Life in Buena Vista
 
Alicia Zavala is a friend of my mothers, who is very energetic and has a great sense of humor. She has been living in the United States her entire life. She hasn’t had the best childhood but she has tried to make the best out of everything that life had to offer to her. At the age of sixty three she works long hours to keep herself busy and active, so mostly she is never sitting bored at home. Most of the time, Alicia and her friends get together and have a good time with each other. Her life has greatly changed from the way she lived back in Buena Vista. Alicia is a strong and highly respected person because of all the kindness she has given to people. As she sits in her balcony she always remembers the good times that she spent with her family and friends back in Buena Vista.

Buena Vista was just a small town beginning to get its population, small families with just maybe two or three children. It was a very peaceful and clean neighborhood as well. Around one thousand to one thousand five hundred people lived in the town. The town was very friendly, children could play late at night and parents would not have to worry about them. It was not dangerous in any way and it is about the same right now. There were some people that were different than the rest so we would just give them a nickname. For example, there was this man that would wear different types of hats but one of his main ones was a captains hat so we just called him Captain. Everybody knew each other in the town. I was born in the town and lived there from about 1943 to 1955. I had fun living in Buena Vista because we could do anything we wanted, stay out late and play different kinds of games. We played hop scotch, jump rope, and hide-and-seek. But the most popular one was hide-and-seek.
 

The education was just the normal spelling, reading, and arithmetic’s. There was nothing major. There was probably two or three schools back then. I had fun going to school there, the teachers were very friendly. They would help all the students out and it wasn’t over populated so they can give more attention to the students that needed help. There were no Churches, Hospitals, or Airports inside the town we had to travel to the nearest town in order to go to any of them. We did not travel a lot because we did not have money, normally we came by as poor people.

It was not more of a boring town it was just a comfortable town that you can be safe in. For fun we would go to the beach with four or five families in a caravan. We would go early in the morning and stay late until the afternoon, and take food, blankets, and spend the whole day there. We would have an annual get together and have a pot lock and have dancing. Everybody would bring food and we would go to church. I have not visited the town ever since I left there. But I would like to go back and see how it has grown.

The Korean war was the only war that effected my life because my two uncles were in the war and we were worried about them. When they would come back from war we would go visit them. Visiting them was one of the fun things we would do. Both of them returned safely from the war. And everything ended good at the end. When all the men returned they were treated with respect. We threw parties at the house and invited all of our friends. We would make food and have whine and beer to celebrate. We also danced to music on our Record Player, because there was no CD players at that time. There were a few families who had TV’s and my grandmother was one of them, because we could not afford it. The towns families would get together and watch movies together because not a lot of them had TV’s.

The town did not need a lot of protection because it was a very safe place and Police support was not a big deal. There were maybe one or two Police officers and a Sheriff, but that’s about it. We had a Fire Department but it was very small with a little truck. It was just a very peaceful and nice town to live in. The town was not that clean, it did not have much cement it was more dirt like but later it got more civilized.

Also one of the things that we would do a lot for fun was to go to drive in movies. My parents would take four of us two girls and two boys. My mother would make Burritos and we would watch the movie in our cars, with a big old screen outside. We would go once a week. Most of the town would come and it was really fun. The drive in movie had a little snack bar and sometimes we would go and get popcorn and soda.
 

I started to work when I was fifteen years old, and I worked at thrift store. I sold candy, popcorn, and things like that. Also we sold sowing material, there was maybe like 15 different departments. The stores were like little markets, and there was one we would call Little Newberry that sold different kinds of items at cheap prices.

 

On Sundays after church we would go out to eat at a restaurant. The restaurants had everything. But the things that I would eat the most were Pizza and Hot Dogs. When I was young I used to eat a lot of Pizza and Hot Dogs. But my mother made home made Mexican food so we ate it everyday, my father was also a good cook. The amount of money paid per hour for jobs was between 3 dollars and 5 dollars. For a house that had five bedrooms the rent was probably seventy dollars a month. It was just like now, the economy goes up you get a raise so you can live within your means.

Interviewed by: Michael Khachekian