Alum Profile Wildcat Highlight Wildcats on the Move Link to Alumni and Parent Relations		Thomas C. Fleming 1932-34 Political Science In July 1932, Charles Baker, Ken Levy, and I made the trip up north to Chico to scout the layout before registering at Chico State College. The state colleges had not been defined as universities then, although they offered some graduate courses. When I grew up in Chico, there were eight of those schools located in the state, from San Diego up to Eureka. They were then two-year, teacher-training colleges called “normal schools.” In 1930, they were made into four-year liberal arts schools but remained heavily oriented towards education and the turning out of teachers. I had convinced both Ken and Charles that we would have a bed to sleep in since I knew that my grandmother would be glad to see me come back to further my education. Our only problem, I informed them, was how we could feed ourselves since Granny was then in her seventies and was receiving a very meager assistance from the state. When we arrived, we got a big welcome from Granny, who was very proud that I was going to college. I was twenty-four years old and had traveled all over the nation, but I saw no future as a cook. I took the guys around town and went to the municipal swimming pool, about a city block in length, located in Bidwell Park. The pool was created when I was a kid by building the One Mile Dam across the Big Chico Creek. Before that, it was just another swimming hole. There were many hot nights when several white boys, one Chinese boy, and I–our regular crowd–would go there and swim in the buff. Another place where you could swim was the Five Mile Dam, outside of town. It was a tourist attraction because right near the dam was the Hooker Oak, named after Sir Joseph Hooker, an English botanist. He had come through there–before I was born–and taken the tree’s measurements, and there was a sign identifying it as the largest oak tree in the world. In 1932, tuition was $10 a semester at all the state colleges, and an additional $2 a semester for student body fees, which admitted you to athletic events and other social activities. There was no cafeteria and only one dormitory–for women. I didn’t join the student body because I had to do everything I could to find work. I enrolled in twelve units and hoped to find means of earning money. I had one advantage in my favor: a lot of folks knew me from my adolescent years, which helped me in securing odd jobs like polishing floors, working in yards, and washing windows. One supermarket manager congratulated me on my return. He said that whenever a big supply truck arrived, he would give me and my companions a job unloading for fifty cents an hour. That was a lot. Ribs were twenty cents a pound; a loaf of bread, twelve cents; a pound of red beans, ten cents. The beans became a very steady diet. Once we ate beans for thirty days. On Sundays we had raisins and bread, and I would make a bread pudding. Then there were always fresh vegetables, some donated by people who had gardens at home, and some from my friend at the supermarket–frayed vegetables, but still unspoiled and edible. About 65 or 70 blacks were living in Chico at that time. I think most white people there were quite open-minded about race–more so than in the Bay Area–because any neighborhood you lived in, there would be nothing but whites all around you, and you became acquainted with everybody. They knew all about your family; you knew all about their family. Whatever gossip there was about the white families, we heard it, too. NEXT
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