The People (Segment V)

The SLO church was at the far south quadrant of the Central California Conference. The pastors assigned the district were responsible for the King City  (occasional pastoral visits), Paso Robles, San Luis Obispo, Arroyo Grande, Santa Maria and Lompoc churches. It was therefore essential for the lay people, usually one of the elders, to share preaching and other pastoral activities. Elder Lester (Les) Melendy was the first pastor I remember. What I recall is that he had personally made a motor scooter that he used to ride from church to church.  He was a friendly man who became friends with my dad, often driving up to the water company sitting on his motor scooter, that I wanted to ride! but never did.  

Elmer Bracket was a long-time family friend. He worked as a laboratory technician in one of the area hospitals. He did not live in SLO but visited often.  He played the clarinet for church when he spent the weekend and was a licensed barber.  On various nights, several of the men, including Elder Melendy, would come to our house and Elmer would cut hair.  My dad learned to cut hair from watching Elmer shear the men and benefiting from Elmer’s hands-on instruction. 

The summer of 1957 Elmer and his wife lived in a San Francisco apartment.  That summer presented a dilemma: he was scheduled to keep Jim, his son.  What to do?  A thought of a solutions. At the conclusion of my sophomore high school year Elmer dropped by our Soquel house with an unusual opportunity:  He asked my Dad if “Larry” would be interested in spending the summer with Jim and the two of them attend Mohler’s Barber College where Elmer earned his barber’s license. Some of the same personnel were teaching at the college and would allow us to boys to enroll.  Why not? This venture introduced me to a life few witness. Mohler’s was in the middle of SF’s Skid Road. Our clients? The down and outs. The alcoholics. The druggies. The Shills. The Fences (those who sold stolen property.) And every now-and-again, an interesting, sane individual stopped in for a 50 cent, or Free, haircut and a 50 cent shave. Perhaps there will be occasion to share some of the summer experience.  I did not stay long enough to be a licensed barber, but I did make a few bucks cutting guys hair at MBA and PUC.  

Elder Clyde Bradley is the next pastor I remember. He baptized Daren Miller, Larry Richards and me on a Sabbath afternoon at the Santa Maria church. SLO church, by then meeting at the Orcutt Rd. property, had no baptistry.  Army barracks did not include such niceties as a baptismal tank. 

At some point, the SDA district of churches was dismantled and SLO was assigned its own pastor.  The names of those who came to minister to our congregation lie somewhere deep within my memory and resist resurrection.  The task of reconstruction a Whose Who of SLO pastors is hereby bestowed upon another.  

This concludes the Remember When? series.  There is more that might be said but enough is enough.  

I will not swear on our Family Bible that all of the above matters and events related in the series previous occurred exactly as stated. Memory is a fragile thing and easily made to fit what we want to have fit. What I can say is that to the best of my ability I eschewed fabricating events and as Mark Twain once said, “I told the truth, mostly.”  It is the mostlies (sic) that threaten ambush. Thank you, kind reader, for extending forgiveness when the mostly is not as most as it oughta be.  

Stay well and flee anything associated with virus.

—Larry Downing