Ken Ross: Growing up in the Richmond

The Richmond that Grant never took Growing up In the Richmond was a great experience. I have two lifelong friends who I met in the first grade at Star of the Sea Catholic School on Ninth Avenue, between Geary Boulevard and Clement Street: Carl Swendson and Norman Black.

We have been lifelong friends for more than 78 years. We hung out together, went to the movies together, played ball and even played pool together at Sarge's Pool Hall, which was located on Clement Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues.

Carl, Norm and I would make nightly forays to Sarge's and play a little pool and bowl. Sometimes we would set pins for Sarge for pocket change or enough money for a movie.

This was before the days of automatic pin-setting machines so you had to reset the pins by hand. The pin pits were open, and you sat on a little swivel stool on the edge of the pit. When the ball hit the pins, we jumped into the pit, pulled the loose pins into the pit, picked up the ball and sent it back on a tracker to the bowler. Sometimes it was worth life and limb. If you had a particularly active bowler, he could send the pins flying in all directions so you had to be ready to duck. Talk about danger!

Since all three of us were Catholic, we attended mass at Star of Sea Church. I was impressed with the ceremony and especially the Latin. It made me think of knights and kings, such as King Arthur and all the pomp and ceremony connected with the Round Table. I looked forward to St. Ignatius High School so I could study Latin and better understand the mass.

Carl and I went to St. Ignatius, but Norm opted for George Washington High School at 30th Avenue and Geary Boulevard, but we still hung out together. Almost every school night, our big meeting place was the Richmond Library on Ninth Avenue between Geary Boulevard and Clement Street. That was the gathering place for all the high school kids. Of course, our excuse to our parents for going to the library was to study, although we didn't get much studying done.

Sometimes we would sit across from our favorite girl and play "footsie" under the table, kicking off our shoes and rubbing our feet together. It was very risquŽ in those days, and we were very na•ve.

After the library closed, the high school kids all went their separate ways, but my two buddies and I stayed close. Norm, Carl and I would walk down Clement Street singing to anyone who would listen. I was the tenor, Norm the baritone and Carl the bass. We called ourselves "The Clement Street Troubadours." We weren't very good, but we thought we were terrific.

Some nights we would hike out to 21st Avenue and Lake Street and serenade Jackie Bettencourt, Norman's high school love, and her sister. Jackie and Norman were pledged to each other all through high school and the war years. When Norm returned home from the war, they got married and had a very long relationship of more than 50 years.

My first romance was in the Richmond also. I met and fell in love with Barbara Harvey when I was 17 and she was Sweet 16. We were very serious and planned to get married in five years when I graduated from college, but the war interrupted our plans. Actually, she dumped me before I went to war. It was never meant to be.

Next door to the Coliseum was a very small sweet shop. I always though of it as part of the theater. It was run by a little Greek fellow who sold the very best frozen bananas for a nickel. My friends and I would line up at the counter, and the line sometimes would extend out the door and almost up to Ninth Avenue. He would pass out the chocolate-covered bananas as fast as he could and drop the money in a little box by his side. I don't know if he even had a cash register. Still, those bananas were so delicious, we gobbled them up as fast as we could.

My friends and I had some great times together. We lived, played and loved in the Richmond District. Take it from a world traveler, it's the greatest neighborhood in the world. From the library to the bowling alley to Star of the Sea to the sweet shop, we loved it all.

Ken Ross was a long-time Richmond resident and author of "We Didn't Know We Were Heros," a collaboration he did with friends Carl Swendson and Norman Black.