Vallejo Vignettes – Antiaircraft weapons and basketball games

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How do you describe a life changing experience? Washington Park offered one to me and many other kids during World War II. Everyone’s life has a different story, but we all brought it with us to share at the park.

Vallejo had stepped into a different world. Around 40,000 people arrived in Vallejo and Mare Island to help with the war effort. Many of them were housed in military buildings, most of them gone today, and I think there wasn’t a room in any house in the city that was not rented to one of the new residents. 

Everybody was busy. My mother worked part-time and my father worked full-time as a policeman. Often I would go home after school and no one was there. My older sister came later or was at a friend’s house, so I would jump on my bike and go to Washington Park, which was a few blocks away from home. 

At the time, the military operated barrage balloons to defend ground targets against enemy aircrafts. The balloons were lifted into the air by steel cables that could go up to 200 feet (the cables intercepted low flying airplanes). Most parks in the city had one, and they were also placed in other locations. When you walked around Vallejo you could see them floating in the distance. 

But what drew me to the park wasn’t the barrage balloons. It was the games. When you entered the park, you entered your own domain, independent from your parents, but still protected, as GVRD staff and volunteers would keep an eye on the kids.

The first thing I did when I got to Washington Park was visit the GVRD office building, which was in Ohio St. They had boxes of equipment. One contained basketballs: old ones, new ones, dirty ones… I would always pick my favorite ball and go to the court, which had six baskets to choose from. My favorite was at the Northwest corner.

I would shoot the ball for hours and join others in games like Horse with guys like Bucky and Phil Abbott, Roy Welty, A.C. Hicks, Jerry Catron, the Mathews brothers Wes and Neil, and a host of others. 

The war brought in so many different kinds of people that each park had its own personality which reflected its neighborhood. At 8 years old, I developed deeper friendships with boys from my school and with others who went to different schools, and those friendships lasted a lifetime. Now I am 91 years old and there’s hardly anyone left, but we used to get together and tell each other stories of those days at the park.

Mr. Johnson, who was the head of GVRD, had an office not far from the park and he would make the rounds during the day. He, coach Sid Rich and other GVRD staff organized tournaments and activities during the summer. Every year they had Tacky Day Fair, an event with guest speakers, activities, clowns, balloons and food. A boy and a girl were chosen as King and Queen of the Park for the day. It was a wonderful time.

Washington Park was a great diversion at a time when life was quite different due to the war. The playgrounds were lifesavers for families because they had supervisors, so parents knew their kids were watched while they worked. 

For me it was one of the things that helped mold my future endeavors. I often drive by Washington Park to visit those memories.

— By Dan Horan