Chico fifty years ago

Four Chico State alumni reminisce about the mid-1970s

By Ken Magri with Julie Grovhoug, Gail Patrice and Richard Biernacki

“Take care of your memories, for you cannot relive them.”  –Bob Dylan

About 50 years ago Chico was a sleepy agricultural town with plenty of farmers, a university and a population of 23,000 people if college was in session.

That’s the city I once lived in after moving up from Sacramento. It was January, 1975, and three of my old Rio Americano High School classmates were already attending Chico State. While we couldn’t have known it at the time, we all made successful careers in the visual arts and we all have fond memories of our time in Chico.

Many young people come to Chico for a year or more while attending the university, then move away and we rarely hear the stories of what inspired them. But 50 years ago something about this town inspired all four of us to follow our calling and head towards careers in the visual arts. Here is what each of us remembers from that era.

Chico in the Fall of 1973 by Julie Grovhoug-Coyle

 “I was young because I had skipped the second grade. I earned a scholarship to the San Francisco Art Institute, which I very much wanted to take advantage of, but my parents wouldn’t let me move to San Francisco for fear that I would become a hippie. 

After a short stint at the local community college, I decided to just work until moving to Chico to attend the university the following year. 

In Sacramento, I became the third woman store clerk ever employed by Tower Records, mainly because I could make artistic signs and hand-letter the white “leader” cards that separated record albums by the band name. I hand-lettered these for all of the Tower Stores until the company grew big enough to have them printed. 

While at Chico I lived at Whitney Hall and needed a job.  There was a Tower spinoff store called Jim’s Place at 341 Main Street, near the campus and just down from Canal Street Pizza.  It was a cool little store, with books, magazines, “head-shop” paraphernalia and records. 

Jim was friends with Russ Solomon who owned Tower Records. He borrowed some Tower inventory to open his store. But sadly, Jim passed away and the store was converted to a Tower store.  The friends I made while working there are still some of my closest friends to this day.

It was a few doors down from the dry cleaner, Vartkes H.“Vart” Vartebedian.  That sign always cracked me up. 

My friends and I often went out to see some of the excellent local jazz musicians like Jimmy Cox and Charlie Haynes. We were thrilled when LaSalle’s opened on Broadway.  Not only was it a favorite watering hole, but once guitarist Gabor Szabo played a rare concert at LaSalle’s, which was a highlight of my Chico musical memories. 

At Chico State I particularly loved the graphic arts classes. I created some of the concert posters for bands that played at the college, which included posters for Linda Ronstadt, and a local group called Makin’ Bacon.  Van Morrison, The Beach Boys, and Boz Scaggs all played at Chico State during that time.

Some of the albums that came out while I worked at Tower were “Frampton Comes Alive.” a college anthem for sure, Fleetwood Mac’s first album with Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham in the band, and Springsteen’s “Born To Run.” Such wonderful memories and a great start for an art student.

 After college I opened a commercial art studio in Marin County called Julie Coyle Art Associates, specializing in artwork for the hospitality industry. I feel very fortunate to have had the education I received at Chico State, and will always cherish my time there.”

Chico in 1973 and 1974 by Gail Patrice

My memories of  community college in Sacramento have completely disappeared, while Chico has many experiences that remain important to my becoming an adult.

I first lived with three other gals in a 2 bedroom apartment off Nord Avenue, and later in a different apartment, still on Nord Avenue. I was late to class too many times while waiting for a slow freight train to pass between where we lived and the campus.

My dad was happy I was in college and sent me a monthly check for $150. Rent for the 2 bedroom was $200, so my share was $50 per month. The remaining $100 was enough to get by on, and I never worked while in college.

That first semester I entered as a Sociology major, although I have no idea why. I got very interested in photography in high school, but felt I had no real talent in it. The CSUC art class was my favorite. My buddy and high school classmate Richard was in it. The class was fun, casual, easy, and helped me later decide on a career.

Other memories include the lush beautiful Chico State campus, going to Toad Hall (now called the Phoenix Building) and Italian Cottage, swimming at Bear Hole and Salmon Hole in Upper Bidwell Park, riding my bike and of course visiting Bidwell Mansion. It is so very sad about the recent fire that destroyed it.

One major event was attending a big party in a house on the outskirts of Chico during Pioneer Week. It was a wild bash and most of us partiers had to resort to walking across the street to an orchard to relieve ourselves.

My friend and roommate Jan had a sweet little 2-seater MG sports car and we used to shop for groceries or anything we could not manage on a bicycle.  We would sometimes take her car and spend the week up in the area, camping at Feather Falls, bringing our homework, cameras, film and a few joints.

About a week before my 2nd semester was over, we all went to a Beach Boys concert at the football field.

I only spent that one year at Chico State. After that time I moved to South Lake Tahoe, married, popped out a baby daughter and divorced within 3 years. I had to get a job and decided to pursue portrait photography as it was my only interest in a career.

I finally ventured out on my own by opening a studio, gpatrice@smugmug.com, specializing in weddings and children’s portraiture. It is a risky and expensive career choice but my time at Chico State helped me follow my heart. I have been a full-time photographer in Sacramento for 40-plus years.

Chico in 1975 and 1976 by Ken Magri

I transferred to Chico State as a photography major, but learning that photography was located in Industrial Arts, I mentioned needing to be in the Fine Arts division. The counselor said I had enough units to major in art history, so I switched majors. The first thing Mom said was, “What are you going to do with an art history degree?”

Students hung out at Canal Street Pizza on 118 Main Street. The sign on their roof was made of white letters on black. Someone would regularly climb up and black-out the letters “C” and “S,” so the sign read “_anal _treet.” Despite its popularity, that became Canal Street’s unofficial nickname.

My sculpture teacher was a cool Latvian in his 30s who owned a bar with his brother. Valdis and Uris Zarins filled that bar with their sculptures, so of course we hung out there too.

There weren’t many movie theaters in Chico back then. But on campus you could see foreign films on Tuesday nights and American classics on Fridays. My art history teacher, Dolores Mitchell, also ran a tiny downtown movie theater on weekends. She sold the tickets, made the popcorn and turned on the projector.

I lived on Broadway, near 11^th Street. There was a house with a six-feet high glistening cement wall around the perimeter. The old man who owned it could be seen with a bucket of mortar, regularly trowling glass or ceramic pieces onto its bumpy exterior.

One evening, I climbed that wall to see what was behind it and saw one, two, three more walls surrounding a simple white house with a front porch.

His name was Mr. Glade and he was from Germany. “We called him the mud dauber,” said Chico neighbor Kathy Squyres. “He was so nice and very funny.” David Hopper from the Orient and Flume glass shop often gave Mr. Glade broken glass for his walls, but they were not structurally sound and came down when the old man passed away.

There was a dry cleaner on Oroville Avenue, next to a health food store. The owner heard my last name and asked if I was related to the Magri boys who grew up here in the 1920s and 30s. “Yes,” I said, “Armando was my father.”

He then told me stories about Dad when he used his Harley-Davidson sidecar to run a motorcycle delivery service during the Depression. “Your pa would take a shortcut through the City Plaza, lifting his sidecar up over the cone-shaped barrier at one corner, then doing it again at the other,” he said.

Regarding that decision to switch college majors, it led to a 34-year college teaching career in art and art history in Sacramento. Thank goodness Chico State also taught me how to be a confident writer and I have enjoyed a journalism career for the last nine years.

Chico from 1973-1976 by Richard Biernacki

After bumming around and working crappy jobs, the underbelly approaching, I remember Dad saying he would support me if I wanted to go to college, but with tuition only, not too far away and only science or engineering.  Pop was an IBM man and Navy educated, but Mom studied art in Philadelphia.

The prospect of a big campus in a small rural town had me packing my Bug and heading to Chico. The drive up Highway 99, which I would make many times past open fields, orchards and very few towns, never ceased to be magical.

Burning rice fields in the fall, dodging rodents on the road, anticipating the next produce stand were to me that proverbial trip to grandmother’s house we go.  That small country town ethos gained space in my heart and mind.

I thought of Chico as some sleepy time forgotten hamlet surrounding a great academic castle holding court.  This was a time before cell phones and instant information. You could generally trust the Yellow Pages if the pages were all there.

My viewpoint was student-centric, never wandering far from campus. I rarely went past the Italian Cottage out on Skyway, with its four inches of peanut shells on the floor.  Nord Avenue Produce was the go-to place for fruits and veggies on the west edge of town, an open stand on a dirt lot with a canvas roof and a few refrigerators.

I always knew where the next kegger would be.  In those days a party was rated by how much furniture ended up in the yard!

As a Biology major with a foot in the Psychology Department, my heart was really in art. I was never without my sketch pad and briefcase full of charcoal sticks and fixative. I could sell an occasional portrait sketch while hunkered in Canal Street Pizza until they’d toss me out.  Money was tight but not as important as finding that sense of self fulfillment. 

But it wasn’t until I took a job at the university’s plant operations that my destiny started to form. I was on the moving crew with crusty locals who had nicknames like Chief, Old Okie and The Bear.

Campuses are like little cities that require myriad attention. Besides the obvious faculty office moves, we moved heavy equipment from Industrial Technology, artifacts from Archeology, cadaver cats from Biology and pigeon poop off the library entrance. We stripped the varnish off the basketball courts and peeled the paint from the locker rooms. 

It was at this time, as the old Chief said, that I learned how to work.  And it was true. I carried those words with me, later earning two Fine Art degrees at the University of Arizona and the San Francisco Art Institute, and having my paintings sold at the famous Vorpal Gallery. I eventually became the Chief Exhibition Technician for the Fine Art Museums of San Francisco. The old Chief would have been proud.

I owe the little town of Chico a great thanks, and while I can’t afford to live there these days, I’m not too far away, just up the hill in Westwood, looking down fondly and remembering.