Kopi & I, Walkin’ the ‘Hood
My lifelong buddy Kopi and I strolled back into history on Saturday.
Our history.
We grew up on Arthur Avenue in Fresno. Our houses were less than a block apart.
Kopi is two years older, so he was two grades ahead at Fremont Elementary, Hamilton Jr. High and Fresno High.
We used to play all kinds of ball in the streets.
The two of us made money during summers by mowing lawns and watering people’s yards when they were on vacation. Kopi was much more energetic about that than I was.
We had no skills other than mowing and watering lawns. When we went off to college — Fresno State for me, Fresno City College for Kopi — we had no clue what in the world we would do for a living.
But somehow these two kids from immigrant families found our niche, and we went on to have successful careers in television — something no one — certainly not us — could have predicted.
And there we were, on this cloudy and cool Saturday morning, walking back through the neighborhood where we had grown up and older seven decades ago. Our neighborhood.
Talk about a trip down memory lane. Oh, my.
It was yard-sale day on Arthur Avenue. The “new” folks who had moved in after our families had left were selling the usual yard-sale items on their front lawns. Blouses. Pants. Shoes. Books.
You get the picture.
Plenty of folks had driven into the ‘hood to browse — their cars jamming both sides of Arthur.
It was delightful to see and hear.
We started our walk in front of my old house (right) on the corner of Arthur and Weldon. It was built around 1923, and it’s had several owners since my parents bought it for a few thousand dollars, cash, right after World War II.
My family’s corner place used to have giant sycamores in the strips along both Arthur and Weldon. Those trees are long, long gone.
But my memories of burning those leaves on Saturday afternoons in autumn — and the wonderful smell of those burning leaves — are as strong as if all of it took place yesterday.
As Kopi and I walked south on Arthur, we shared memories of the kids we grew up with. One of them — Bob — still, unbelievably, lives in the same house where he was born. Kopi and I played lots of baseball with Bob.
We did not knock on Bob’s door because it was still early in the day, and we had not called ahead.
We turned left on University Avenue and went a block east to Adoline, which was always my favorite street when I was growing up because it had so many trees that nearly canopied the roadway.
Back then, I knew most of the people who lived there because I’d ride my trike or bike up and down that block almost every day.
As we walked north, I pointed out the Cuttings’ home at Weldon and Adoline. The Cuttings owned a Western-wear shop in Fresno.
One day, when I was a kid, I was playing with matches in the alley behind their home — which was across the alley from our house. I caught some dry grass on fire, and it started up the back of the Cuttings’ wooden garage.
I ran screaming for Mom, who got the garden hose and put it out. Fortunately, the fire had scorched only a small part of the garage.
That night, Dad forced me — properly so — to go to the Cuttings and apologize. They forgave me. I never played with matches again.
Next to the Cutting house was the Tripple place. They owned a paint store. They were Republicans. During the 1960 presidential campaign (I was 10), I wanted to get one of the colorful Nixon bumper stickers they had.
So I told them that Dad and Mom — loyal Democrats — had decided to support Nixon.
Mom and Dad hated Nixon — which the Tripples found out after they made a point of telling Dad how pleased they were that he was about to vote for Their Guy.
Kopi and I kept walking up Adoline — past the Bower and Fogderude and Stuckert and Downey and Calderwood and Hilliard homes. The neighborhood still looked good — really, really good.
Then it was back onto Arthur and to Kopi’s house (right). He still owns it, after all these years. As we walked down Arthur, toward our cars, we both remembered the people who had lived there. The Nelsons. Mr. and Mrs. Myers. The Terrys. The Petruccis. The Garretts.
As we neared the end of our little trek, we got oh-so-serious for a bit, reminiscing about how lucky — incredibly lucky — we’d been.
We’d both started our TV careers here in Fresno — we’d both moved away for years — and then we came back. Kopi became the TV funnyman on Channel 26. I’d had years of TV experience in other cities — and became, back here, a reporter-anchor for KMJ Radio.
Both of us are oh-so-fortunate to have had wonderful partners over the past half-century. Both Kopi and Elaine and Sharon and I were married in 1975. We still are.
We have wonderful children.
And we still dabble in media. Kopi does a bit of part-time work at Channel 26, and I still do some part-time news work at a radio station in Iowa (broadcasting from Fresno, of course).
We know the time is coming when all this will end. But we both figure that as long as we can walk and talk — our only real skills — we’ll continue doing that.
Saturday, however, was not about the future. It was about the memories Kopi and I had created decades ago in the same neighborhood we were walking around right then.
This past Saturday morning was, indeed, about the past. Our past.
And while the morning was overcast, it was also grand and glorious.