About My Name
My first name and birth certificate read Ervin Bye Leonard.
Then my parents had a change of heart and were given another birth certificate a
short time later that read Paul Bert Leonard. Down the road a few short years,
I came to be known as Jackie Leonard, so this gave me a few aliases to work
with so, to end this, my social security registration reads Jackie Paul
Leonard. How did I get the name "Jackie"? I was a child who did not
like to stay home and help with the many chores that Mother had for us. This
one Saturday, at an early age, I had taken off to go to the movie at the Star
Theatre. At this time, Jackie Coogan was a popular star. Well, I was only five
or six years old and, coming home over the railroad tracks on Carbon Avenue after
all day at the movies, with my bib overalls and one strap undone, a shoe
missing, I looked like a neglected child. The family was out looking for me. When
they saw me walking down the street, they said I looked just like Jackie Coogan
and so the name stuck. Some called me "Jack in the Box". I was rather small for my age and, when I was supposed to
enter the first grade, they thought I was too small, so mother said:
"Jackie, wait 'till you're seven years old. From then on, I decided to be
as big as other kids and took the next path and that was to be the best I could
be.
THE ETHNIC NEIGHBORHOOD
I was raised in a very pleasant ethnic neighborhood. The
French families, the Italian and Greek families had a strong influence in my
life. We all looked forward to Greek Easter, with the roasting of two or three
lambs in their back yard, eating Greek cheese, pastries and the main course --
Greek dancing, music and their colorful dress. These years, with the variety of
families in our neighborhood had a strong influence on me to appreciate all
people and enjoy their life styles.
GROWING UP IN PRICE
Playing roughneck basketball by Uncle Abe's corral was very
close to mayhem. During the summer of the late 1930's, a few of us would take a
small herd of cows from the Pitts family. We would get ten cents a day to take
them south of town for the day and herd them back at evening for milking. I tried
my hand at thinning sugar beets between Price and Wellington. It paid ten cents
a row. I am sure the rows were one half mile long and, after a few days, I
decided this was not for me. I would sooner be home helping there. When growing
up, I shined shoes with Rex, Don, Reid and Eben Powell, my cousins. It was a
time when the depression had not quite ended. Rex Powell made me a shoe shine
box, so I could be with them. We would shine shoes on Main Street and go into
the Greek coffee houses. Shoe shines were ten cents. After making many rounds
and earning enough for a Saturday matinee ticket of five cents, we would go to
the Utah Cafe and order a large hamburger for ten cents, with a bowl of soup for
ten cents and have enough left over for candy at the movie. At that time, there
were Flash Gordon serials plus others that made you want to go each week. There
were the original "Our Gang" comedies, Laurel and Hardy, the Three
Stooges, etc..
