I got to meet Cesar Romero at the Golden Boot Awards Banquet in Santa Monica in 1991. It was a great pleasure for me as he had been my mom’s favorite actor since the 1930’s, and I heard about him every time he performed in another movie or on television. A big, handsome man, he played everything from Latin lovers to the Cisko Kid to the Joker in a Batman movie.

After the dinner and awards ceremony at the Golden Boot, the celebrities were still standing around the hall and visiting with anyone who approached them. I heard a lady say that Cesar Romero and Celeste Holm were just leaving. I went outside to the curb where people were waiting for the valets to bring them their cars. Sure enough, Cesar Romero was standing there alone while Celeste Holm, the Academy Award winning actress, was visiting with a group of ladies.

When I met Cesar Romero, he was 84 years old, but looked more like 60. He was still handsome, stood tall, and still had a sparkle in his eye. He was fun to talk with. When I told him he had been my mom’s favorite actor, he just responded with, “That’s a nice thing to say.” It was a few minutes I really enjoyed and knew that Mom would have enjoyed also. I didn’t get to meet Ms. Holms as she was tied up with the ladies until they left.

Dave Thomas

10/26/2023

I got out of the Navy in March of 1961, and in April went to work at Electro Instruments in San Diego. I started as a Production Test Technician working on AC and DC digital voltmeters that were invented and designed by two men from M.I.T. The company was just a few years old, but already had about 250 employees and was the world leader in the production of digital instrumentation. Product lines included DC amplifiers, X-Y recorders, digital ohm meters, and monitor oscilloscopes. Some of the customers were NASA, JPL, U.S. Airforce, U.S. Navy, and Woods Hole Laboratory.

I met Steve “Scotty” Scott soon after I started work. The company had two full-time janitors, and Scotty was one of them. Scotty was nearing 60 years old and was a fair-sized man, probably 6’1” or so and wasn’t fat, but was probably 30 lbs overweight. He had come to San Diego from Brawley, California, a farming community over in Imperial Valley. Scotty said he had been the Hay Boss for a cattle feeding operation there. I didn’t pry, but he looked like he had heart trouble, and I suspected that he had to leave Brawley for his health, leaving the hard work and the oppressive heat behind.

As a side note, Brawley had a parade and rodeo each summer that they called “Cattle Call.” Scotty said he helped organize the celebration each year.

For 2 or 3 years, I didn’t have much time to talk with Scotty. We’d pass each other in the hall and exchange greetings or he’d come through my department and we’d “howdy” each other. I think his shift started at 2:00 pm or so. Sometimes we would have coffee together on afternoon breaks. After about three years, I made foreman so was always working after hours and could sometimes take a break and have coffee with Scotty. One Monday, we were sitting down together, and I mentioned that I had bought a horse over the weekend. Scotty had spent s lot of years on horseback, so he was happy to talk about my filly. When I said I didn’t have a saddle yet, he jumped right on it by saying that he had a nearly new saddle that he would loan me. That was a great help to me. Having 3 kids, rent, and a car payment was making it tough to save up any saddle money.

Scotty brought the saddle to work with him the next day. I was able to use the saddle for several months before I returned it. My wife, Pat, had come down with San Joaquin Valley fever. That’s a respiratory disease caused by breathing in spores from horse dung. I thought I was going to lose Pat. She finally recovered, but I sold the horse, and that’s when I returned Scotty’s saddle. It was generous of him to let me use it.

Scotty and I never visited each other at home. He lived about 20 miles north of our work place, and I lived about 20 miles in the opposite direction. Scotty and I maintained our work friendship for a couple more years until I left the company. A really nice guy.

Dave Thomas

10/19/2023

In June of 1944, my maternal grandfather, George F. Sicks drove from his home in Los Angeles to Iola, Kansas to visit his dad and his siblings. After the visit to the family farm, he drove to Augusta, Kansas to see my mom and the rest of us. The plan was for him to drive my mom, Dad, sister Sylvia, and me to Los Angeles for a vacation. Dad had a two-week vacation coming, and the rest of us would spend a month in L.A. with him.

Thinking about it now, I’m not sure how Grandpa made that trip. The car was fine. It was a 4 door 1942 Pontiac. The 1942 cars came out in September of 1941, and were the last cars produced after World War II started in December of 1941 until production until production started up again in 1946. The thing that bothers me is that gasoline was rationed, rubber tires were rationed, and so was just about everything else.

My Dad was working at the Socony Mobil Refinery in Augusta. The refinery was classified as being crucial to the war effort, and that’s why my dad wasn’t in the service. He was given a draft classification that kept him from enlisting. Dad tried twice to enlist, but the job and the fact that he had two kids and a heart murmur didn’t help.

At the time of the trip, I was seven years old, and would be eight two months later in August. My sister, Sylvia, was a year younger than I.

When we got to L.A., Granddad turned out to be a fantastic tour guide. He took us to see all the things we had heard of and many we hadn’t. For instance, we saw Hollywood, Venice, Santa Monica, the corner of Hollywood and Vine, the Hollywood Canteen, the Hollywood Bowl, the La Brea Tar Pits, the Coliseum Museum, Knott’s Berry Farm where Grandpa knew Walter Knott, the Brown Derby Restaurant, the Griffith Observatory, Olvera Street, and much more.

When vacation days ran out, Dad caught a bus home. The rest of us were lucky in that we had two more weeks, and Grandpa had more sightseeing planned for us.

One day, Grandpa told us to gather up all the pennies we could find because he was taking us to the Santa Anita Racetrack, and he was going to teach us how to bet on the horses and bet them to win, place, or show. There wasn’t much of a crowd that day, but we did see the actor, Pat O’Brien when we came in. Grandpa said that, according to the newspaper, Pat O’Brien was a regular there.

We were busy with our handicapping when some people came down the aisle to the left of us. They were talking and laughing pretty loudly, so naturally we looked to see what was going on. There were two men, three women, and a baby. My Mom turned to us and said, “That woman carrying the baby is Betty Grable.”

Everyone knew who Betty Grable was, even little kids. She was the most famous pinup girl of World War II. Everyone had seen her picture and most of the servicemen had that picture in their locker or footlocker. Also, the whole world knew the story of her legs being insured for a million bucks.

We all took a good look at her as she was only about 15 feet from us, and then Sylvia and I went back to studying the horses. After a few minutes, Mom said, “Don’t listen to her, Kids. She’s cussing like a trooper.” We didn’t pay any attention to her as we were busy with the horses.

It was a big day for us, seeing a big-time movie star and watching horse races. I think Sylvia won all the money. She was always better at gambling than I was. Though the races were fun, there was so much boring time between races I vowed to never go again, and I haven’t.

Dave Thomas 10/12/2023

I was born and raised in a small town in Kansas that had a population of about 5,000. We didn’t have the ethnic groups like you find in the big cities in the East. There were no Irish neighborhoods, Italian neighborhoods, black neighborhoods, barrios, or Jewish communities. We did have a half dozen Mexican families, a couple of Jewish families, and a couple of Indian families (the Native American name wasn’t used when I was a kid.) These families were scattered throughout the town. People lived where they liked and where they could afford. The largest group of kids were the Mexican Americans. They were all smart, good-looking, and well-liked. I never heard of any racial strife, and hope my friends never had to put up with it.

I was in third grade when a boy named Jackie Glass joined the class. Jackie was the first Negro (they weren’t called African American then) I had ever met. I had seen Negro people when we went to Wichita. Discussing it with my parents afterword, they told me that black people were just like us and just wanted to work and raise their families and enjoy life. That was good enough for me.

Jackie and I liked each other immediately and hung out together at morning and afternoon recess and lunch times. We didn’t become full-time buddies because we lived on opposite sides of town, and being only eight years old, neither of us was permitted to range that far.

One Saturday morning, my mom, Dad, sister, and I were downtown and bumped into Jackie and his parents in front of Cooper’s Rexall Drugs. The adults introduced themselves and visited for a couple of minutes while we kids talked. That was the only time I saw Jackie outside of school.

As the weather got cooler, we all started wearing our coats and hats. Most of the guys wore stocking caps, but Jackie and I were different. He had a cap that I thought was really cool. It was small, knitted, and flat and had a small bill. This was during World War II, and I had an aviator’s helmet that was made of leather, fleece-lined and with ear straps. Jackie liked my head gear as much as I liked his, so we traded at recess and lunch. We knew our folks wouldn’t let us trade permanently, so we just enjoyed the time at school.

About this time, I was introduced to racism and ignorance. One of my classmates pulled me aside and said that his mother told him I shouldn’t wear that boy’s hat because I might catch something. Even at eight years old, I knew that was a stupid thing to believe.

As I said, Jackie and I were friends in 3^rd grade. I’m not sure when he and his folks moved on. It must have been tough to not have another kid in town that looked like yourself.

Looking back, I can see that this time with Jackie made an important contribution to my education as a real person. That’s why I remember him.

Dave Thomas

10/5/2023