In the Sacramento summers of yesteryear, when both money and air conditioning were in equally scant supply, there was one time-honored way to beat the heat, at least when the Solons were playing at home.

Because gas at least was cheap, folks would drive around, with the radio tuned to Tony Koester as he described the game, until the seventh inning. Then it was time to find a space close to Edmonds Field and hustle up to the gates, which were unmanned at that point.

There were fans who never bought a ticket yet never missed a final out. Call it an urban tradition. A time-honored one.

But some people forget that time brings change.

Thus it was that as the Independent and Argumentative Fan to whom I am married and I were ducking out of Raley Field an inning early recently, we saw this sad-eyed couple, looking like a pair of penniless urchins gazing at a display in a bakery window, their way into the ball park barred by a still-guarded gate.

Said Jim Keating, a native son of Sacramento, as wife Muff stood by, “What’s wrong with these guys? It’s the eighth inning and they’re not letting people in yet!”

Poor Jim, still mired in the ‘60s when we’re already three years into another century. If anyone else happens to have the same notion, let him be forewarned. Times have changed. Definitely.

•      •      •

Somehow I’ve always found incredible the fascination which the British royal family — any royal family, for that matter — has for vast numbers of the American public.

Among younger Americans, at the moment, Prince William, who just turned 21, has emerged as the “most respected” member of the family. Respected for what, exactly? For not yet having become embroiled in any public scandal? Give me a break.

It seems to me that the only British royal in my lifetime who was deserving of much praise was the current queen’s father, who remained steadfastly visible during the German blitz.

But otherwise it appears to me the whole bloody bunch of them are parasites feeding off the body public and contributing nothing. Frankly, I don’t understand why the Brits keep supporting them in a style which they so little deserve.

Even more puzzling, of course, is why any American would find them respected. Or even respectable, for that matter.

•      •      •

You think that’s an old car you’re driving? Dave Grafft thinks you don’t know what an old car is unless you can remember headlight dimmer switches on the floor, ignition switches on the dashboard, heaters mounted on the inside of the fire wall and using hand signals to indicate left and right turns and the intention of stopping.

So many things have simply disappeared, Dave adds, like pant leg clips for bikes without chain guards, real bottles from soda machines or of milk delivered by milkmen, newsreels before a feature movie, collecting Green Stamps, ice trays with levers, wash tub wringers and Packards and Studebakers.

It’s so true, that old saying, “Out of sight, out of mind,” and how easy it is to forget that so many of those everyday items even existed.

I wish I knew whatever happened to my grandmother’s old cherry pitter. It’d be worth some bucks today — if anyone today could figure out what it was for.

On the other hand, it is surprising the number of ordinary items that remain unchanged from more than a century ago. When I need a pipe wrench, I use one that was among my granddad’s apprentice tools back in the 1880s. And I have a Yankee screwdriver so old my other grandfather must have bought it when they first came out — it has a solid wooden handle.

•      •      •

Every time politicians lack something to view with alarm, they invariably seem to fall back on the nicknames of school sports teams, most notably those relating to Native Americans.

But don’t other ethnicities also get offended? How about descendants of the early Californios who must endure University of San Francisco athletic teams known as the Dons.

Then there are the Saint Mary’s Gaels. It’s always struck me that some real Celts might be affronted by a line in that college’s fight song, “You are the roughest, toughest sons of Cain to ever hit the turf ?” Sons of Cain, the biblical murderer? Horrors!

The Sacramento River Cats’ Dave McCarty comes from Piedmont, that East Bay political enclave entirely surrounded by Oakland, sort of like Rome surrounds the Vatican. Dave’s Piedmont High teams were the Highlanders or Scots.

Would true Caledonians object if Dave were to sing, to the tune of “On Wisconsin!” the school song which starts, “We of Piedmont’s loyal Clansman, brave and hearty bunch; we eat boulders for our breakfast, gravel for our lunch?”

It seems to me that none of these names is used demeaningly and no offense should be taken.

•      •      •

I’ve been told that if you can find nothing else to close on, find a quotation from Mark Twain. Given the performance of late by so many of our public officials, how about this one:

“Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.”