by Herman Branin
Photo: Ted Smith and Herman Branin 1944
In 1936 a group of boys who were interested in track and field got together and began attending the most important track meets of the season. Over the years boys came and went as it was a loosely knit bunch and for attendance a lot depended on who might have a car available. Numbers varied from three to eight. The core group in 1936 were Martin McCloy, Albert (Sam) Rich, Ralph Huntoon, Earl Branin and Herman Branin. The first three had graduated from high school. Over the years Mel Brockie, George Harriman, Van Harriman, Ralph Tiner, Ted Smith and Herb Moffitt might be with the group although Ted Smith after 1937 was most apt to be a regular and he was the one that named us the “Buffet For Lunch Bunch”. To go back to the beginning Sam Rich had a motor cycle and Ralph Huntoon rode behind him. Mart McCloy was eighteen and either had access to the family car or drove our car so my brother and I rode with him. I still see Ralph Huntoon at the Hemet Pioneer Picnic and Mart McCloy in Colorado near Jeanne’s home. All the others are deceased.
The track meets that we tried to make each year were within one hundred miles so we were usually within two hours of our destination. Number one was the Southern Section California Interscholastic Federation finals. This included all high schools in Southern California. There were three classifications-ABC-based on age, weight and height. Today there is only one class – Varsity. In the days of three classes only the A class went on to the state finals. With three classes there were lots of races.
The second meet of importance was the finals of the Junior Colleges (Now called community colleges) of Southern California. There were two conferences. The Western Conference was composed of schools in Western Los Angeles County, Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties. The Eastern Conference was composed of schools in Eastern Los Angeles County and Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino Counties.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association held its meet in June of each year. It alternated between east and west and when in the west between Northern and Southern California. Therefore, it only came to the coliseum in Los Angeles once every four years. This meet had the best athletes from all the colleges in the nation.
Another meet we attended on a regular basis was the Compton Invitational that had some of the best college athletes in the nation and was held at Compton Junior College in Compton, California.
We would get together whoever could go and make as many meets as we could. For lunch we would go to a grocery and buy milk, bread and packages of sliced ham. That way each of us had lunch for about 20 cents. We would set all the food on a car hood and each would make his own sandwich. Thus “The Buffet For Lunch Bunch”.
In June of 1937 Mart McCloy, Earl and I arranged to go to the NCAA meet at Berkeley, California. Our father’s parents, Ed and Olive Warner, had raised an orphan, Jesse Garcia. He was attending the University of California at Berkeley and his landlady would put us up for two nights. We started out early Thursday as it was 500 miles to Berkeley and we wanted to get there before nightfall. We took the highway to San Bernardino and then 395 into Cajon Pass. We then took the exit toward Lancaster. About three miles before Pear Blossom, which then was a town of a couple hundred people, the car quit. Mart and Earl said I would have to hitchhike to the first garage and get someone to tow us in. I got on the road and a woman in a pickup with a couple of kids stopped. I told her our problem and she said there was a garage in Pear Blossom and that she would take me there. She was picking up kids for Bible School and would stop every so often, honk her horn and a kid or two would appear out of the desert chaparral. I don’t think I ever saw a house. She let me out at the repair garage and I told the owner of the problem. He apparently had no jobs at the moment and was talking with a friend. We all got in an old Buick sedan and drove back to the car. While I was away a man had stopped at the car and diagnosed the problem as a frozen distributor shaft. The mechanic confirmed this, hooked up a towrope and pulled us to his shop. He had the repair completed in about an hour and stated that it would be twenty dollars with the tow and all. Mart immediately spoke up and said all of us together only had ten dollars. With a disgusted look the mechanic accepted our ten dollars and we were on our way. We arrived in Berkeley about dark, found Jesse at home and were put up for the night. We went to the meet Friday and Saturday and left for Hemet right after the meet ended. Mart drove all night and we arrived in Hemet about ten A. M. Sunday morning.
The last meet any of us attended together was the Fresno Relays in 1947. This was an annual meet with athletes mainly from the West with maybe five or six from the Midwest and East. Ted, Herb and I were attending San Diego State. Earl was living in Los Angeles with his wife and child. I had just bought a new car with money I had sent home from Europe during W. W. II. This was a one-day meet on a Saturday. We left San Diego Friday evening, picked up Earl in Los Angeles and continued on. About a hundred miles south of Fresno we got a motel and drove on to Fresno Saturday morning. Collie Kidwell, a Hemet High graduate, was attending University of the Pacific and had told Ted he would be in Fresno with Pacific’s team (although he wasn’t a track man) and what hotel he would be in. We found him there and arranged to meet him in the stadium. After the meet he said he could probably get us all in the team’s rooms at the hotel which he did although we all had to sleep on the floor. On Sunday we drove back to San Diego, the finale of “The Buffet For Lunch Bunch” after eleven years.