Readers look back: “Number please?” and how did the Doman twins get away with that car?

Two members of the Ontario High School Class of 1956 have been thinking back on their lives during the 1950s.

Pat Jacobs McCrary notes:

The many changes since the 1950s include “the telephone, for example, going from picking up the receiver and getting an operator on the line asking “number please,” giving her the number and her connecting us to the party we wanted to call.

“Now there are cell phones everywhere. My son one day called me from Hawaii and I head the ocen lapping the beach from my home in Utah.

“The first time I saw a micro wave oven was at a demonstration in Blacker’s department store. At the time I wondered if I would ever have one and now I don’t think I could function without one.

“Miss Root, who taught us high school typing, would marvel at how her typing students have come through the years, now being able to use the computer without the hunt and peck system. These are just a few of the things we have been privileged to experience.”

Verl Doman remembers:

“Earl and I got our first car when we were still 14 years old so we could get home from ball practice. It was a 1937 Plymouth and we paid $25 cash for the full purchase price. Other than the fact that we could see the road through the floor board and that it featured four bald tires, it got us around pretty well. As I recall, it was sort of a novelty with the girls as Jerry (Doman) had a nice ‘49 Ford Victoria Hardtop, but more girls would pile into our clunker than in his hot wheels (in our dreams).

“The thing that amazes me when look back on that experience was that with those bald tires, the car was often left alongside the highway with a flat until we raked up a dollar or two to buy another used baldy and get it going again. The Oregon State Police had an office in Ontario and I cannot now imagine that they were not aware of who owned that car and that we were driving without licenses. I think they must have decided to look the other way, don’t you?”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Verl is almost certainly correct in his assumption. State Police Officer Bones had two sons in high school, Bob a year ahead of us and Dick a year behind. Officer Bones was always watching out for us, at least for me, or so I heard from my father. In the case of Verl and Earl (and no doubt Jerry) Officer Bones was also nurturing the success of the Ontario High School sports program.