Oral History: Stan Pedder — July, 2021

Summary:

Stan Pedder was interviewed by Andree Duggan Hurst in July, 2021. He had just retired after practicing law in Lafayette for 62 years. Stan was born in 1935, 2 years before the Caldecott Tunnel opened, and he has been a close observer of developments in the life and character of the town and its governance for his entire life. He offers many insights on the changes that have accompanied the city’s growth in the second half of the 20th century and the first decades of the 21st.

Oral History:

Before Frank Sinatra could sing “New York, New York”, Lafayette was my kind of town.

I must be one of Lafayette’s oldest residents, I am 87, born in 1935 and moved from Berkeley with my parents and my younger sister Sally in 1940 and haven’t gone anywhere since. I am a product of the local schools. I own real property downtown and a horse ranch in the hills above Burton Valley. I graduated from College of the Pacific and law school at Cal Berkeley in 1960 and practiced law here for 60 years before retiring this year. Before I got much older, I wanted to express some of my memories of this special spot on Earth, I call my town. As you will note, a lot has changed over these years, whether it has been good, bad, or ugly, it’s up to you, I’m just telling you of the things that I had noticed along the way.

My grandfather was a chartered accountant in England, which was the equivalent of being a CPA there, and came to California in the late 1800s and opened his law office in San Francisco after passing the California bar exam. He and grandmother lived in Berkeley where they raised their four children. My dad was Jack, their eldest. Before the Caldecott Tunnel opened in 1935, grandfather purchased 30 plus acres in town, near Happy Valley. The land bordered on the main road between Orinda, Lafayette and Walnut Creek and was called by various names over the years, Fish Ranch Road, Tunnel Road, Highway 24, Mount Diablo Boulevard or just plain highway or freeway. As the years went by this highway kept growing and growing steadily into the crowded noisy monster it is today. We lived right on the road or highway and we witnessed every change, year by year. One afternoon, my mom wanted to drive us to Orinda and because of modifications made in the highway, turned the wrong way into the oncoming traffic. This was the kind of thing we had to put up with in the old days. In 1940, it was just two lanes.

Grandfather built and worked a ranch with cows, horses, pigeons, chickens, and all the fruit trees and vegetables known to man. He was still able to commute by car to San Francisco, to his law office six days a week in less than 40 minutes one way. He drove to Berkeley where he caught the Key System train near the Berkeley Tennis Club. The train used the lower lane on the bridge and was clean, efficient, prompt, and safe, all the things that BART is not. In 1940, he gave my dad five acres of his ranch to build our home. Cost of construction was $5,000. It was the year I turned five. What a wonderland for me and my three year-old sister Sally to grow up in. At that time the population of Orinda was roughly 2,500, Lafayette 3500, and Walnut Creek 6500.

Schools: In 1940, there were three main grammar schools, Orinda, Lafayette, and Walnut Creek. One high school, Acalanes, had just opened. Acalanes High was a novel architectural gem with its open air walkways between classrooms. The only school bus transport for Lafayette and Orinda was Blackwood Transportation, owned and operated by Don Blackwood and his wife, Grace. They were your first introduction to the strict school discipline. It was their way or the highway. On my first day of school, my mom, with me dressed in my best white short pants, new lunchbox in hand, sent me down our long driveway with the instruction, “The school bus will take you to Lafayette School, be good.” The big yellow bus came out of the yard in Lafayette and when it got to our driveway, Mr. Blackwood would yell over at me, “Pedder, I changed the schedule. You’re first on the route to Orinda School.” I got aboard as the only rider and rode all over Orinda as the bus picked up students to my new school. At night, same thing in reverse, I was last off after dropping off everybody else. I did this for nine years. School was only eight grades and no kindergarten. I liked the second grade so much, I stayed an extra year. The next year when I lined up with my friends, the promoted third graders, my teachers freaked out. “What do we do with him?”

After a couple of weeks at Orinda, my mom asked me how I liked Lafayette School and I told her it was Orinda. “No problem,” she said. Imagine these days, a bus driver on his own changing a child’s school. I still know all the road names in Orinda. Since I was often the only one on the bus, I sat next to the driver so I could talk to him and help if needed. One day a slide had closed the route on Miner Road. I told my favorite driver, Red, about a shortcut through a cow pasture, now St. Stephens Church, and I got out opened the gate and the bus crossed over, very cool. Red was always chewing something from a bar in his vest pocket. It had a sour smell, he was always spitting it into a milk bottle he kept under his seat. I asked him what it was and he replied it was chewing tobacco and I should never take up the filthy habit ever. I said, “Come on Red, give me a chaw.” He said, “Okay, but you will regret it and never do it again.” I bit in, he was right.

Red talked to me all the time as he seemed to be kind of lonely. He told me a lot of the places that he had been and things that he had done and always steered me right. He seemed a free spirit. I thought I might like to be a school bus driver when I grew up.

Acalanes High school was the only high school for years. Later along came Las Lomas in Walnut Creek, Miramonte in Orinda, and Campolindo in Moraga. All are topnotch schools and formed the high school district in our area. We did then and still have the best of the best schools. Many graduates have risen to spectacular heights in the professions, arts and business. A female classmate of mine went to law school at UC Berkeley as did I, when women were not accepted as attorneys, and went on to become a justice in the state of California Supreme Court, and just recently retired. My close friend Mike White was head coach of football at Cal and the Oakland Raiders years back. Our class of 1953 had probably our last reunion two years ago at Rossmoor. What fun!! I won a bottle of wine for owning the oldest vehicle, my 1971 Chevy pickup.

In the early ’40s, our football team quarterback was a local boy, Norm Van Brocklin, who went to college in Oregon and later became a star with the LA Rams and Philadelphia Eagles. Acalanes also produced many Olympic athletes too numerous to mention here. A very sad note from our high school days was about Jim Small. Everyone loved Jim Small. He was a fine swimmer at UC Berkeley. In the ’60s, he excelled in open water swimming events and was competing in a race across San Francisco Bay when he was cut to pieces by an ocean liner. His tragic death revolutionized open water swim rules concerning swimmer safety. None of us will ever forget Jimbo.

Lafayette kids had more fun. It used to rain, cats and dogs during winter, and there was mud and water everywhere. As kids, we loved to play in quicksand in our creeks, sink in as far as we could and use a rope, or vine, or friend to help pull us to safety. I don’t recommend this. We had horses to ride, climbing trees, climbing water tanks, unlimited hiking, we had it all. Behind the Park Theater, we had a great swimming hole as they had dammed the creek and the swimming hole was large enough for great swimming, fishing and catching giant frogs, which Mom would fry and we would eat their legs, which were great. At some point, flood control pulled the plug on the small lake, indicating flood concerns.

Jobs: We boys all had jobs like paper routes, being a caddy for golfers at the Orinda Country Club, picking fruit, pumping gas, bagging groceries. Whenever we wanted a job, we would just go into a store and ask and the employer who would either give us a job or not, but we were not afraid to ask for jobs and that’s the way it went. We would get the jobs and we would stay on them if we were good enough to do that. Not so much for girls, they weren’t allowed to do that kind of thing. That’s changed. Some summers I would sell my grandfather’s pears by the lug box to travelers on the highway with a simple sign, “Lug box pears $1. You pick them.” I did pretty well financially at that.

My first job was to feed neighbors’ chickens, 300 of them, twice daily for 50 cents a day. On Saturday, I got a dollar when I also cleaned and boxed the eggs for sale, such a deal. In the eighth grade, I got a bagging job at Super Saver market, long gone. The owner, Mr. Levy, told me he only paid 67 cents per hour, but I could eat all I wanted. That sold me. I specialized in those expensive crab and shrimp cocktails in the bottles and the hearts out of accidentally dropped watermelons. That way I showed a profit.

My sister and I always took care of our parents’ cars and yard and did the dishes. I’d wipe. Our whole family always ate dinner together in the dining room and discussed events of the day. I took care of the chickens, and Sally, the rabbits. One of our chickens turned out to be a very large, aggressive rooster. I named him Superman. He ran after me daily during feeding. I bragged he could whip any rooster in town, no takers. One day he got loose and knocked my cousin Billy down and was on him, going for his eyes and my mom, terrified, hit Superman with a shovel. Billy was okay and so was Mom but we had Superman for dinner. The chickens were super for their eggs and to eat, but the rabbits, not so much. My dad showed me how you killed rabbits, holding them by the hind legs and hitting them with your other hands behind the neck, and Sally said, “No way,” and got sick. We never ate rabbit. She then made them her pets and as they would die off, she put them in the rabbit graveyard with their names affixed to small crosses.

Law and Order: Before incorporation in 1968, there was actually no law enforcement in town. By law, it was the Contra Costa County sheriff, but they never strayed our way. The only actual law enforcement was a lone CHP officer, Dick Schutt, who seemed to know everyone and was addressed simply as Dick. He offered mediated disputes between people, that was it.

Problems did not come from town people much, anyway. Some offenders were chased into town occasionally, but the out of town police took care of them in most cases. The peace emanated from the strict bus drivers and teachers that handled the juveniles, along with the parents who were strict with the kids and themselves. An example, one night at dinner, my dad told me a local man had molested a young Lafayette boy and would not desist. I asked him, what could be done? And he said a group of fathers had confronted the man and told him he would stop this conduct, sell his home in 30 days, and leave town and never return. He did, case over. There never was any racial strife because everyone was white. As time has gone by, all races have been graciously accepted which I’m sure will continue.

Fire Department: There was only a volunteer department in the 1940s, with one chief named Shirley McPeak and two old engines, if you could call them that. The volunteers would all own their own official Lafayette fire hats like the regular guys, and it would usually hang in their office or at home. And when there was a fire, they would ring a bell at the firehouse and I mean, it was loud, and the firehouse was on Moraga Road, which is now a nursery school. When you heard the bell, you put on your hat and came running. I was lucky enough to accompany my father to a couple of fires as he was a volunteer and went along to help. It was very educational and cool for me as a high schooler and especially the keg of beer afterwards.

As Lafayette grew, of course we needed better fire protection, particularly nowadays with the drought, and PG&E. We eventually hooked up with Contra Costa County Fire Protection District. They seemed to just do just okay, but they are county and not local. Orinda and Moraga have remained local with their own department and argue that with local control, they have better weed abatement control, which Lafayette lacks. Note, we are presently in a massive drought with fire control critical, and I understand that Moraga and Orinda have been doing extensive fire abatement but not much is being done in Lafayette as far as I know. Our town is in mortal danger of fire and the city council is simply not with it. As recently as last month, at a council meeting, they were just discussing fire danger. There’s nobody at the city that seems to be in charge of this problem and it’s been pressing now for several years.

The biggest issue facing our town right now is the threat of wildfire. It’s keeping what we have that’s important. We need more local control from our City Council, maybe joining with Orinda and Moraga as we all border the same hills anyway, or maybe even working out a better deal with the Contra Costa County Fire District. But we need to do something soon. We need our own program with the key toward fire abatement. Our town is like a fire bomb waiting to go off. Another huge problem with fires is that many, or almost all, homeowner insurance carriers no longer will write coverage for our homes, or if they do, it’s at a much higher rate, almost unaffordable. By next year, there may be no homeowner’s insurance available and what do you think you’re going to do then about your home?

I had a personal experience with PG&E and their lack of management in connection with their high voltage poles. It used to be years ago that they would periodically send out inspectors to examine the various high wire poles but they quit doing that in person and now they do it by helicopter. The other thing that they used to do is come out on a regular basis and clear all the brush and trees under their high wires and haul it away, so there would be nothing under there to catch fire if something came off the pole like a burning branch. They don’t do that anymore. They do a new procedure, they call it lop and scatter. They come in occasionally and chop all the brush and weeds and just scatter it around. It’s a mess and they’ve done that now for at least five years.

In the 1940s, we did not have PG&E but a much smaller utility called Coast Counties Gas and Electric. They were much smaller, but ran a much cleaner and safer operation. They did not put profits for shareholders over safety to customers, and they maintained their high wire poles. PG&E took over here in the early 1950s. During college, I worked as a laborer out of the PG&E substation in Walnut Creek, previously Coast Counties, and know the old Coast County employees who stayed on with PG&E resisted the shabby safety practices of PG&E, which persist today. To make matters even worse, some of the safety practices PG&E brought with them were scrapped as I indicated above, for cheaper and less costly ones.

Planning: One of our main reasons for incorporating was so that we could control our own growth with development geared towards keeping the place rural. That’s what we prepared our general plan all about. We wanted to guide our planning commission and city fathers in an effort to keep Lafayette as rural as possible, rural like country and open space. We don’t want our hills clogged with more subdivisions or tiny homes or people living in campers. We want single-family development. More commercial may be fine if that really helps the downtown, but outside of that we want to stick to our guns and try to keep the place as rural as possible as we planned years ago. The state wants to push an envelope that provides more and more housing in the main effort to prevent more homelessness. This is not Lafayette’s problem, homelessness. We must resist the state. We want rural. We want small town. It’s not their town. It’s ours.

Special Places: Town Hall had been in Lafayette since the ’20s, when it was built. It was owned by the Lafayette Improvement Association. My dad had become the president and found out that he was also the owner of the Town Hall title-wise. The association was not a legal entity, so could not own the place. My father quickly made changes to get the title properly worked out in the association’s name. The hall was already a party palace. On many a Saturday night, revelers would arrive for an all-night blast. They would come by car, horseback, train (the Sacramento Northern out of Oakland from all over the East Bay and Contra Costa County). The festivities lasted, usually, all night. Many a Sunday morning my dad and I joined the members of the association for cleanup duty. During World War II years, Naval cadets lived upstairs paid for by Uncle Sam. Most of the time and at present, it is a fine drama show place that we are all very proud of.

Park Theater: It opened around 1940, then closed down for a number of years in 2000. I took my six grandchildren to closing night. I think it was a show about penguins. The good news is that it may open soon. Every kid, especially in a small town, needs a movie house. In the seventh grade, it was the place where my school buddies and their girlfriends started their first romantic relationships. On Saturday afternoon at the matinee, you would meet with your girlfriend in the first row and sit real low so nobody could see you. Then you would hold hands for the first time. Then the next Saturday matinee, you would sneak your first kiss, and then you were off and running. You get 15 or 20 kids smooching and grabbing each other, it makes quite a show and we did. Show tickets were a dime.

Tunnel Strip or Neon Strip: After the tunnel was completed in 1935, the town was inundated with rowdy, neon-flashing nightclubs. These were the real deal, dining, dancing, booze, music, entertainment, gambling and girls. Yes, in Lafayette. I can remember some of the names, Ciros, Alsam, Tunnel Inn, Danny Van Allens, on and on. A neon strip from two clubs in Orinda, Casa Orinda and the Willows, through Lafayette. The patrons came flocking from all over. World War II only enhanced the action. Gambling and slots went unabated as the rumor had it that the Contra Costa County Sheriff was on the take.

One fancy motel club, the El Nido Rancho on the western edge of town, which was closed by the new freeway about 60 years ago, specialized in girls of the night. I found this out when working as a bagger at Super Saver market, when a male shopper showed up one day at our check stand, where I was working with my checker, Roy, and shouted, “Hey Roy, I met your sister at the El Nido last night. Wow. Did she give me a good time.” Roy immediately vaulted over the check stand and pummeled and punched him out. Love Lafayette. The clubs all ended and faded out in the early 50s.

Bill’s Place, a roadhouse at the southwest corner of Mount Diablo and Moraga Roads. It consisted of a gas station, a mechanic shop, bar and restaurant. In the ’40s a great dinner for one family of four, like us, featured soup, salad, entree and dessert, total cost, 3.75, including a 25-cent tip.

Roundup Saloon opened in 1935, is still there going strong. When my friend, Norm Tuttle, ran for city council years ago, this was his campaign headquarters. He won. The place has outlasted all other bars in town. My dad took me there when I was age five for a beer, him, not me. Back in the ’70s during the annual Lafayette Horseman Parade, I was riding with a local psychiatrist who was dressed as an Indian and carrying a large lance and drinking fire water from an army canteen. Suddenly, he turned his Appaloosa horse directly into the Roundup front door and shouted, “Geronimo,” and firmly planted his lance into the bar top to the cheers of patrons at the shuffle board. I told him afterwards that he needed to be his own medicine man for this kind of conduct.

Diablo Foods: The store arrived in the early 1960s with a small redwood tree in the parking lot. It eventually burned, but has now grown back. Ed Stokes and family created absolutely the finest grocery market in the area, still going strong. They stop at nothing to be able to provide the finest service and quality foods. Everyone goes there and you almost always find your neighbor there, as well. Side story goes that Ed was in the store alone after closing. There was a break-in by a fellow with a gun who pointed it at Ed and said, “All your cash.” Ed had a pile of money in his safe, ready to take to the night bank deposit drop-off. The money was in the safe bottom along with Ed’s gun, with an empty drawer on top. Ed showed the robber the empty drawer and said, “Sorry, fellow, come back tomorrow before we have gone to the bank.” the robber left empty-handed. That was it. What guts.

Lafayette Cemetery: On the hillside east of town is the Lafayette Cemetery. When it was designated, the spot was considered to be far from town out in the country. My dad bought several plots 50 years ago for almost nothing. I visit my mom and dad there regularly. If you want to learn history, take an hour or so to visit the place and walk among the graves. They go back hundreds of years and the markers set forth a cumulative history that will astound you. There are no live people to bother you, and it is serene and quiet. There’s only one problem that I have experienced there, is that there are not any hoses to help you water your grave plants. Otherwise, it’s an awesome experience.

Horses: In the early years, it seemed everyone had a horse. Subdivisions ended most of that. Only a few remaining ranches left. Lafayette has almost lost its rural character as a result. The Lafayette Horseman’s Association was a thriving organization over the years, now gone. Ken and Ada Brown’s Rolling Ridge Ranch and Buckeye Ranch were favorite places for the horsey set, gone. Even the famous crooner, Bing Crosby, had a racing stable at Heather Farms in Walnut Creek that my dad would take us to visit on occasion. As late as 1970, my wife, Diane, and I were able to purchase 11 acres in Burton Valley from an old farming family. We needed that to start our quarter horse ranch, which we successfully did. Try to find a property like that now. The Lafayette-Moraga trail was developed for equal use by hikers and horses. You rarely see a horse there anymore.

World War II: It was a real bummer on December 7th, 1941. We were in the backyard, relaxing in the sun as a radio broadcast the bombing from Hawaii. I was only six years old at the time, but I knew this was a bad situation. All my uncles joined the Armed Forces almost immediately. My dad was too old and had us two kids and a wife, but he wanted to do his part. He knew electricity from playing with radios and crystal sets as a kid and signed on as an electrician at Henry Kaiser Shipyards in Richmond at a great pay then of $10 a day plus ample overtime, and he worked all the time. He left his insurance business to my mom to operate from our home, which she did. Kaiser was a magician. They turned out record numbers of warships, which eventually crushed the Axis fleets.

My mom, as indicated, took over my dad’s insurance business and we kids worked to sell war bonds. FDR proved to be a fabulous wartime president. Everyone got behind the rationing of foods and goods for the war effort. It was a great feeling to have everyone Democrats, Republicans, Independents, all pulling together for a winning effort. My dad loved the women that he trained at the shipyards, indicating that in most cases, they outworked the fellows and did a better job. When the Japanese-Americans were herded off to internment camps, there was only mild protest due to the fear that many thought them potential spies. This fear proved to be unfounded too late.

My mom signed up for civil defense work and was assigned to be a plane spotter. Her job several times a week was to go to an old shack on a knoll in Moraga, now the Moraga Country Club and listen and look at planes that came overhead and try to identify them as enemies or not. My sister and I went along. She was provided with a handbook describing the types of planes that needed to be watched for and a special radio to aid her. The booklet described the planes completely, markings and so forth, and with the binoculars also provided, we were able to help her out. I, of course had great knowledge of the subject matter as I made model airplanes with the kids at school, and we were always drawing dog fights between the various planes.

In our work with my mom at Moraga, we rarely heard or saw any planes, but if we did, I could always see the Japanese zero with a rising sun on their wings. “Hey, Mom, it is a zero for sure. Call in,” I said, “I see zeros on the ship.” No. She would reply, “I don’t see zeros or the proper shape. Not this time.”

Pittsburg: It went from a sleepy little town to a boom town with the development of Camp Stoneman as a training camp for thousands of soldiers, like from one barber shop to 50 or one or two bars and pool halls to 75. It was a sad site to watch the long convoys of troops after training coming through Lafayette to ship off to war, knowing that a lot of them would not be coming back. On Sunday afternoons, we went to my grandfather’s home and would sit down to tea next to his grand radio and listen to President Roosevelt’s Fireside Chat. It was direct from Washington and it was a must event to our family to learn first-hand details about the war. FDR didn’t pull the punches and told us like it was, like good, like bad and very ugly. I had never heard a more powerful, moving voice. Even in the darkest days, this voice gave us confidence, which helped us keep moving on the effort to win that war and win we did.

Port Chicago: In World War II, the bombs blown up around Lafayette were not from the enemy. On July 17th, 1944, in the dark a.m. disaster struck at Port Chicago, a Navy shipyard on the Sacramento River next to Martinez. It was an explosion, so fierce and loud, I actually felt a jolt that woke me up. A group of Naval seamen with improper training were loading bombs on a cargo ship and somehow caused a massive explosion. At the time the Navy was segregated and Blacks got the dangerous loading jobs. 320 men, mostly African-Americans, were killed. 50 African-Americans were tried and found guilty of mutiny, sent to jail and forced labor. Attorney Thurgood Marshall, a civil rights attorney, defended them, but when they lost, he continued to keep fighting for their rights and eventually obtained their release after the war. The entire area has now been named as a special park in the East Bay Park System and will be opening shortly in remembrance of those worthy survivors. Marshall made it to the United States Supreme Court, a fine appointment.

Poster Contest: Meanwhile I was struggling to pass the Second grade. Wells Fargo Bank sponsored a War Bond Poster Contest. I got a poster idea and my teacher, anxious to find something for me to be successful at, got the two best girl artists in my class to be on my “Poster Team”. The idea was a poster featuring Hitler, Tojo, and Mussolini in a boiling pot with War Bonds under it with the words “Buy Bonds, Boil Axis”. The first prize was a $75 War Bond. I won and got the bond but not my team!! How do you split a War Bond anyway? The poster was on display at the bank with my name prominently displayed as the creator which was only partly correct. My Mom was happy anyway.

Pandemic: In 1945 Polio Struck Infantile paralysis causing multiple deaths and lifetime paralysis struck a bunch of kids at Scout camp and one Scout died. It ended when Jonas Salk came up with the polio vaccine.

Politics: Lafayette never was much on the national political scene. My Dad was President of the Contra Costa County Republican Central Committee for years. One day in the late 1940s Richard Nixon was running for Senate against sitting Senator Helen Gahagan Douglas who “Tricky Dick” had labeled as a “Pinko” or Communist Sympathizer. Nixon walked into my Dad’s insurance office and asked him if he would introduce him to the Lafayette Republican lunch crowd that day. Dad agreed but then introduced him as John Nixon…..oops!

Incorporation: Without being an incorporated city until 1968, Lafayette had no official status and was run by the Contra Costa Board of Supervisors. We were at their mercy. They ran things like zoning and police as the political winds guided them. There was little local control. When we first voted to incorporate in the early 1960s, my Dad, Jack, won the Mayor’s slot as the highest vote getter. Incorporation was panned as too expensive and that Lafayette did not have a tax base that could support a city. Incorporation was voted down and even my Dad felt that way. The next vote was in 1968 and was pushed as a “Tax Free City” and won the day. We have strived to keep it “tax free” by being reasonably frugal. Five men won Council seats. I ran and came in 7th out of 20 candidates. I should have used the Round Up as my campaign headquarters as my friend Norm Tuttle did (and he won)!

Talk about old politics. We own a small office building on Golden Gate Way. Back in the early 1960s, Mel Neilsen, a local Shell gas station owner, was elected County Supervisor for our area. We rented space to the County for Supervisor Mel. One day he announced he wanted a US Mail Box outside our front door. He played politics and a week or so later, that beautiful blue mail box appeared out front where it still remains. It is one of the few left in town (3445 Golden Gate Way). Everyone uses it. We guard it judiciously. It has been there now over 60 years and should have protected status by now.

Radio and TV: There was no TV until around 1949 but radio was in its heyday. Every home had one room with a large consul radio-phonograph combination player. At “family time” we would all listen to important stuff or play vinyl disc “records” on the phonograph. Kids would have small radios in their bedrooms. At night my Dad would yell “Radios Off”. Not me! I held mine under the blanket to listen to my favorites like Dragnet, Lone Ranger, Let’s Pretend, Red Ryder, etc. At parties we would dance to phonograph records of Glenn Miller, Frank Sinatra, and Doris Day. We learned to dance at school from a ballroom dance instructor after school on Fridays…..girls on one side, boys on the other. For “Boy’s Choice”, we would rush to the most popular girl for a dance. I felt that was not cool and usually picked a girl I liked. They were usually better dancers and more fun anyway.

Bad Habits: Old days, smoking was way up, even among woman. Men got free smokes in the military service to start them out for the “good life”. Booze was up. Nightly “cocktails” at home a must. Tattoos not done. Only low class sailors had them. My grandfather smoked Chesterfield shorts with no filters. He figured he spent a thousand dollars at one point and offered each of his children and grandchildren $1000 if they would not smoke until age 21. I collected as did most of the others.

Biggest Change: Women’s Ascendancy
It all began with World War II and Rosie the Riveter in the war plants. From out of the kitchen into all phases of our economy they have stormed and rightfully so. Hopefully soon women will run the world and war will end. They have the babies and do not want to lose them. It’s their turn anyway. We men have done a crappy job!

Conclusion: I feel so privileged to have been here (in Lafayette) all my life. I have never traveled much just wanting to be here. I would do the same thing again. People just want to be here and only leave for non-voluntary reasons like death or job changes. People have come here for years and have never left. The Lafayette Cemetery has housed your neighbors that go back hundreds of years. Walk through our graveyard.