Hollister
– Local resident Larry West might not have intended to wind up
in San Benito County, but now that he’s here, he’s more than happy
to call Hollister home.
Hollister – Local resident Larry West might not have intended to wind up in San Benito County, but now that he’s here, he’s more than happy to call Hollister home.
“This place seems just right for us,” he said.
West, 69, was born in Oklahoma but migrated west with his family when he was very small, seeking a new life on the coast and escape from drought in the Midwest.
“I’m what you call a California-Improved Okie,” he said.
West’s family eventually settled down in the Burbank area where he spent most of his youth. He finished high school when he was only 17 years old, and headed to Canada to work on a ranch for a year, which he describes as a unique experience.
“We had a friend who bought some land in British Columbia, and I was kind of a wild kid, so I just called him up,” said West. “And of course he wanted the help, so I just went.”
After his stint on the ranch, West decided to serve his country in the armed forces, and enlisted in the Navy because “they had the best food.”
“I signed up for what they call a ‘kiddie cruise,’ where you sign up the day before your 18th birthday and they let you out a day before your 21st birthday, because I didn’t want to spend four or five years in the service,” he said. “Honestly, I never left the states, never went to sea, and spent most of my time in San Diego.”
After he was released from the Navy, West spent a year in and around San Diego. He met a young girl named Linda, the daughter of a local restaurant owner who ran an eatery West frequented. The owner had fallen and injured herself and Linda had come down all the way from Stockton to help her mother run the restaurant.
“She wanted to go to airline school in Hollywood, where I was going,” said West. “We started dating and one thing led to another and here we are, we’ve been married for 43 years.”
West used his love of tools and machines to build a successful career as an equipment inspector first for a firm called FMC and then, when he and his wife moved to San Jose, for IBM, where he stayed for 26 years.
“The industry changed a lot in that time,” he said. “Everything became much quicker and more efficient.”
In 1993, West was able to retire from IBM and, with two grown daughters out of the house and starting families of their own, decided to look for a new home.
“We looked everywhere, Los Banos, Gilroy, Morgan Hill,” he said. “But Hollister was the place to be.”
Today, West does his best to keep busy. He is a frequent volunteer at the Community Pantry and is taking a class in Spanish.
“I exercise three times a week,” he said. “You can’t just do nothing, you’d go crazy or die. I love retirement, but I have to stay busy.”
If you would like to suggest a San Benito County resident for Local Stories call Danielle Smith at 831-637-5566 ext. 336 or e-mail [email protected]
