I may not have gotten the facts entirely right because I was only six or seven at the time.
Richard Flores was a classmate in Mrs. Groff’s first grade class. He seemed quite timid maybe because he was the littlest kid in class. But how would I know? I might have been considered hyper-active if they’d used such terms in the 1950s, so everyone seemed quiet to me. Sometimes Richie sat next to me in Mrs. Groff’s classroom, sometimes somewhere else. I don’t recall whether Richie was good at his ABCs or numbers. I think he had more difficulty with “Dick and Jane” than many of us did. I just remember that he was a really little kid.
Once, when we were marched down to the nurse’s office to receive shots – yes, in those days, school nurses did deliver vaccinations to students – I was in line behind Richie. Knowing – and being terrified of – just how long the needle was going to be, I was sure that when it was Richie’s turn for his shot, the thing would probably poke all the way through his arm and squirt its medicine on the nurse’s office floor. And who was gonna clean that up?
One thing Richie was good at was marbles. There was a bald spot in the grass underneath the monkey bars – monkey bars too high for any of us to reach – so this was where Richie set up.
Smoothing out a space with his deeply tanned hand, he’d pull several marbles out of his jeans pocket and invite his classmates to play. He had a nice collection of marbles: cat’s eyes of different colors, white balls with enameled decorations and his prized prize: an aqua blue puree (pronounced PURE-ee.) Purees were pure glass with nothing on ‘em or in ‘em. Every time you bought a bag of cat’s eyes at Kilpatrick’s Toy Town, there’s be a puree included: Yellow or orange or green or that aqua blue. A puree would always be the first marble I’d lose. Usually to Richie.
One day, Eldred Self, the Rosedale School Principal, came out on the yard during recess. Likely curious about the cluster of little bodies next to the monkey bars, he strode over to investigate. It wasn’t a few moments before he said, “You boys need to stop that.” No one asked why, but he continued: “Playing with marbles is a form of gambling and there’ll be no gambling at Rosedale School.”
I was thinking… This isn’t gambling, Mr. Self. Richie Flores always wins. He’s really good at marbles. …which was true, but I was wise enough, for once, to keep my mouth shut.
“What if we play but I don’t take any marbles?” Richie said softly.
“I think it would be best if you boys took your game somewhere away from school.”
So that was that and our attention soon turned to Dodge Ball, a game at which Richie was quite adept as well.
The year before I was in First Grade, we’d moved to five acres on Bidwell Avenue. In the back of the property grew an orchard of ancient almond trees. Dad’s intention was to make a few extra dollars by harvesting the nuts in the fall and selling them to the Hoobler warehouse a mile or so away. In late September, Dad would spread two canvas tarps beneath each tree, one by one, and Beebo and I would take turns hitting limbs with a wooden-handled mall. A really good whack would cause the almonds to rain down like a cloud burst. Once the bulk of the nuts were knocked from the tree, Dad would use a long stick, far longer than he was tall, to tickle the remaining few from the twigs. Then he’d fold the tarp this way and that to roll the harvest into a pile that could be scooped into gunny sacks and dropped off at Hoobler’s.
Invariably, some almonds remained in the trees and some slipped off the tarps not making it into the sacks. Mr. Hoobler said: “That’s what the gleaners can get.”
“Gleaners?” Dad asked.
“Yes. Gleaners are poor people – usually Mexican – we can call who will go through your orchard and pick up any nuts that you missed. All you need to do is let them have whatever they collect. The’ll bring ‘em here and I’ll pay them the same as I pay you.”
Somebody, Dad or Mr. Hoobler, made the call and one Saturday, I rose to find a half dozen or more people already combing the orchard floor looking for derelict almonds. There was a mom, a dad, an older man and three or more kids. One of them was Richard Flores. I thought about inviting him in to watch cartoons but didn’t. I didn’t even let him know I saw him, but I can’t say why.
I often wonder what kindles a particular memory that I choose to share with readers. This time there is no doubt. The current President has decreed that agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can enter school campuses and detain, arrest and remove students whose immigration status is in doubt. Schools are no longer considered to be havens free from such enforcement. The trauma of being yanked from a classroom or playground is, apparently, considered the price a kid pays for being stateside without papers.
But what about the trauma that child’s classmates feel upon witnessing such a detention and removal? For schools to operate optimally, every student must feel safe and cared for regardless of where they came from or what their parents chose to do to make a life for themselves. If one child feels threatened or fearful, why shouldn’t all of them?
My memory wanders back to that day Mr. Self told us we couldn’t play marbles under the monkey bars. What if that had been an ICE agent coming to take our pal Richie Flores away? I know I wouldn’t have felt safe at Rosedale School for a long time. If ever.
The only upside, as I see it now, is that I wouldn’t have lost my marbles.
© 2025
Church of the Open Road Press
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