Paul Cardoza

From Palo Alto Wiki

Paul Cardoza was born in 1927 in Palo Alto and was a graduate of Palo Alto High School. He started in the travel business in 1965 and owns Stanford Sports Tours.

[edit] Memories

Cardoza's various memories were printed during the Palo Alto Centennial in 1994.

"I can remember I could walk from Middlefield Road all the way to the bay with almost no houses. There were some dairies and a couple of farms. Palo Alto didn't really start until north of Oregon for sure and that was sparse.

"I remember how friendly the police used to be. You knew them by name. There were two brothers named Hickey, and a big policeman that did the downtown named Tex. I lived near a creek that had willows growing in it. We built a raft one time and went floating down and the police came and got us.

"I sold papers on the streets of Palo Alto - the Call-Bulletin and the San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle. I sold papers in the morning at the California Avenue train station. I made a lot of money for the times. I made about $1.50 a morning and it went to $2.50 a day and that was a lot of money then. Milkshakes were a dime, movies were 15 cents.

"I remember in the heart of the Depression going to the store with a dime and getting a soup bone plus all the vegetables to make soup--stalks of celery, four carrots."