For us kids, old horse arena made a good sports complex

I took somewhat a vacation last week. I did a few things that needed to be done for the paper but, otherwise, enjoyed some relaxation and the preparation for a family mini-reunion.

The reunion included a session during which my five remaining siblings - two have died - and I spoke five minutes each about memories of growing up.

We were farm workers. We never went anywhere except to the fields, the grocery store on Saturday afternoon, an occasional movie or family Mexican dance on Saturday night and mass on Sunday.

The first time we saw a city we were all lying at the bottom of a flatbed 2-ton truck with side racks, amongst all of our belongings. It was 3 a.m. on a 1957 July night as we traveled to Burlington to pick strawberries.

We were excited about passing through Seattle when we left Granger around 10 or 11 p.m. the previous evening. We woke up on time, but the side racks prevented a good view.

All we saw of our first big city was the tops of the skyscrapers, such as they were then, all lit up, as we sped northward on U.S. 99.

I chose to speak about 1957 at the reunion. It was an eventful year.

Mom and the three older girls wanted to live in town instead of the country, as we had since 1943. So dad sent them to Granger to look for a house, and they found one.

My three brothers - all younger - and I didn't know that story. So we weren't aware we should be thankful to mom and the girls for the Granger Horse Riding Club Arena in the adjacent property. It became our sports complex.

It didn't take us long to realize the Arena was no longer used. We jumped the fence every free moment to explore it. I was 12, Rich 9, Bob 6 and David a baby, but we all played there.

The fenced property was rectangular and, within, there was a huge oval Arena where Granger horsemen and horsewomen of the '50s and before had had their rodeos or simple get-togethers.

We used one of the oval ends to carve out a baseball field. That gave us a symmetrical, curved outfield fence with 20-foot foul poles we made of 1-by-4s. At school, there was no fence over which to hit home runs, but we set records at the Arena.

In the middle region of the Arena we set up a football field. Its length was the width of the Arena. We lined it with a white powder substance and used 1-by-4s to attach goal posts to the fence.

The best games we had there were on late December, January and early February Sundays. We played football in the snow until it was too dark or we were too cold to keep going.

The best use we made of the Arena was the golf course we designed. It was needed.

I was 14 when dad spotted three hickory-shafted clubs sticking out of a trash can on the main street in Sunnyside. When he went to pull them out, he also found 3-4 balata-percha golf balls - with cuts and dents - at the bottom of the can. He brought the clubs and the balls home to us.

We carved out our golf course and started playing. It had four holes, one in each corner of the property. The property and Arena fences were our out of bounds. Two fairways were long - maybe 200 yards - two were short.

Around and around we went imitating Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus. We watched them on TV, then went out and played.

We were terrible. We never noticed Jack and Arnie were not using baseball swings. But we had fun and got the general hang of the game.

I was 16 when I went to the golf course in Sunnyside. I was told beforehand I couldn't play there because it was the Elks course - members only. I did play and, when a Hispanic greenskeeper saw me, he was beside himself. I was the first Hispanic he had seen on the course.

Still, I was no good.

I finally started to learn in my mid-20s. Bob and I took a golf class together at Yakima Valley College and discovered Harry Vardon and the most effective golf grip.

Bob eventually became a scratch player. I was a 2-handicap at one time. Rich got to 10-12. David never played seriously. His best was probably about 18.

When I attended the U.S. Open this June at Chambers Bay in Tacoma and watched the current greats of the world, I was really excited. It had been 56 years since those hickory shafts, smiling balata balls and the Arena.

Dad bought the Arena property in the 1970s and started farming it.

He didn't have to go looking for the grandkids to get the work done.