Stories From the Eastside of Riverside - When Alyce Was Young

Stories From the Eastside of Riverside: Wit at Work - A story from Alyce Smith Cooper

McElroy Street. Photo by Rod Mullen

The East Side in the 50’s in Riverside, California was a place where all races lived together, tied to the common struggle of making ends meet.

I grew up there when the water and air were crystal clear.  When on a summer Saturday morning, no one noticed three Little brown girls pedaling our bikes around town.   We owned those long summer Saturdays. 

On one afternoon we ventured out of the Eastside, past north main, past Uncle Busters’ repair shop where all of the young men were fixing their cars. Once past downtown Riverside we yelled “WHOO WHOO, JOHN THE BAPTIST”, with feet and hands flying from our sides as we coasted down Fairmont Park Hill to the old riverbed. In that old riverbed, usually dry, we found a swampy spot where crawdads lived. The sun was high when we discovered the crawdads, but we were casting long shadows by the time we heard Junie Jones’ voice.

We had not noticed the sons of Buster Jones following us.  They had been able to stay just out of sight in their pieced-together model T Ford. 

Junie, the eldest son smiling all bright and brown said,

 “Well, you young ladies have had quite a time today. Put your bikes in the trunk and come on home now. It is getting too late for you all to be out alone.”

Since Junie was our adult cousin (he was all of 22) we knew we needed to obey.  Although we never heard another word about our out-of-bounds adventure, there was an unspoken understanding that we had gone too far and stayed too long.

But, by pushing our boundaries we both expanded our world and gained some wisdom. All the way to Crawdad Hole and back.

Lessons in the Mother Wit.

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Golden Brown Fairy Godmother

I am Alyce Smith Cooper. In addition to a Veteran's Museum Poet Laureate and California Arts Council Legacy Artist Fellow, I am also known as The Golden Brown Fairy Godmother. That terminology came about as a result of the birth of my first grandson. Through this life journey I have occupied the persona of daughter, granddaughter wife and mother. And I am still to this day a registered nurse and an ordained minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. I'm a poet but through it all, the golden thread is I am a storyteller. Nothing happens until the story gets told. So, everytime you visit you can look forward to hearing, watching or reading a wonderful story.

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