By the time I reached my 19th birthday, the atmosphere became a little cloudy in the Relles household.
My dad seemed a little on edge. I think he felt I was old enough to move out on my own.
I hadn’t given that possibility much consideration at the time, but I could feel dad’s angst. The whole issue came to a head when I decided to get with the times and grow a goatee.
Wow, that rattled dad’s cage. He insisted I shave it off. “No son of a Sacramento police officer should sport facial hair.”
Of course, I refused to give in. This brought the whole matter to a head, and dad and I agreed that I should find a place of my own.
Fortunately, my uncle Ross provided a solution to this dilemma. He had two flats above his florist shop in midtown. One had just become available. Thankfully, my cousin Bob agreed to share the flat with me, making the move affordable.
Subsequently, we agreed to pay $50 each per month to rent the flat. Can you imagine that? $50 rent?
So, on the first day of the next month, we moved into my uncle’s second-floor flat. Our living arrangement was pretty humble.
The flat only had only one actual bedroom. So, Bob and I moved two twin beds into the single room. In addition to the bedroom, the flat featured one bathroom, a large living room and kitchen.
Life was good.
My cousin and I adjusted quickly to our new living arrangement. The good thing is that as close relatives, we knew each other well.
Also, our day-to-day lives were very similar at this time. Both of us attended Sacramento City College and worked in the florist shop down below the flat.
I attended school in the morning and delivered flowers in the afternoon. Bob made up arrangements in the mornings, then went to his classes in the afternoon. The arrangement worked out well.
Neither of us cooked at the time, but we learned quickly.
I constantly bothered my mom for new recipes. In quick order, I learned how to cook things like spaghetti, Spanish rice and Swiss steak.
Bob did the same with his mother. To this day, I still cook these dishes along with many others.
We soon blended into the fabric of the midtown area. I still recall sitting on the balcony in front of our flat in the evening watching the cars scurry out of town during rush hour.
As our commute involved walking up the stairs to our flat, the hubbub of rush hour seemed pretty funny to us.
On weekends, we invited our friends over for parties. We befriended a slightly older man who lived near us. He bought beer for us, if we asked.
This made our flat a popular venue.
We turned the volume of our stereo up as high as we could stand it and played the Beatles, the Stones and the Beach Boys.
Sometimes, our musically-inclined friends came by and played live music. This usually brought the police to the apartment, advising us to turn the volume down, which we did, but only briefly.
I have fond memories of living over uncle Ross’s florist shop. I lived there for four pretty care-free years.
However, in 1969, I received my draft notice, and those care-free times ended abruptly.
I will tell you more about that in a later episode. Now, my time of living on my own, above my uncle’s shop, is just another laid back Janey Way memory.

marty@valcomnews.com

The City of Sacramento constructed the Memorial Auditorium in 1926. This Sacramento cultural icon opened to much hoopla in 1927. Over time it became a center piece for entertainment in Sacramento.
My recollections of the auditorium date back to the 1950s.
My dad enjoyed professional boxing, and often took my brother Terry and me to the fights.
By the 1960s, however, the Memorial Auditorium took on new importance for me.
In addition to boxing matches, wrestling matches, circuses and theatrical productions, the auditorium began hosting rock and roll concerts.
Bands, such as the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones and Temptations performed routinely at the old hall.
We had to be there.
Our dad, a Sacramento policeman, often worked off-duty at these events to earn extra money, so we begged him to take us to the shows, and he did. We walked in the front door with him, then disappeared into the general admission seating.
The shows were great.
The Beach Boys brought the house down, with girls running up onto the stage to try to kiss Mike Love.
In 1965, Mick Jagger walked out to perform, picked up the mike, and was knocked unconscious by an electrical charge.
The show ended immediately.
Jagger was unhurt, but incident made quite a splash in the Sacramento Bee.
When James Brown brought his show to the auditorium, including a full band, dancers and backup singers, we were there, thanks to Dad.
Sometimes though, Dad had conflicts and could not work at events of great interest to us.
Then we had to use our guile to get into the shows.
We had one of the Janey Way parents drop us off downtown at the back of the auditorium.
We knocked at the back door.
Eventually, a police officer opened the door and said, “What do you boys want.”
We asked for my father’s friend and partner Herb Kunz. Herb eventually came to the door and let us in.
“Stay out of trouble,” Herb would say as we went through the double-doors, turned right and headed upstairs to the general admission seating.
We attended many Memorial Auditorium concerts this way.
I remember seeing groups like the Temptations and Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.
My friends thought I must have been some sort of celebrity, getting them into concerts this way. It always seemed to work and we had a great time at the shows.
Eventually, however, we grew up and moved onto other things like college, girls and adulthood.
I will never forget the good times we had attending the shows at the Memorial Auditorium though. Sadly, now it’s just another rock and rolling Janey Way memory.
marty@valcomnews.com

At the lower right hand corner of a large mural that covers the majority of the exterior wall at the front of Sacramento State University’s Lassen Hall is the signature of artist, Ed Rivera. And although this work is his best known local art piece, it represents only a part of the story of this Sacramento artist.

Rivera, who is a Sacramento resident and a former Sacramento Police Department officer, has certainly drawn much attention for his mural on this university building, which houses the office of the university registrar, the academic advising and career center, a testing center and other services.

After all, the artwork was painted on the building as the resolution to a controversy, which received much widespread media coverage, including coverage in Mexico.

As the story goes, during a six-month period in 1970, Rivera, who is a native Sacramentan of Mexican descent, had painted a previous mural on panels that were placed on the front, exterior wall of the same building, which then housed the school’s library.

In a discussion with Valley Community Newspapers, Rivera, 67, recounted his memories of a dreadful time back in 1976, when he found out that the mural, which had been presented as a gift, had been removed from the building.

“Somebody came by and said, ‘Ed, you know your mural is not up there any more,’” recalled Rivera, who was a student at Sacramento State during the 1960s. “I said, ‘You’re kidding.’ I went down there (to the Sacramento State building) and it was stark white. They tore the panels down and called that a ‘beautification (project).’ We immediately went (to the school) and said, ‘Hey, you can’t do this. We gave this to the community and the state college as a figure of solidarity, peace and culture. What did you do here?’ And then the movement started with Joe Serna, (Rivera and others) and the community rose up and said, ‘You can’t do that.’”

Fate of ‘La Cultura’

The mural, which was named ‘La Cultura’ (‘The Culture’) and had been created as a tribute to Mexican culture, had taken months of negotiations and fundraising and the support of the Chicano community to become a reality.

But in just six years, the artwork was removed and disposed of, except for pieces of the mural, which Rivera said had been cut up and given a new life at the school.

“They made shelves out of (parts of) the panels,” Rivera said. “I saw my artwork on shelving in different parts of the college.”

The protest movement relating to the removal and destruction of the mural led to a September 1976 letter of apology from then-Sacramento State President James Bond.

Two months later, Henry Lopez, executive director of the Sacramento Chicano community organization, Concilio, wrote a letter to Bond demanding that the university finance a new mural, repay the $800 used in community donations that paid for the old mural, produce a public apology from the school and submit a written statement about the university’s policy regarding the mural.

Responding to Lopez’s letter on Feb. 9, 1977, Bond once again apologized for the removal of the mural and extended an offer to have a new mural paid for by the university.

Rivera said that Bond recommended that the mural be painted inside the building to protect it from the outside elements. But after visiting the building’s interior, Rivera rejected this recommendation.

Arrangements were eventually made for Rivera to repaint the mural in a different style on the front of the building. But this time, the mural was painted directly onto the wall.

 

The Rebirth of ’La Cultura’ 

On Oct. 30, 1978, a dedication ceremony at the building, which had been converted into the Student Services Center, was held in honor of the completed mural. The event, which celebrated “The Rebirth of the La Cultura,” included speakers, music, poetry and folk dancing.

The 96-foot-wide by 24-foot-tall mural, which depicts the Mexican community’s American Indian-Spanish heritage, features major symbols of the Mexican culture, including an image of the Aztec ruler, Montezuma, an eagle with a serpent in its beak, the Aztec calendar and an ear of corn.

The mural, which is painted with permanent, water-based acrylics, also includes a pair of frogs moving forward, which Rivera said represents the constantly moving forward and never looking back progression of the Mexican people.

A concise description of the mural is located just inside Lassen Hall.

In 1999, Rivera returned to the campus to provide a touch-up paint job to the then-fading mural and to place a protective finish over the work.

Protected art

Unlike the building’s original mural, today’s mural is protected, Rivera explained.

“That (current) mural, they cannot take it down for 50 years after I die,” Rivera said. “If they’re going to take it down, they have to notify the next of kin, which would be my son (John, who was named after Rivera’s favorite author, John Steinbeck). So, it’s there for a long time.”

Rivera added that even 50 years after his passing, negotiations could be made to preserve the mural and have it touched-up with some fresh paint by an assigned artist.

The Sacramento State mural is but one of Rivera’s murals that have appeared on public buildings.

Rivera also painted murals for the Washington Neighborhood Center at 400 16th St. and the Legal Aid Society at 920 9th St. in Sacramento and Boalt Hall at the University of California, Berkeley. Unfortunately for Rivera, not all of his murals exist today.

Diverting from the story of his murals, Rivera said that his love for art began at a very young age, as he watched his father, who was a pastry chef, decorate a cake with the image of an eagle.

Fascinated how his father could create something so artistic with his hands, Rivera gained an instant appreciation for art.

This appreciation led to Rivera’s study of art at Sacramento High School under the direction of art instructor, John Moore.

After attending Sacramento City College and Sacramento State, Rivera attended the prestigious San Francisco Art Institute for three years. And while at the art institute, he studied under renowned artists such as Richard Diebenkorn, Elmer Bishoff, Nathan Oliveira, James Weeks, Julius Hytofsky and Frank Lobdell.

Although he eventually became a police officer, serving in this position from 1967 to 1996, Rivera never lost his love for art.

To the contrary, this love grew, as Rivera continued to create art and gain recognition in the art world throughout his time with the police department.

Prolific artist

During his time as an artist, Rivera has created hundreds of paintings and although he has painted such art images as local architecture, landscapes and sailing scenes, the majority of his work features pre-Columbian, Aztec and Mayan images.

Explaining his deep connection to this form of art, Rivera said, “I really feel I’m part pre-Columbian, Aztec, Mayan culture.”

Additionally, Rivera, who participates in occasional art shows, but said that he otherwise advertises by “word of mouth” only, refers to himself as a “tool of what the Hispanic community is about.”

“I’m just a tool,” Rivera said. “I just happen to have the talent as a painter. I’m fortunate I can do this. I enjoy painting. It’s my life.”

Rivera, who credits his mentor, artist Benny Barrios, for showing him not just how to paint, but showing him the life of an artist and what it takes to be an artist, said that he is among a select group of artists.

“There are a few of us (artists), we just don’t live art, we breathe art,” Rivera said. “Everything is art. We don’t see things the way other people see them. We see things in an art view. We see things way, way differently. For me, art is like breathing. You have to breathe. You have to do art.”

Email Lance Armstrong at lance@valcomnews.com

The annual Fourth of July Spirit of the Pocket Parade, the largest parade event in the Pocket-Greenhaven area, is preparing for another magnificent patriotic celebration and is looking to the community for volunteers and floats. The parade, which is being held on July 3 this year, is a popular community-produced visual spectacle.

“We are looking for people to step forward with floats,” said Linda Pohl, parade committee chair. “Our main thing is to make this great visual presentation, so we would like a lot of floats.”

Held Saturday, July 3, the parade begins promptly at 10 a.m. at the former site of Lisbon Elementary School, 7775 S. Land Park Dr., and travels down Windbridge, ending at Garcia Bend Park.

Volunteers are needed to support the efforts (and the fun) of the 16th annual Fourth of July Spirit of the Pocket Parade. To volunteer in positions ranging from pre-parade phone calls, blocking streets (while sitting in a comfortable chair), parade marshals and helping with the after-parade activities at Garcia Bend, e-mail linda@valcomnews.com.

For more information on volunteering at the parade, contact Pohl at The Pocket News at 429- 9901 or e-mail linda@valcomnews.com.

Parade float entry forms can be picked up at The Pocket News office, 2709 Riverside Blvd., and Pocket Custom Framing, 7485 Rush River Dr., suite 715. Forms can also be downloaded online at www.valcomnews.com. Completed entries can be dropped off at these locations or emailed to linda@valcomnews.com. All pre-registered parade entrants will be part of the parade judging. Entries will be judged against others in their group type.

Preparations are already underway to make the parade bigger and better than ever before.

“We have the Friends of the Library doing something great – they seem to do a great float every year,” said Pohl. “In addition to booths after the parade, we will have a carnival put on by the Friends of the Library and the School of Engineering and it will have games and activities and there will also be a demonstration by the Sacramento Police K-9 Unit.”

A special addition to the event is Sacramento Police K-9 officer Bandit and his handler Officer Gary Dahl as grand marshals of the parade. Bandit was wounded in March during the apprehension of a suspect; he has since fully recovered and is back on duty. TV personalities Nick Toma, from Channel 31, and Angel Cardenas, from Channel 10, will serve as parade MCs, announcing the floats and the parade participants as they pass.

 

Garcia Bend Boat Ramp closed

Due to the path of the parade, the boat ramp at Garcia Bend Park in the Pocket area will close from 10 p.m. Friday, July 2, until 2 p.m. on Saturday, July 3 for Independence Day festivities.

 

Parade entry forms

Fourth of July Spirit of the Pocket Parade float entry forms can be downloaded bly clicking here. Download a parade waiver form here.