Nostalgia. Growing up I didn’t understand the hurtful twinge, wistfulness and soft yearning for time gone by — or the need to connect with someone who could relate.
More so, I was irritated with my mom’s frequent attempts to share her memories of Fresno. Because, gawh, how many times did I need to hear that Fulton Mall was ‘the place to be’ before Fashion Fair? Or that’s where Harpain’s Dairy used to be?
And she’d already mentioned, like every time we were on it, that the drive from Fresno to Clovis on Herndon was all orchards. That it felt like forever to get from one city to the next.
Of course, I couldn’t imagine it being that way. By the time I knew Herndon, it was a six-lane speedway and I was an eyeball-rolling, sarcastic tween.
When my husband, kids and I moved back from Modesto – after living there five years – I excitedly pointed out to my tween the house I lived in on Ashlan street when I was six.
It was there I first felt the pain of loss. Our cocker spaniel, named Freckles, escaped the yard and was hit by a car. My mother found him on the street divider wrapped in a blood-splattered white cotton t-shirt.
That was also the home I told my first big whopping lie. (Mom and Dad, there never was an escaped prisoner wearing a black and white outfit, with a ball and chain on his foot that followed me. I broke the ‘stranger’s house’ rule because that nice neighbor lady gave me a cookie. Not because I was afraid of being kidnapped.)
Not only that — I learned to ride a bike there, felt an earthquake, discovered Daddy Long Legs and roly polys, wanted to be a ballerina, developed a passion for the piano and got a pea stuck in my nose.
I also explained to my son, the place we fondly call Tar-ghetto, on First and Shields, used to be a Gemco. My parents didn’t have a Gemco card, so I only got in as far as the optometrist’s office.
Of course, he did the same kind of eye rolling I had done and said, “Mom, how many times are you going to tell me this?”
Hmmm … why was I telling him this? It wasn’t until I felt the shock of seeing a gaping dirt lot where Walgreen’s, on First and Ashlan, used to be that I understood.
That squatty building, with its wide overhang, wood shingled roof, green vegetation and trees was quintessential Fresno. At least the Fresno I grew up in.
Now it was being replaced with a building that looked like every other new one being constructed: Tan stucco, cheaply built and box-shaped minus shady entrance that should be a requirement for this summer-sizzling town.
My son is going to grow up with a different flavor of Fresno. He’s going to think that north of Alluvial is the good part of town, instead of north of Shaw. He’ll ask for a ride to River Park to watch movies with his friends at Edwards and never experience “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” at Tower Theater before the re-vamp. (Not that I ever did, but I soooo wanted to.) He won’t know the agonizing wait for Valentino’s to get in a new shipment of Doc Marten’s – with the only alternative being to drive to San Francisco to get them sooner.
He might remember being dressed up as a puppy on Halloween when he was four, hanging out with his dad and I at Java Café — but then again, when he thinks coffee he probably only thinks of Starbucks.
I know as time ticks on, things change. It’s inevitable. However, that doesn’t stop me from looking for my great-grandma — who never learned how to drive — pushing a shopping cart to Country Boy on Willow, near Shaw, even though neither has been a fixture in Clovis for many years.
Really, just because it’s gone doesn’t mean we should forget. The memories of Fresno should be shared. It matters, because we were here and it shaped our lives.
And hey, son — Fashion Fair was ‘the place to be’ before River Park.
For more “Lost Fresno” stories, check out FresnoFamous.com
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Genevieve Hinson is a social media coordinator for Children's Hospital Central California. She's also a writer, wife and mom to two boys and a girl. The opinions she expresses here are her own, as is her obsession for coffee.
I love this story!
First of all, Thanks for posting this Genevieve.
On the eve of my soon to be 25th class reunion with my classmates of San Joaquin Memorial H.S., my memories of Fresno, once fresh in my mind, now come to me periodically as ‘echoes’, and are now slowly fading away.
However, with that said, the writer of this ‘piece’ (Ms. Hinson) is right: “The memories of Fresno should be shared. It matters, because we were here and it shaped our lives.”
Amen.
For me, my life in Fresno was shaped by the trips to Roeding Park, the Storybook Playland, and the Zoo.
Remember Nosy the Elephant? I do.
My life in Fresno was shaped from the street I lived (on the corner of Cornell and North Crystal Avenues) on with my parents and my only sister.
It was there on that street and entire block, for that matter, which our family knew all the neighbors by first name, young or old. Sometimes, we played with their kids, who quite often went to the same church and school we did at Our Lady of Victory or Homan School across the street.
Life in Fresno was also shaped from the places where my parents worked until I moved away in August 1985. For mom, it was working at Fresno Linen (before and after I was born), then being the doting housewife, to later working the packing houses in Clovis. For dad, it was working those two jobs at the Air National Guard and Gallo Winery, so he, as he said to us, “he wanted us (my sister and I) to get the best of everything (life had to offer)!”
One of my favorite places to eat as a child was the McDonald’s on the corner of West and Shaw Avenues. I happened to be there for its grand opening in 1969 based on a picture my dad took of me with me standing next to the actor playing Ronald McDonald.
There I was with my mouth wide open, as I am looking into the camera with my huge eyes displaying a surprised look on my face while I was holding the little ‘paratrooper’ (with the cheap plastic umbrella and strings attached) that “Ronald” had given me.
Later, that same McDonald’s became my first place of employment. And this was after I had to beg my mom to allow me to apply, just one month shy of my graduation from high school.
And like the “Country Boy” example Ms. Hinson used, for me it was “Foodland” and “Family Pharmacy” (on the corner of West and Shields) that were the frequent “haunts” for the Barela sisters.
Well I guess based on my response, maybe the memories of Fresno aren’t just the ‘echoes’ of the past I assumed they were, before I wrote this?
But rather the experiences I had while I living in this town in the San Joaquin Valley were just tucked away in my subconscious waiting to be shared with others.
And for this I am grateful.
Thank You Ms. Hinson for your story and Thank You Fresno for being MY home.
Thank you so much for sharing.
I do remember Nosey. And the hippos. I was so sad they were gone and couldn’t share them with my 5-year-old.
Recently I remembered the soda pop shop — my mother would take me with her. Oh what joy! The stacks of bottled soda looked like mountains at my height — and gleamed like emeralds and rhinestones.
I really enjoyed your memories of Fresno. So many we share — like Roeding Park, Storyland and the Zoo.
Those shaped my mother’s childhood, mine and now my children. I feel so fortunate to pass along that tradition.