Colton was a small town of about 10,000 people. The Southern Pacific Railroad, the Pacific Fruit Express, and the Colton Cement Plant provided jobs for most of the men of the town. There was a "Candy Palace" run by Mr. Montgomery, and Hunter's "Sweet Shop" owned by Mr. Hunter where we could get a huge milkshake for ten cents.
There was one theater in town. The seats were divided into a center section with two smaller sections on each side. The Mexicans could only sit in the one section on the left side. The white people got the rest of the seats. Every Saturday, there was a matinee with a serial that left you wondering how the hero was going to get out of his current predicament, so we all had to go the following week.
The theater had drawings for a free turkey each night before Thanksgiving. Dad asked me one time if I would like to win the turkey. I said, "Sure." So he asked me for my ticket stub and went out of the theater. When they held the drawing that night, from a big bowl of tickets, my number was called and I went up and got the turkey. I think Dad paid Mr. Meyers for the turkey and for my ticket to be "drawn."
Albert Floyd and I used to sneak into the theater before the show started and hide in the ventilating ducts until after it got going. Then we would come out and enter through the exit doors at the front. The show only cost ten cents, but it seemed like more fun to go in that way.
One day, Bino and I broke the lock off the door to the sound system. That night, we entered through the sound room. We made a lot of noise, and Mr. Meyers came behind the screen with a flashlight. Bino kept quiet, but I panicked, and he found me. He marched me down to the police station, which was only about two blocks away. The sergeant asked me if I had a dime in my pocket, which I did. I told him, "It was more fun this way." He had me taken home in a police car and turned over to Dad. Dad said that if they couldn't keep a kid from sneaking into their theater, I shouldn't go there anymore.
Colton had just about one of every kind of store we needed for a town our size.
We had a streetcar track running down the middle of Eighth Street from San Bernardino to about "J" Street in Colton. It cost about ten cents to go all the way to San Bernardino from Colton, which was a good three miles. Eventually, the tracks were torn up, ending our streetcar service.
There was only one Black family in town. They had two boys, Albert and Richard Sneed. Richard was my age, and we were good friends and played together for a few years.