ED HOWARD – WEST OAKLAND STORIES (PART 2: Early Years, 5-12)
Friends,
I hope you enjoyed the first post our series detailing the life of Oakland original pioneer, film maker, engineer, TV producer, night club owner–just to name a few titles–Mr. Ed Howard.
Be sure to check out the West Oakland Stories short historical film, as well as the brief documentary “Between Black & White” detailing historical alliances between Greek & Black communities. Both videos are not to be missed (links below)!
Now more than ever, we need to put the No Negative Speak movement into practice to uplift the community.
In this segment, Mr. Howard in his own words shares fond, positive memories from his childhood:
“LOVE OAKLAND CALIFORNIA!
I know the things I experienced as a kid in Oakland would not have been possible in Waterproof, Louisiana. These years I believe shaped me and this is why I love Oakland California.
The things I did as a preteen kid were:
Boys club, Cub and Boy Scout, /Tribune paper boy, /School traffic sign holder and Sergeant, /Elementary school play actor, /Recreation center, play cards, shoot pool, ping-pong, / YMCA swimming, /School field trips,
Break down my bicycle, brakes, gears, chain, master link, adjust spokes, seat, handle bar, tires, inner-tube, tube patches, hot patch, gooseneck adjustments and hustle up on the tools you needed to fix your bike.
Also, I had to baby-sit my sister every Saturday starting at eight years old. (To this day I believe I would have played more sports like most of my friends if not for babysitting).
Shoot marbles, Holezy game, /Knock-it-leave-it-lay,/ Dodge ball,/ Follow the leader, /Made own flying kite out of newspaper, sticks, tree stems and glue made out of your mother’s flour and water, kite tail made out of rags tied in knots and hustle up on a few spools of string, /Made scooters out of milk wood boxes, two by fours, foot skates taken apart and nails, / Airplane construction kits.
One Sunday, somehow all the kids in the neighborhood knew that a box of toys was open behind a fence a few blocks away from our projects and I ran down and jumped the fence like all the other kids and got me an airplane construction kit.
This was on a Sunday and everything was closed. Back in that time hardly anyone worked on Sunday. You could say this was my first introduction to engineering.”
– Apollo Papafrangou
-Photo 1: Ed Howard & friends. Bayview Village Projects, 2151 Willow St., West Oakland. Circa 1947, ’48.
-Photo 2: Ed Howard; Ms. Ruth Beckford “The Dance Lady;” and Willie Rock.
© West Oakland Stories, 2020
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