. 18 MS: It was just a fun thing to do. The only parades I can remember, well, there was a children's parade at the 24th Street, there was a horse parade on the 24th of July and then there was a big 24th of July parade. That was a big thing. Then the loyalty day parade and the Christmas parade. I'm sure there were others, but I don't remember any of the others. SS: I would assume the loyalty day parade was, since we were born immediately after World War II, I would assume it had probably something to do with the war. MS: I don't know. I don't know how long it was in existence. SS: Or who sponsored it. MS: All I know is Ray Minter must have really been a guy who scheduled his time because he would go from school to school to school on the weekends and teach the kids how to blow the bugle, how to play the drums and how to twirl a baton and it was fun. You volunteered to be in the drum and bugle corps, it was something you could do if you wanted to or else could just march with the rest of the students. SS: See, I don't remember the loyalty day parade. I never went and never did it. MS: Yes you did. SS: Did I? I had to? MS: Yes. SS: Oh, I guess I did it. It was a bad experience, I blocked it out. Did you see me there? 19 MS: No. The 24th of July parade was really big, it was a really big parade. I haven't been to the 24th of July parade for quite a while now, so I don't know what it's like. The floats were gorgeous and that was a big thing. SS: One thing I think Ogden has done well is preserved Ogden High. Of course, I'm partial to that, but I think that is a unique building and I'm glad the Forest Service building is still there and the Municipal Building and, my favorite, the exchange building at the stock yards which Leslie Hodgsen did too. That's where my dad worked and I really grew up and worked there from the time I was about 12 until I got wheels, at which point I probably wasn't interested anymore, but I think they've done a great job preserving those buildings. MS: There was also ice skating on Beus' Pond. I don't know if it freezes over anymore. Outdoor ice skating or you could go to the Coliseum. He mentioned the exchange building, there was a Coliseum down by the exchange building and they had an ice rink. In elementary up to about high school, we used to go ice skating there all the time. The fun one was Beus' Pond because you could ice skate outside. I don't think it freezes that hard anymore. SS: I remember driving on Beus' Pond with Jeff in his Volkswagen. How crazy was that? The winters were a lot colder then and stuff froze up completely. MS: They used to close the hills, like some of the major streets in town for sledding. SS: The police would block them off. MS: They'd put barricades and say it was a sledding hill so that we could go sledding down the hills. It was fun. 20 SS: Just more things that you couldn't do now. MS: It was a smaller town; I think that makes a difference too. LR: I love the sledding part, that they would close the streets. MS: It was fun. SS: I don't know how many places they did it, but I remember our street, we lived on Darling Street, which is between 29th and 30th and I remember it being closed off. It was a fairly long, gentle hill. MS: They even did it in high school because I can remember wanting to go up like maybe 5th Street hill and it was closed off and you couldn't drive your car up there. So, they did it when we were in high school too. I don't know when they stopped doing that, but that was in the mid-60s, I graduated in '64 and they were still doing it then. I was trying to think of the things we used to do in the spring and summer. They used to close off the streets in high school for homecoming. For the little Iron Horse game we could go down and do a big snake dance along Washington Boulevard before the games and things like that. They would close off Washington Boulevard for the high schools. It was just a smaller town and you were able to do more things like that. LR: This has been fantastic for me. I love hearing the stories. I appreciate your time and your willingness to sit down and talk with us. SS: Happy to do it. I don't know how much we— LR: For me, these are great stories; I haven't heard a lot of these, so this is just fantastic. I appreciate it. 21