Manuel Valverde at 96 is full of life and filled with happy memories of Manteca dating back to his childhood.

Valverde was among the 200 plus people attending Sunday’s Manteca Historical Society’s Annual Autumn Dinner at Chez Shari upstairs in the Manteca Golf Course Club House.

Valverde was born in the family home in 1922 in the 100 block of South Washington Street just south of Yosemite Avenue. He later attended and graduated from Manteca High School.

“We made our own toys,” Valverde said.  “We didn’t have much money so we made out own including a cut-off broom stick that we made into a spear and competed with friends in how far we could launch it through the air.”

Valverde sat with friends at the dinner Sunday and recalled going to get hamburgers with his young pals along with a milk shake chaser at the Manteca Creamery on Yosemite Avenue by the railroad tracks.  Hamburgers were 25 cents and the shakes were a dime.  The Creamery was across the street from the old historic railroad station that was demolished in the early ‘50s after a truck crashed through its walls.

Valverde had five brothers who all grew up with him in their Washington Street home.  One died at the age of 10 when a bone became lodged in his throat.  His dad Manual died at the young age of 43 in 1946 from a bout with pneumonia.  He added that the Manteca city limits when he was growing up ended near his home on Washington Street near Mikesell Avenue today. His best friend through his elementary and high school years was Richard Duran, he noted. 

Valverde and his buddies raised sunflowers and caught bull frogs in a nearby creek close to their home cooking them in empty coffee cans.  He liked basketball over other sports because of its fast pace.

He also remembers playing handball with his PE teacher, Coach Simmering.  One of the most exciting memories though was watching a woman pilot land her bi-plane in what is now the southside of the 500 block of East Yosemite Avenue that today includes residential homes and the Cabral Center including Sadie’s Salon. 

He said the woman aviator would set her plane down in that open field to the east of Manteca High. One time she narrowly missed a small market on Moffat Boulevard when she was taking off.  

For entertainment, he and his friends would frequent the El Rey Theater built in 1938 and see comedy shows on the silver screen. 

Valverde continues to be a Manteca High School football fan attending all the home games with his “Old Geezer” friends Bill Serena, Bill Moreno and Rocky Wilson.  At home he has the company of his cat “Blackie”.

Manuel’s favorite color is blue – that of the center rod on his walking stick, he said chuckling.

To contact Glenn Kahl, email gkahl@mantecabulletin.com.