Cecilia sure did think she was “hot” on wheels when the item in question arrived on Ronnie Way. The actual year escapes me but Grandpa and Grandma caused a Mattel Hot Wheels plastic tricycle to arrive and, at least Grandpa rued the day ever after.
It was a sway-backed affair with huge front wheel with pedals and small back wheels just like an ordinary trike. However, the rider sat low on the rear axle and their legs were at almost a 90 degree angle from their body. In essence you pushed to the front. When new, this contraption sported racing decals and streamers and was red-orange, yellow and black. It also had a small spring attached to one of the rear wheels that scraped the inside struts and clacked as it sprang back and forth. It sounded like a sick motor bike.
We have videos of Cece roaring in circles on the driveway at Ronnie Way back and forth, back and forth, round and round, round and round ad infinitum. Grandpa was also heard to mention not too soon after its inauguration, that he wished he had given that thing a lobotomy (taken off the noise maker). It was pretty loud and sometimes very annoying. Needless to say, Cece adored it! I can picture her and Dan going so fast on the turns that one of the back wheels would lift up off the ground. I believe they even made it roll over doing that stunt…a great feat!
As the years progressed and Cece graduated to “bigger kid” bikes, the Hot Wheels fell to Daniel who did a good job of racking up the mileage on it. Before it came into his possession, however, the much hoped for but never previously allowed “lobotomy” took place and I ripped the spring noise maker out of the rear wheel. Ahh, peace at last! In reality, the thing made a ton of noise on its own, the plastic wheels scrabbling over the joints in the concrete or small pebbles in the road at San Ardo. It was not a quiet toy. Both Dan and Cece had been able to make it “spin out”, getting the front wheel to turn madly before gripping the pavement and going forward. This made buckets of noise and was always accompanied by a huge grin from the rider.
I do not remember if this Hot Wheels ever lasted until Becca’s tenure. Somehow, I doubt it and I seem to remember a smaller, quieter, pink and yellow one with her on it (Grandpa had wised up!). Toys were built tough back then, but it was not made of steel! In its last days the front wheel (probably from all the “spinning out!”) wore through and looked more like a pulley with a valley in between the two side walls. There also definitely was a flat spot on the big tire near the end of its life and it would go roll, klunk, roll, klunk, making little forward progress, much to the annoyance of the driver and the glee of the watching adults. Payback? Whatever the fate that befell the Hot Wheels, never was a toy so depreciated and loved (except for Dan’s Raggedy Andy doll). It will always be fondly remembered by the daredevils in this family.
9-20-2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
The Legend of the Gravel Babies
In 1982, we had come back to Placerville from our year at Powell.
I was substitute teaching not having been smart enough to merely take a leave of absence. Also, my alcoholism was coming to a head and it was not a good time. One bright spot in those troubled days, though, was the coming to Somerset of the Lopez ladies.
Margie, Xochitl and Rosa came to live with us from Galt and stayed for about six months until they were able to move into our old house (that dad Coop now owned) on Adams Way. It was such fun having more little ones around and there were uproarious times, campfire hot dog roasts and Smore-making events. Many trips to swim at the Consumnes and general kid playing made the Sandridge Road place come alive.
The Gravel Babies were born, though, during the move from Galt to Somerset. We had rented a U-Haul truck in Placerville and I drove it down to Galt. We met my step-brother Mark Fischer there and he helped us load it up with all the household and kid stuff that Margie wanted to take back with her. It was a pretty full truck as I remember.
Driving back by way of Ione was no problem and we got to Sandridge Road and took some stuff into the house for immediate use. The vast majority of items were large and while not needed right away, would be later. I therefore backed the truck down to our barn at the lower end of the property and we unloaded it the rest of the way.
Our barn was situated a bit lower than the grade of the road, the floor being more the height of a loading dock. Therefore the truck was in a sort of swale. Starting up to get back to Placerville to return it proved problematical, however, since the back tires would only spin and not get traction. Looking back on it I think that long cheat-grass stalks made the traction slippery. The truck was light and the tires could just not get a good grip. Thoughts turned to getting the van with a chain to pull the truck when Dad Coop had a brainstorm. He quietly got the four children; Cece, Dan, Xochitl and Rosa (Becca being an infant was in Kate’s arms) to get gravel from the road and toss it under the rear dual wheels of the truck on the driver’s side. Back and forth and back and forth went the little work crew with fistfuls of gravel until it was deemed worth another attempt.
Voila! The truck just pulled right up to the road, the happy tires gripping the gravel much better than before. As the truck crested to the road, all of the kids erupted in spontaneous cheering and waving of arms. Dad Coop was so taken with this that he dubbed them the Gravel Babies and the legend was born. Later, Margie created little Gravel Baby T-shirts to commemorate the event. This elite cadre has remained very close over the years, special bonds being forged in their time spent together. Innumerable wacky and demented stunts have ensued. Even now, when the combined (insane) laughter of Cece, Xochitl, Rosa, Dan and Becca comes into my hearing, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up in fear of yet another of their nefarious doings being perpetrated on an unsuspecting victim…me!
9-14-2010
I was substitute teaching not having been smart enough to merely take a leave of absence. Also, my alcoholism was coming to a head and it was not a good time. One bright spot in those troubled days, though, was the coming to Somerset of the Lopez ladies.
Margie, Xochitl and Rosa came to live with us from Galt and stayed for about six months until they were able to move into our old house (that dad Coop now owned) on Adams Way. It was such fun having more little ones around and there were uproarious times, campfire hot dog roasts and Smore-making events. Many trips to swim at the Consumnes and general kid playing made the Sandridge Road place come alive.
The Gravel Babies were born, though, during the move from Galt to Somerset. We had rented a U-Haul truck in Placerville and I drove it down to Galt. We met my step-brother Mark Fischer there and he helped us load it up with all the household and kid stuff that Margie wanted to take back with her. It was a pretty full truck as I remember.
Driving back by way of Ione was no problem and we got to Sandridge Road and took some stuff into the house for immediate use. The vast majority of items were large and while not needed right away, would be later. I therefore backed the truck down to our barn at the lower end of the property and we unloaded it the rest of the way.
Our barn was situated a bit lower than the grade of the road, the floor being more the height of a loading dock. Therefore the truck was in a sort of swale. Starting up to get back to Placerville to return it proved problematical, however, since the back tires would only spin and not get traction. Looking back on it I think that long cheat-grass stalks made the traction slippery. The truck was light and the tires could just not get a good grip. Thoughts turned to getting the van with a chain to pull the truck when Dad Coop had a brainstorm. He quietly got the four children; Cece, Dan, Xochitl and Rosa (Becca being an infant was in Kate’s arms) to get gravel from the road and toss it under the rear dual wheels of the truck on the driver’s side. Back and forth and back and forth went the little work crew with fistfuls of gravel until it was deemed worth another attempt.
Voila! The truck just pulled right up to the road, the happy tires gripping the gravel much better than before. As the truck crested to the road, all of the kids erupted in spontaneous cheering and waving of arms. Dad Coop was so taken with this that he dubbed them the Gravel Babies and the legend was born. Later, Margie created little Gravel Baby T-shirts to commemorate the event. This elite cadre has remained very close over the years, special bonds being forged in their time spent together. Innumerable wacky and demented stunts have ensued. Even now, when the combined (insane) laughter of Cece, Xochitl, Rosa, Dan and Becca comes into my hearing, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up in fear of yet another of their nefarious doings being perpetrated on an unsuspecting victim…me!
9-14-2010
Hunting Antics in Plumas County
Over the years of our friendship, Hugh Riddell and I went many times to hunt in Plumas County. While game bagged was scarce (for me) many shooting contests were held and countless cans died at our hands. Miles and miles of Plumas County were scavenged and explored and artifacts by the score recovered and treasured. However, the trip most dear to my heart was in November of 1985, when almost five year old Daniel came along.
Hugh was like a kid with candy, or a grandfather with a new grandson. He was forever telling Dan crazy and untrue things about me and giving me a bad time. Both Hugh and Conrad Lahr, our friend and resident state water master there, taught Dan the fine art of pistol shooting…something they told him I had never learned. We roamed through Oldhouse Canyon and I have a wonderful picture of the three of them clowning in an old shack. Hugh took Dan in his truck and all I saw of him was a little face looking back at me laughing at how slow I was driving. In truth, Hugh was on his best behavior that day…a miracle.
We explored Walker Mine, a Mecca of memories for me. Dan delighted in the massive and rusty ore cars that had been pulled from the mine before the bore was forever closed with cement. He waded in the aqua blue–green waters that came out of the shaft, tainted with minerals from inside. We shot every pistol and rifle that we possessed and several old fifty-five gallon drums looked like colanders after our tender treatment. Dan, and all of us, had a blast. Conrad taught Dan the “Coyote Wave”, a combination of flapping one’s hands at one’s ears. This was allegedly to bring the coyotes close in to us. It worked just once, and I dropped one at an impossible distance…something I regret to this day; however proud I am at my marksmanship. Conrad and Hugh dismissed it as a lucky fluke and an old, decrepit, slow coyote. Dan found an old cow skull, not quite bleached clean and insisted on bringing it home, much to everyone’s olfactory distress.
Over the years Dan and Hugh have kept a warm relationship, much to my mistreatment. Those sunny late fall days, filled with wonder and friendship, reside warmly in my heart and memory.
9-15-2010
Hugh was like a kid with candy, or a grandfather with a new grandson. He was forever telling Dan crazy and untrue things about me and giving me a bad time. Both Hugh and Conrad Lahr, our friend and resident state water master there, taught Dan the fine art of pistol shooting…something they told him I had never learned. We roamed through Oldhouse Canyon and I have a wonderful picture of the three of them clowning in an old shack. Hugh took Dan in his truck and all I saw of him was a little face looking back at me laughing at how slow I was driving. In truth, Hugh was on his best behavior that day…a miracle.
We explored Walker Mine, a Mecca of memories for me. Dan delighted in the massive and rusty ore cars that had been pulled from the mine before the bore was forever closed with cement. He waded in the aqua blue–green waters that came out of the shaft, tainted with minerals from inside. We shot every pistol and rifle that we possessed and several old fifty-five gallon drums looked like colanders after our tender treatment. Dan, and all of us, had a blast. Conrad taught Dan the “Coyote Wave”, a combination of flapping one’s hands at one’s ears. This was allegedly to bring the coyotes close in to us. It worked just once, and I dropped one at an impossible distance…something I regret to this day; however proud I am at my marksmanship. Conrad and Hugh dismissed it as a lucky fluke and an old, decrepit, slow coyote. Dan found an old cow skull, not quite bleached clean and insisted on bringing it home, much to everyone’s olfactory distress.
Over the years Dan and Hugh have kept a warm relationship, much to my mistreatment. Those sunny late fall days, filled with wonder and friendship, reside warmly in my heart and memory.
9-15-2010
Circus Act ?
The most painful and exotic “on the edge” experience I have ever done happened when we lived in Davis, California. I do not remember the exact date but we lived there from 1984 until 1991. The location was the Slide Hill Park swimming pool in north-east Davis, a place we spent many, many summertime hours with our little ones.
Being an inveterate coward, I have always shunned the high diving boards at pools. Once, I think during childhood swimming lessons I had to jump off from one and that experience, I believe, has scarred me and forever since made me leery of the high dive. Happily, our kids were little fish in the water and loved swimming and performing acts of insane daring from the sides of the pool and even the low diving board.
Of course, it was Cecilia who broke the barrier of the high dive taboo, though Daniel and Rebecca later made heavy inroads into that arena. I do not know how many times I watched the little one-piece suited Cece climb the ladder to that dizzying height and hurl herself happily off into the water. I shuddered each time. I also shuddered each time she asked me to go off after her. “Come on, Poppa, its fun!” she would say and I would lamely claim some old war injury or exhaustion or some such excuse that we both knew was not true.
On this day of days, however, Cece’s repeated entreaties somehow broke through the barrier of common sense. Perhaps it was corroboration from my loving spouse, or Dan and Becca looking at me like I was a big chicken. Anyway, I said OK and with trembling knees, climbed the ladder to the top. I could not believe how high I was ! Oh My God! At least the water would be soft. (HA!) I positioned myself on the edge of the board after gaily waving to the clustered vultures (oops…I mean loving, cheering family) down below. Gulping a huge amount of air, I gracefully dove off the edge, knife-like, sharply aimed at the water below. Then it happened…panic set in. “That is going to hurt my head,” I thought, “It would be better to go in feet first.” So, in the middle of my dive, suspended between heaven and earth, I began to unwind and curl around to a straight up-down entry format…or so I thought. Gravity won the race. I hit in the middle of my twist, right on my stomach. That was a killer moment. Stars, bells, whistles blinked, rang and shrieked. Death was present, I thought. But no, pain won out and I knew I was alive. Breath returned slowly to my lungs.
Slowly, oh so slowly, squirming to the edge of the pool, I got out, arms wobbling with the effort. Expecting to be met with loving yet concerned looks and entreaties from my family, I looked over to see all of them doubled up with hilarious laughter at my act. Of such things fame is born, I guess. It must have been quite a show! Over the years I have been reminded of this daredevil act more than once but never, never, NEVER, will I recreate it again. Let my own children and their children be the next pseudo-Olympians!
9-15-2010
Being an inveterate coward, I have always shunned the high diving boards at pools. Once, I think during childhood swimming lessons I had to jump off from one and that experience, I believe, has scarred me and forever since made me leery of the high dive. Happily, our kids were little fish in the water and loved swimming and performing acts of insane daring from the sides of the pool and even the low diving board.
Of course, it was Cecilia who broke the barrier of the high dive taboo, though Daniel and Rebecca later made heavy inroads into that arena. I do not know how many times I watched the little one-piece suited Cece climb the ladder to that dizzying height and hurl herself happily off into the water. I shuddered each time. I also shuddered each time she asked me to go off after her. “Come on, Poppa, its fun!” she would say and I would lamely claim some old war injury or exhaustion or some such excuse that we both knew was not true.
On this day of days, however, Cece’s repeated entreaties somehow broke through the barrier of common sense. Perhaps it was corroboration from my loving spouse, or Dan and Becca looking at me like I was a big chicken. Anyway, I said OK and with trembling knees, climbed the ladder to the top. I could not believe how high I was ! Oh My God! At least the water would be soft. (HA!) I positioned myself on the edge of the board after gaily waving to the clustered vultures (oops…I mean loving, cheering family) down below. Gulping a huge amount of air, I gracefully dove off the edge, knife-like, sharply aimed at the water below. Then it happened…panic set in. “That is going to hurt my head,” I thought, “It would be better to go in feet first.” So, in the middle of my dive, suspended between heaven and earth, I began to unwind and curl around to a straight up-down entry format…or so I thought. Gravity won the race. I hit in the middle of my twist, right on my stomach. That was a killer moment. Stars, bells, whistles blinked, rang and shrieked. Death was present, I thought. But no, pain won out and I knew I was alive. Breath returned slowly to my lungs.
Slowly, oh so slowly, squirming to the edge of the pool, I got out, arms wobbling with the effort. Expecting to be met with loving yet concerned looks and entreaties from my family, I looked over to see all of them doubled up with hilarious laughter at my act. Of such things fame is born, I guess. It must have been quite a show! Over the years I have been reminded of this daredevil act more than once but never, never, NEVER, will I recreate it again. Let my own children and their children be the next pseudo-Olympians!
9-15-2010
La Rue Bellisimo
Starting this collection of reminiscences a mere seventeen days ago, all of the 22 stories thus far have been about the past, our adventures at Powell or when our children were little. This story is also about the past but the recent past…only six days ago, as I write. This story is partly a tale of the end result of all the years and experiences that have gone on before.
Last Thursday, September 10, 2010, we all gathered in Seattle (minus Dan unfortunately) to see Rebecca and Tom off on their Alaska honeymoon/cruise. Naturally it was appropriate to eat at La Rustica, the little Italian restaurant that is only a block from Cece and Rusty’s place in West Seattle. It also was the scene of Cece and Rusty’s wedding reception in July 2009. That is another story waiting to be told. Rounding out our party to eight people were Claire and Joey, Tom’s sister and brother-in-law. What a wonderful time we had in that noisy, crowded and snug café. We had a large table up on the raised level where the musicians had been for the wedding. As always, the food was scrumptious, but that is not the real focus of this writing.
As I sat at one end of the table with all these young people in my vision, I could not help but reflect on how beautiful and accomplished our girls are and how neat my new sons-in-law are too. I was filled with contentment and a real sense of accomplishment. This is not accomplishment for what I have done but rather for how blessed Kate’s and my life has been. It was so enjoyable to see all six of them laughing and having fun and really connecting in a youthful and familial way. I could see each of our girls as little ones and the motion picture that was going through my head was a never ending show of them as they were in many of these stories. I could see Cece with her 4H lamb, diving off the high dive at the Davis pool, snuggled in my lap in front of the fire on Adams Way. I saw Becca as the little steam engine in her car seat in San Ardo, dressed as a cow for Halloween in Yakima, wrestling with her pigs at the Wiley City fair. Pictures of Rusty as we first knew him; a lanky teenager with a souped up Chevy pick-up, surviving the many, many family get-togethers over the years, later as the wonder man that brought the Durant to Eugene. I saw Tom as we first met him while we were on the train in Chico, later making yummy scones in Mom Coop’s kitchen, installing a ceiling fan in our house in 25 minutes! It was a wonderful mélange of memories both past and present and much promise for the future.
Now these girls are grown young women. They are with the men they love and embracing the future. The path that began with their birth, and Dan’s, and which has carried them along with us through all these stories, is now forking. Cece and Becca’s paths are diverging a bit from ours, Kate’s and mine, as they begin their respective married lives. We are still twined and I pray always will be during our earthly existence with new richness from added extended families in Yakima and Chico. I hear my mother’s words to me as I left for Placerville, and my first teaching job in 1974: “Life is change and change is life,” and I smile.
9-14-2010
Last Thursday, September 10, 2010, we all gathered in Seattle (minus Dan unfortunately) to see Rebecca and Tom off on their Alaska honeymoon/cruise. Naturally it was appropriate to eat at La Rustica, the little Italian restaurant that is only a block from Cece and Rusty’s place in West Seattle. It also was the scene of Cece and Rusty’s wedding reception in July 2009. That is another story waiting to be told. Rounding out our party to eight people were Claire and Joey, Tom’s sister and brother-in-law. What a wonderful time we had in that noisy, crowded and snug café. We had a large table up on the raised level where the musicians had been for the wedding. As always, the food was scrumptious, but that is not the real focus of this writing.
As I sat at one end of the table with all these young people in my vision, I could not help but reflect on how beautiful and accomplished our girls are and how neat my new sons-in-law are too. I was filled with contentment and a real sense of accomplishment. This is not accomplishment for what I have done but rather for how blessed Kate’s and my life has been. It was so enjoyable to see all six of them laughing and having fun and really connecting in a youthful and familial way. I could see each of our girls as little ones and the motion picture that was going through my head was a never ending show of them as they were in many of these stories. I could see Cece with her 4H lamb, diving off the high dive at the Davis pool, snuggled in my lap in front of the fire on Adams Way. I saw Becca as the little steam engine in her car seat in San Ardo, dressed as a cow for Halloween in Yakima, wrestling with her pigs at the Wiley City fair. Pictures of Rusty as we first knew him; a lanky teenager with a souped up Chevy pick-up, surviving the many, many family get-togethers over the years, later as the wonder man that brought the Durant to Eugene. I saw Tom as we first met him while we were on the train in Chico, later making yummy scones in Mom Coop’s kitchen, installing a ceiling fan in our house in 25 minutes! It was a wonderful mélange of memories both past and present and much promise for the future.
Now these girls are grown young women. They are with the men they love and embracing the future. The path that began with their birth, and Dan’s, and which has carried them along with us through all these stories, is now forking. Cece and Becca’s paths are diverging a bit from ours, Kate’s and mine, as they begin their respective married lives. We are still twined and I pray always will be during our earthly existence with new richness from added extended families in Yakima and Chico. I hear my mother’s words to me as I left for Placerville, and my first teaching job in 1974: “Life is change and change is life,” and I smile.
9-14-2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
First Snow
We moved to Yakima in June of 1991. In the ensuing months we were settling into new jobs, new schools, our new home, etc. We also were setting up new doctors, dentists, etc. for all of us. It was a very busy and exciting time. By October, things had somewhat quieted down but one thing still needed to be done. We were referred to an allergist in Seattle for Cece’s allergy issues and we needed to go there and get set up.
Since it was easier at that time for me to take time off from work (it had to be on a work day) I drove with Cece over Snoqualmie Pass-our first time- to Seattle. That was a wonderful trip on a partly sunny Fall day with a weak sun. Seeing the old Milwaukee trestles for the first time truly whetted my appetite for later exploring and I think I bored poor Cece with more Milwaukee Road history than she wanted to know.
A funny scene at the allergist’s office added comic relief to what was to become a traumatic drive home. When Cece was being questioned by the doc about her family history and whether any members of her family had allergies before, I chimed in with “Not that I know of.” To other questions about heart conditions and diabetes and the like, I also filled in my knowledge of my family history. I remember Cece giving me sort of a funny look but did not think anything more about it. As we left Seattle, on the way home, Cece asked why it was necessary to give all my family history and I went into long detail about how heredity carries over, etc. etc. Then she asked, “Well, how does that really affect me?” I began to launch into a rehash of the previous reasoning, when WHAM…it hit me! My family history has ZILCH to do with hers! I must have looked pretty funny because she began to laugh and said, “Yeah!” We both began to laugh uproariously then at my blundering forgetfulness. Sheesh!
Such lightheartedness was soon forgotten, however, as we proceeded further east into the approaches of Snoqualmie Pass. Night fell and it grew DARK and then snow began to fall…and fall…and fall…and fall. New to the area, of course we had no tire chains. Soon we had what seemed to us to be a full scale blizzard on our hands. It was so dark going over the un-inhabited portions of the Pass that it was hard to see the road, but I could follow the tracks of few the vehicles ahead. Soon we began to see cars stopped and stranded by the sides of the road. I got behind a semi truck and used him for a snow plow; the only time I have enjoyed being behind a semi! After crossing the Pass, on the way down to Cle Elum and Ellensburg, the road was even darker and now the wind had picked up blowing snow sideways. It was almost too hard to see.
Both of us were worried, to say the least, and even considered stopping for the night in Ellensburg. We probably should have because by now the cold was taking over and the windshield wipers were icing up and refusing to take the snow and ice off the windshield. I stopped twice on the grade from Eburg to Yakima to clean off the wipers and I could only do so by banging them against the window. The second time I caught a glimpse of a little frightened face peering out at me from the passenger seat. THAT was a helpless feeling I remember to this day.
By the grace of God, we somehow finally saw the welcoming lights of Selah from the top of South Umptanum Ridge. The snow stopped and the accumulation on the road lessened but did not go away entirely. We had snow all the way home…which never looked so good I can tell you! Come to find out it had snowed at Yakima also and everyone was worried about us.
Since that time one other instance of my forgetting and giving my family history for Cece has occurred. Slow learner! We never went over Snoqualmie again without being prepared, though. That first time was lesson enough!
9-13-2010
Since it was easier at that time for me to take time off from work (it had to be on a work day) I drove with Cece over Snoqualmie Pass-our first time- to Seattle. That was a wonderful trip on a partly sunny Fall day with a weak sun. Seeing the old Milwaukee trestles for the first time truly whetted my appetite for later exploring and I think I bored poor Cece with more Milwaukee Road history than she wanted to know.
A funny scene at the allergist’s office added comic relief to what was to become a traumatic drive home. When Cece was being questioned by the doc about her family history and whether any members of her family had allergies before, I chimed in with “Not that I know of.” To other questions about heart conditions and diabetes and the like, I also filled in my knowledge of my family history. I remember Cece giving me sort of a funny look but did not think anything more about it. As we left Seattle, on the way home, Cece asked why it was necessary to give all my family history and I went into long detail about how heredity carries over, etc. etc. Then she asked, “Well, how does that really affect me?” I began to launch into a rehash of the previous reasoning, when WHAM…it hit me! My family history has ZILCH to do with hers! I must have looked pretty funny because she began to laugh and said, “Yeah!” We both began to laugh uproariously then at my blundering forgetfulness. Sheesh!
Such lightheartedness was soon forgotten, however, as we proceeded further east into the approaches of Snoqualmie Pass. Night fell and it grew DARK and then snow began to fall…and fall…and fall…and fall. New to the area, of course we had no tire chains. Soon we had what seemed to us to be a full scale blizzard on our hands. It was so dark going over the un-inhabited portions of the Pass that it was hard to see the road, but I could follow the tracks of few the vehicles ahead. Soon we began to see cars stopped and stranded by the sides of the road. I got behind a semi truck and used him for a snow plow; the only time I have enjoyed being behind a semi! After crossing the Pass, on the way down to Cle Elum and Ellensburg, the road was even darker and now the wind had picked up blowing snow sideways. It was almost too hard to see.
Both of us were worried, to say the least, and even considered stopping for the night in Ellensburg. We probably should have because by now the cold was taking over and the windshield wipers were icing up and refusing to take the snow and ice off the windshield. I stopped twice on the grade from Eburg to Yakima to clean off the wipers and I could only do so by banging them against the window. The second time I caught a glimpse of a little frightened face peering out at me from the passenger seat. THAT was a helpless feeling I remember to this day.
By the grace of God, we somehow finally saw the welcoming lights of Selah from the top of South Umptanum Ridge. The snow stopped and the accumulation on the road lessened but did not go away entirely. We had snow all the way home…which never looked so good I can tell you! Come to find out it had snowed at Yakima also and everyone was worried about us.
Since that time one other instance of my forgetting and giving my family history for Cece has occurred. Slow learner! We never went over Snoqualmie again without being prepared, though. That first time was lesson enough!
9-13-2010
Monday, September 13, 2010
Beverly
Late autumn sun was weakly warm on our backs as Dan and I got out of the car at Beverly, Washington. Driving the hour plus from Yakima had been routine and was there was no clue as to what a wonderful event this day would be for us. Memorable, as were the many railroad archeological treks we took, this one is one of the best in my memory.
We had scouted the sad and dilapidated town of Beverly. It is not much more than a motley collection of abandoned houses, tar-paper shacks, trailers in sad disrepair and mountains of refuse. Once a thriving crew change point on the Milwaukee Road, it now is nothing. This is poignantly manifest in the boarded up post office building covered with graffiti. We had seem the mammoth Beverly Bridge spanning the almost mile of the Columbia River. No more would that black hulk sway and rattle to the roar and screaming steel of diesels, boxcabs and long freights. The Road was dead and had been for 24 years by the time we got there in 2005. A quarter century had been hard on Beverly.
We skirted the town limits, hiking the quarter mile from there to the nearest bridge approach. Almost immediately the sand was littered with rusty objects: nails, spikes, tie plates, shattered and splintered remnants of railroad ties. There was a bent and broken signal that looked as if it could have been one of the four wind speed danger signal lights at each end of the bridge. The canyon of the Columbia there produced winds so strong that they could AND DID topple freight cars right off the bridge and into the river. When the lights flashed, trains stopped and did not cross.
Coming back towards town I mentioned to Dan that I bet the sand covered many, many date nails that had fallen out of railroad ties. Not too much further on, my eye caught sight of a strange tie remnant, no more than four inches long, laying against a sage brush. Turning it over,
My eyes beheld a date nail still imbedded into it with the date ’28. I was ecstatic! We walked the area that had been the rail yards and Dan climbed the only intact structure remaining…the brick base of the water tower. This relic of the steam era was in wonderful shape, though it’s inside cavity was filled with trash. Locating the site of the crew change station…in later years a simple boxcar and de-trucked heavyweight passenger coach, we pawed through rust and wreckage but found no other gems.
With the sun beginning to decline over the Saddle Mountains, steeper and harder to cross than even the Rockies for the railroad, we wended our way home. At Boylston, a huge black spidery steel bridge crosses Highway 90, to this day. It is a ghost though, the top open to the sky, devoid of ties and blocked off at both ends for safety.* That was our last view of the Milwaukee that day, the black shadow, disappearing into the gloaming. Night had come to the Milwaukee but that day, Dan and I were able to imagine and relive a bit of its glory days.
*Boylston Trestle was the scene of a later adventure in 2009, when Dan found yet another tie piece with a ’36 date nail. He also scared the
H___out of his father by climbing part of the trestle.
9-13-2010
We had scouted the sad and dilapidated town of Beverly. It is not much more than a motley collection of abandoned houses, tar-paper shacks, trailers in sad disrepair and mountains of refuse. Once a thriving crew change point on the Milwaukee Road, it now is nothing. This is poignantly manifest in the boarded up post office building covered with graffiti. We had seem the mammoth Beverly Bridge spanning the almost mile of the Columbia River. No more would that black hulk sway and rattle to the roar and screaming steel of diesels, boxcabs and long freights. The Road was dead and had been for 24 years by the time we got there in 2005. A quarter century had been hard on Beverly.
We skirted the town limits, hiking the quarter mile from there to the nearest bridge approach. Almost immediately the sand was littered with rusty objects: nails, spikes, tie plates, shattered and splintered remnants of railroad ties. There was a bent and broken signal that looked as if it could have been one of the four wind speed danger signal lights at each end of the bridge. The canyon of the Columbia there produced winds so strong that they could AND DID topple freight cars right off the bridge and into the river. When the lights flashed, trains stopped and did not cross.
Coming back towards town I mentioned to Dan that I bet the sand covered many, many date nails that had fallen out of railroad ties. Not too much further on, my eye caught sight of a strange tie remnant, no more than four inches long, laying against a sage brush. Turning it over,
My eyes beheld a date nail still imbedded into it with the date ’28. I was ecstatic! We walked the area that had been the rail yards and Dan climbed the only intact structure remaining…the brick base of the water tower. This relic of the steam era was in wonderful shape, though it’s inside cavity was filled with trash. Locating the site of the crew change station…in later years a simple boxcar and de-trucked heavyweight passenger coach, we pawed through rust and wreckage but found no other gems.
With the sun beginning to decline over the Saddle Mountains, steeper and harder to cross than even the Rockies for the railroad, we wended our way home. At Boylston, a huge black spidery steel bridge crosses Highway 90, to this day. It is a ghost though, the top open to the sky, devoid of ties and blocked off at both ends for safety.* That was our last view of the Milwaukee that day, the black shadow, disappearing into the gloaming. Night had come to the Milwaukee but that day, Dan and I were able to imagine and relive a bit of its glory days.
*Boylston Trestle was the scene of a later adventure in 2009, when Dan found yet another tie piece with a ’36 date nail. He also scared the
H___out of his father by climbing part of the trestle.
9-13-2010
Snoqualmie Pass
Exploring Washington’s back areas and historical sites was big on my list when we lived there. After Cece was in Seattle and Dan was in Montana, Becca was my exploro-companion. This memory centers around the time we “discovered” the old Milwaukee Road railroad bridges, high on Snoqualmie Pass.
With Kate in school, some weekends wore long and on this memorable one in May 1997, Becca, and Puppy, of course, came along with me to explore the realm of the old Milwaukee. We drove to Hyak and then over the pass to the Denny Creek off-ramp, towards the Lake Annette trailhead. Earlier, Kate and I had walked up from the parking lot for about a mile and had stumbled upon the old roadbed. It was a 75 foot wide graded path in the middle of the forest. I was obsessed with finding at least one of the four immense trestles that the Milwaukee had built in crossing the Cascades. I had been told that if you drove the forest service road from the trailhead, due west, you would come across a road that led to the Hansen Creek Trestle.
Becca and I bounced along the dirt road in our Honda. Thankfully it was smooth and soft, just a bit moist after an overnight shower. Going along for what seemed like forever, in actuality probably only two or three miles, we came to a sharp ninety degree turn to the left. Making this slowly, I yelled out load and I think I scared Becca royally. There, a hundred feet or more above us, framed in a carpet of verdant green fir trees loomed the ghostly black and rust-colored monolith. It was scary! Thoughts of a UFO, found in the forest or some such craziness crossed my mind. It was soooooo out of place! We got out on the spot, right in the middle of the road, and stood gaping at the huge structure, so stark and spindly. It was awe inspiring.
Parking the car in a turnout nearby, we climbed the bank to the left of the trestle. Puppy had a blast, sniffing and climbing and digging at rotting logs…moving so much faster and energetically that she ever did at home. Becca and I walked a ways along the roadbed and discovered a broken knuckle coupler abandoned in the weeds at the margin of the trestle approach. I lugged it with Puppy’s leash to the edge of the trestle and threw it off into the road below. Both of us were too scared to walk out on the seemingly way too narrow gravel roadbed.
After about an hour, walking along and scrounging a couple of railroad spikes as momentos, we climbed down the same path and I heaved the coupler into the trunk of the car. Puppy actually seemed reluctant to leave! Driving back to the freeway, we went to North Bend and had pizza…a sort of payback for Becca putting up with her rust-crazed dad.
Many times since I have hiked and explored the “Road” and the yard is filled with rusty artifacts to keep the coupler company. To me, however, that first time seeing Hansen Creek Trestle with Becca will be the most poignant and memorable. For years, we had plans that when puppy passed, we would bury her there beside the trestle. It never happened but perhaps her spirit does romp there in the twilight of a summer night. I like to think so.
9-13-2010
With Kate in school, some weekends wore long and on this memorable one in May 1997, Becca, and Puppy, of course, came along with me to explore the realm of the old Milwaukee. We drove to Hyak and then over the pass to the Denny Creek off-ramp, towards the Lake Annette trailhead. Earlier, Kate and I had walked up from the parking lot for about a mile and had stumbled upon the old roadbed. It was a 75 foot wide graded path in the middle of the forest. I was obsessed with finding at least one of the four immense trestles that the Milwaukee had built in crossing the Cascades. I had been told that if you drove the forest service road from the trailhead, due west, you would come across a road that led to the Hansen Creek Trestle.
Becca and I bounced along the dirt road in our Honda. Thankfully it was smooth and soft, just a bit moist after an overnight shower. Going along for what seemed like forever, in actuality probably only two or three miles, we came to a sharp ninety degree turn to the left. Making this slowly, I yelled out load and I think I scared Becca royally. There, a hundred feet or more above us, framed in a carpet of verdant green fir trees loomed the ghostly black and rust-colored monolith. It was scary! Thoughts of a UFO, found in the forest or some such craziness crossed my mind. It was soooooo out of place! We got out on the spot, right in the middle of the road, and stood gaping at the huge structure, so stark and spindly. It was awe inspiring.
Parking the car in a turnout nearby, we climbed the bank to the left of the trestle. Puppy had a blast, sniffing and climbing and digging at rotting logs…moving so much faster and energetically that she ever did at home. Becca and I walked a ways along the roadbed and discovered a broken knuckle coupler abandoned in the weeds at the margin of the trestle approach. I lugged it with Puppy’s leash to the edge of the trestle and threw it off into the road below. Both of us were too scared to walk out on the seemingly way too narrow gravel roadbed.
After about an hour, walking along and scrounging a couple of railroad spikes as momentos, we climbed down the same path and I heaved the coupler into the trunk of the car. Puppy actually seemed reluctant to leave! Driving back to the freeway, we went to North Bend and had pizza…a sort of payback for Becca putting up with her rust-crazed dad.
Many times since I have hiked and explored the “Road” and the yard is filled with rusty artifacts to keep the coupler company. To me, however, that first time seeing Hansen Creek Trestle with Becca will be the most poignant and memorable. For years, we had plans that when puppy passed, we would bury her there beside the trestle. It never happened but perhaps her spirit does romp there in the twilight of a summer night. I like to think so.
9-13-2010
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Nature Boy
Daniel has always been a very observant little sponge and information seemed to seep and collect into his every pore. He also has great visual acuity, seeing the patterns in things and the small details in life. Perhaps it is his “artist’s eye” that picks those up. His memory is like an elephant’s, I have found out to my chagrin on more than one occasion which shall not be recounted here.
The most incredible demonstration of his awareness was when he was four years old. Cece’s Brownie Troop had come to the UCD Raptor Center and all the girls had been ooohing and ahhing the various hawks, eagles, owls and other rescued birds of prey. Finally, we were gathered in the main exhibit building and the guide was lecturing and showing slides of various birds, asking what they were. At one flashcard, the audience was silent and no one seemed to know the answer. Suddenly, a little voice from the four year old boy in my arms broke the stillness: “Barn Owl.”
“Correct,” said the docent and then stopped cold when he realized just who had given the answer. His look of amazement was worth millions. He was incredulous, as were we, that Dan had known what to say. It seemed inconceivable that he had just blurted out the name of one owl at the correct moment. No doubt, at least to my thinking, his “artist’s eye” had picked out the subtle differences in plumage or body shape and he correlated it with the information he had absorbed on the tour. He brought down the house and was the hero of the day in our eyes for that one!
Dan still exhibits that all-seeing tendency. In his adult years, rock hound that he is, he has found beautiful agates and interesting rock samples everywhere, scouring the Yakima River and Oregon beaches. He has great radar for rust finds, much to the joy of his Dad, and his artistic eye has created many beautiful rock paths and areas in our gardens in Yakima and Eugene. He is still at it.
9-8-2010
The most incredible demonstration of his awareness was when he was four years old. Cece’s Brownie Troop had come to the UCD Raptor Center and all the girls had been ooohing and ahhing the various hawks, eagles, owls and other rescued birds of prey. Finally, we were gathered in the main exhibit building and the guide was lecturing and showing slides of various birds, asking what they were. At one flashcard, the audience was silent and no one seemed to know the answer. Suddenly, a little voice from the four year old boy in my arms broke the stillness: “Barn Owl.”
“Correct,” said the docent and then stopped cold when he realized just who had given the answer. His look of amazement was worth millions. He was incredulous, as were we, that Dan had known what to say. It seemed inconceivable that he had just blurted out the name of one owl at the correct moment. No doubt, at least to my thinking, his “artist’s eye” had picked out the subtle differences in plumage or body shape and he correlated it with the information he had absorbed on the tour. He brought down the house and was the hero of the day in our eyes for that one!
Dan still exhibits that all-seeing tendency. In his adult years, rock hound that he is, he has found beautiful agates and interesting rock samples everywhere, scouring the Yakima River and Oregon beaches. He has great radar for rust finds, much to the joy of his Dad, and his artistic eye has created many beautiful rock paths and areas in our gardens in Yakima and Eugene. He is still at it.
9-8-2010
Family legend #56,994: Retainer Park
Crossing the Columbia River at Biggs, on Highway 97, there is a large county park sandwiched between the road and the river. This is just as the Maryhill Grade begins to climb up toward Goldendale. I do not remember the official name of this park (Maryhill?) but our family knows it as “Retainer Park.” It was the scene of a near-miraculous event.
Coming up to interview in Yakima, in April of 1991, our gang stopped at the park to rest weary bods and stretch limbs. I think we even has a snack lunch there. Packing up, we continued on our way reaching Yakima without incident. On the way, however, nine year old Becca meekly stated, "I think I just did something bad." Asked as to what she meant, Becca admitted to not having her retainer with her. The last time anyone could remember it was when she took it out to eat for lunch. GULP! Was it still at Maryhill Park? We decided to give it up for lost and check the park on our return home a week later. Long odds were against our finding it.
Interviewing (successfully as it turns out) completed and the area scouted out as to schools, homes, etc.,we departed that Friday for a return to Davis. Pulling up to the park at Maryhill, we scouted around until we found the exact table we had eaten at. No retainer! Meanwhile, a park custodian was driving the huge tractor lawnmower around near to us drawing closer and closer. We decided that we were out of luck and the retainer was lost forever. Moving away, to escape the approaching mower, suddenly Dan (eyeball man !) spotted the cherished item, laying in a small dip between the asphalt pad of the table and the grass. It was merely five feet away from immolation under the approaching lawnmower blades! He scooped it up on the run and triumphantly deposited the item in the palm of the errant owner. It was truly a miracle that we even found it and also found it so shortly before it would be destroyed forever! In all the years since, we have called that park “Retainer Park” in honor of the miracle of 1991.
9-8-2010
Coming up to interview in Yakima, in April of 1991, our gang stopped at the park to rest weary bods and stretch limbs. I think we even has a snack lunch there. Packing up, we continued on our way reaching Yakima without incident. On the way, however, nine year old Becca meekly stated, "I think I just did something bad." Asked as to what she meant, Becca admitted to not having her retainer with her. The last time anyone could remember it was when she took it out to eat for lunch. GULP! Was it still at Maryhill Park? We decided to give it up for lost and check the park on our return home a week later. Long odds were against our finding it.
Interviewing (successfully as it turns out) completed and the area scouted out as to schools, homes, etc.,we departed that Friday for a return to Davis. Pulling up to the park at Maryhill, we scouted around until we found the exact table we had eaten at. No retainer! Meanwhile, a park custodian was driving the huge tractor lawnmower around near to us drawing closer and closer. We decided that we were out of luck and the retainer was lost forever. Moving away, to escape the approaching mower, suddenly Dan (eyeball man !) spotted the cherished item, laying in a small dip between the asphalt pad of the table and the grass. It was merely five feet away from immolation under the approaching lawnmower blades! He scooped it up on the run and triumphantly deposited the item in the palm of the errant owner. It was truly a miracle that we even found it and also found it so shortly before it would be destroyed forever! In all the years since, we have called that park “Retainer Park” in honor of the miracle of 1991.
9-8-2010
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
POWELL
When we moved to Powell, Idaho, we came lock, stock and barrel. We arrived also with a trunk load of preconceived notions and ideas of how rugged and rustic the place and the people would be. For myself, I had this romantic vision of a ranger as a logging jacketed, jodhpur clad figure in calf high laced caulks, topped, of course, with a Smokey the Bear Stetson. They would commandeer huge four wheel drive vehicles when not on horseback and lead pack strings of mules into the wilderness to aid stranded campers and hikers. I could see the ranger riding on horseback into the compound with a rifle and a deer or a quarter of elk across his saddle. On weekends, they would gather around the pot-bellied stove in the lodge or the main office and spit and chew and tell stories. Rugged housekeeping in crude cabins, with the barest of amenities was what I had conjured up.
NO WAY! We had a rude awakening watching tiny Honda Civics navigate snowy and icy roads without chains or studs, inveterate shoppers who incessantly cruised the Mall in Missoula and comfy mobile homes equipped with every electronic gadget available to modern man. Sports attire-clad denizens could be seen jogging at all hours of the day and night and I have never seen so many and so elaborate TV aerials and dishes. True, there were some old-fashioned aspects to the ranger district. There was a pack string and an honest-to-god blacksmith that was charged to keep the mules serviceable for trips into the Fish Lake wilderness area. My class spent a wonderful morning on a “field trip” watching him shoe the mules, creating shoes from bar iron on a forge and dipping the red-hot shoes into cold water with a huge sizzle. Pete Dean was a real six-gun toting cowboy cop, riding horse back into the back country to enforce regulations and limits. I did go elk hunting with my antique 1894 Winchester rifle…and got nothing! One morning I baked loaves of Tiger Bread and then hopped up on the roof of our mobile home to tar the seams and stop developing leaks. That was a real pioneer feeling.
The students and I cross country skied or snow shoed to school and many times we’d watch elk that would come down and feed on the lawn by the play areas. Our recesses could get a little LLOONNGG since we had over a million acres to play Hide and Seek in. Some mornings, after school had started for the day, I would get a call from Kate and watch at the window for Cece to arrive. Soon I’d see a little, parka-clad figure walking slowly down the side of the main compound road. As she got to the building she would see me in the window and beam a happy smile in my direction. Soon door would open and close slightly and there would be two little thumps as she kicked off her galoshes in the entry hall,/mud room. In she would come, shyly smiling because she loved to be at the school with the big kids.
There was no end of entertainment for little ones and big ones too. These Powell’ites were rugged and resourceful people and no one who lived 100 miles from the nearest real amenities could be anything but. They had a real sense of adventure and spirit. The Pine Cone Cuties was a women’s group that got together to have fun and go into town. The men were left babysitting then. There were many little ones in the families that lived at the ranger station and also the Idaho State Patrol officer a few miles down the road had a family with a little girl. Many times groups of kids got together with moms. There was so much to do: nature walks, playing by the river, watching the activity at the station as equipment came and went (Dan loved that), picking millions of dandelions in the spring, watching moose, elk and other wildlife, going up to the lodge, watching the blacksmithing and mules and horses at the corrals, regular kid play…the list is endless.
There were some very modern juxtaposed events there too. Our trailer was in a great location for excitement. Many times a little blur in plaid pants would head to the heliport at the sound of an incoming chopper. Dan loved to watch the helicopters come in to the Powell heliport during the early and late fire seasons. Jim Bougie and his huge front loader once pulled our Chevy van out of a ditch that we had inadvertently turned into. That huge Caterpillar monster plucked our large van out like it was a toothpick.
Memorable times were many. On the way to the Lodge we saw a pair of river otters playing in the Lochsa, chasing each other over rocks and through pools. One VERY cold, frosty November night, I remember getting up and scraping the ice off the inside of our dual paned bedroom window. The full moon gleamed mistily through the frost wraiths. From somewhere far away we heard wolves howling. Instinctively, I leapt back into bed to be safe and warm and I am convinced that Becca began that night. The winter was such a combination of sunny (-16 degree) days and cold weather that the icicles reached to the ground from the roof. We all had fun breaking them off and spearing them into snowdrifts. At Christmas, the school teacher masqueraded as Santa Claus. Our Christmas tree, that year (1981) was free. We found it only seventy five feet away from our front door. Talk about convenient!
Miraculous times happened as well. One day I lost my keys on the way home from the schoolhouse. Looking everywhere in both places, I was beside myself since I knew that Jim had scraped the roads very recently and if I had dropped them on the road I would never find them or if I did they would be a twisted mass of metal. After many prayers to St. Anthony, and following Kate’s suggestion that I look one more time along the route I had taken, I found them, intact and safe, at the base of an immense pie of snow that the front loader had scooped up. They were in plain sight on the ground and I do not know HOW they escaped being crushed, being a hundred yards from any place I had walked.
My superintendent, Mr. Eimers came to evaluate me in the Spring and after a 10 minute discussion and a glance around the room, asked where the best fishing was found on the Lochsa. I never saw him again. Not long after we had a going away party that was very heartfelt and poignant. Our gathered friends gave us a beautiful hand made quilt, a Powell Cookbook of favorite recipes and advice (both of which we still have to this day) and a Forest Service uniform shirt. The last was a joke on me for always complaining that being the only state worker on the compound, I did not have a uniform to match everyone else.
***********************************************************
HISTORICAL NOTE: Powell Ranger station, elev. 3441, was built in 1910, on a site that is recorded in the journals of Lewis and Clark. They camped there on Sept.14, 1805. Highway 12, which goes past the ranger station was in times past a Native American trail of great importance. The Nez Perce used it to go from their homes in Idaho to hunt buffalo in Montana. The Kootenai and Salish (Flathead) came from Montana and used it to access salmon fishing streams feeding the Columbia. Lochsa is a Nez Perce word meaning “rough water.”
(Once a school teacher, always a school teacher!)
NO WAY! We had a rude awakening watching tiny Honda Civics navigate snowy and icy roads without chains or studs, inveterate shoppers who incessantly cruised the Mall in Missoula and comfy mobile homes equipped with every electronic gadget available to modern man. Sports attire-clad denizens could be seen jogging at all hours of the day and night and I have never seen so many and so elaborate TV aerials and dishes. True, there were some old-fashioned aspects to the ranger district. There was a pack string and an honest-to-god blacksmith that was charged to keep the mules serviceable for trips into the Fish Lake wilderness area. My class spent a wonderful morning on a “field trip” watching him shoe the mules, creating shoes from bar iron on a forge and dipping the red-hot shoes into cold water with a huge sizzle. Pete Dean was a real six-gun toting cowboy cop, riding horse back into the back country to enforce regulations and limits. I did go elk hunting with my antique 1894 Winchester rifle…and got nothing! One morning I baked loaves of Tiger Bread and then hopped up on the roof of our mobile home to tar the seams and stop developing leaks. That was a real pioneer feeling.
The students and I cross country skied or snow shoed to school and many times we’d watch elk that would come down and feed on the lawn by the play areas. Our recesses could get a little LLOONNGG since we had over a million acres to play Hide and Seek in. Some mornings, after school had started for the day, I would get a call from Kate and watch at the window for Cece to arrive. Soon I’d see a little, parka-clad figure walking slowly down the side of the main compound road. As she got to the building she would see me in the window and beam a happy smile in my direction. Soon door would open and close slightly and there would be two little thumps as she kicked off her galoshes in the entry hall,/mud room. In she would come, shyly smiling because she loved to be at the school with the big kids.
There was no end of entertainment for little ones and big ones too. These Powell’ites were rugged and resourceful people and no one who lived 100 miles from the nearest real amenities could be anything but. They had a real sense of adventure and spirit. The Pine Cone Cuties was a women’s group that got together to have fun and go into town. The men were left babysitting then. There were many little ones in the families that lived at the ranger station and also the Idaho State Patrol officer a few miles down the road had a family with a little girl. Many times groups of kids got together with moms. There was so much to do: nature walks, playing by the river, watching the activity at the station as equipment came and went (Dan loved that), picking millions of dandelions in the spring, watching moose, elk and other wildlife, going up to the lodge, watching the blacksmithing and mules and horses at the corrals, regular kid play…the list is endless.
There were some very modern juxtaposed events there too. Our trailer was in a great location for excitement. Many times a little blur in plaid pants would head to the heliport at the sound of an incoming chopper. Dan loved to watch the helicopters come in to the Powell heliport during the early and late fire seasons. Jim Bougie and his huge front loader once pulled our Chevy van out of a ditch that we had inadvertently turned into. That huge Caterpillar monster plucked our large van out like it was a toothpick.
Memorable times were many. On the way to the Lodge we saw a pair of river otters playing in the Lochsa, chasing each other over rocks and through pools. One VERY cold, frosty November night, I remember getting up and scraping the ice off the inside of our dual paned bedroom window. The full moon gleamed mistily through the frost wraiths. From somewhere far away we heard wolves howling. Instinctively, I leapt back into bed to be safe and warm and I am convinced that Becca began that night. The winter was such a combination of sunny (-16 degree) days and cold weather that the icicles reached to the ground from the roof. We all had fun breaking them off and spearing them into snowdrifts. At Christmas, the school teacher masqueraded as Santa Claus. Our Christmas tree, that year (1981) was free. We found it only seventy five feet away from our front door. Talk about convenient!
Miraculous times happened as well. One day I lost my keys on the way home from the schoolhouse. Looking everywhere in both places, I was beside myself since I knew that Jim had scraped the roads very recently and if I had dropped them on the road I would never find them or if I did they would be a twisted mass of metal. After many prayers to St. Anthony, and following Kate’s suggestion that I look one more time along the route I had taken, I found them, intact and safe, at the base of an immense pie of snow that the front loader had scooped up. They were in plain sight on the ground and I do not know HOW they escaped being crushed, being a hundred yards from any place I had walked.
My superintendent, Mr. Eimers came to evaluate me in the Spring and after a 10 minute discussion and a glance around the room, asked where the best fishing was found on the Lochsa. I never saw him again. Not long after we had a going away party that was very heartfelt and poignant. Our gathered friends gave us a beautiful hand made quilt, a Powell Cookbook of favorite recipes and advice (both of which we still have to this day) and a Forest Service uniform shirt. The last was a joke on me for always complaining that being the only state worker on the compound, I did not have a uniform to match everyone else.
***********************************************************
HISTORICAL NOTE: Powell Ranger station, elev. 3441, was built in 1910, on a site that is recorded in the journals of Lewis and Clark. They camped there on Sept.14, 1805. Highway 12, which goes past the ranger station was in times past a Native American trail of great importance. The Nez Perce used it to go from their homes in Idaho to hunt buffalo in Montana. The Kootenai and Salish (Flathead) came from Montana and used it to access salmon fishing streams feeding the Columbia. Lochsa is a Nez Perce word meaning “rough water.”
(Once a school teacher, always a school teacher!)
Consumnes River Daze
Our house on Sandridge Road held many pleasant aspects to our little ones growing up. The vineyard of munchable grapes, a terraced lawn that a howling father could be pushed down in the red wagon, Cece’s play forts, Winnie the Pooh’s house, the old, rusty 1934 Chevy truck (sorry, Grandpa, had to get that in!). One of the biggest draws, however, was swimming down on the Consumnes River.
The trek to the swimming spot was about four miles long, down the canyon on a somewhat precipitous road, that I was told was an old stagecoach route to Placerville from Grizzly Flat. Our old van hit every pothole and bump in that road, I am sure. There was even a spot that had to be filled in and shored up occasionally where a slide had narrowed the road to almost impassibility. Getting there was just the beginning of the excitement. The river, at the point where the road crossed in a ford, was shallow and swift which is why it had been chosen as a bridge-less crossing in the old days.
A back eddy had created a nice pool and sandy beach that was ideal for our intentions. Cece, in her svelt blue swimsuit-clad figure and Dan in his roto shape and red swim trunks would frolic happily in the sand and wade in the pool defying the Summer heat. Xochitl came down with us when she visited and we floated scrap-wood boats into the current, letting them go and wondering if they would float all the way down to her home in Galt. Later, when we came back from Idaho, Becca made her debut at the swimmin’ hole in soakers and diapers and splashed little fudgy legs and arms in the cool water. After the Lopez ladies came to live at Sandridge, all of them and all of us filled the van to overflowing but made it down and back in style. Rosa kept pushing the limits of the “don’t go past” boundry, eagerly and bravely wanting to savor new territory.
Dan had near death experience once when his little feet went out from under him and he slipped under the waters of the shallow “wading” pool. Luckily, I was a step away and could simply reach under the water and lift him back up. He neither spluttered nor cried, but quickly went back to his serious mud daubing pursuits. He seemed nonplussed and it did not deter him from future visits. All-in-all, my memories of the river are warm, golden ones full of laughter and fun.
9-10-2010
Gardens, Then and Now
I am watching my wife out the window and as I write she is humming and busy in the garden. So much of our life together has had a garden involved. One of my first pre-marriage, memories of her is in the back yard of Ronnie Way, red bandana around her hair, cultivating the rock-hard ground in the back for a small garden. Millet’s famous painting, “The Woman With The Rake” would aptly fit the description.
On Sandridge Road, our garden was huge! Long bountiful rows of corn and beans, squash plants and tomato plans by the tens were loaded with goodies. The soil was so perfect, sandy, rich loam. Rototilling it into a fine powder was a snap and one of Dan’s and Cece’s favorite rides was on the handles of our big Sears tiller. Later, while I watered the trenches between the corn both of them would love to play hide and seek, back and forth, in and out. The eight foot high deer fence did NOTHING to keep them out and we often saw them from our wndow, jumping over it as if it was a joke.
Yakima, too, was very fertile and we had big gardens over on the east side of the house. One year we grew a whole ten foot square of sunflowers in a rectangle, gathering them up at the top and making a sunflower house. Twining morning glories that grew naturally, made it a colorful structure. Becca loved to go in there and considered it an impromptu playhouse. We had many (too many?) tomato plants and the kids were great at gathering and executing the tomato horn worms that would eventually show up (we did not spray). Boy, the chickens LOVED the hornworms…we had learned that from our little plot in the back yard on K Street in Davis.
Going back, out of order to Davis, the years we lived on L Street, we had a bionic garden, the result of rabbit poo brought over from the University animal area. (We always wondered if the miraculous qualities of that poo did not come from the rabbits being housed near the ill –fated nuclear beagle experiment. ) There are pictures of our children dwarfed by beans and corn and we grew immense pumpkins, one being large enough (a picture exists to prove this) that Dan could, and DID, get inside.
So now watching Kate in the garden, little suburban spot that it is, I am reminded of our larger, rural gardens and the fun we had with our kids, as they and the veges grew up together.
9-11-2010
The trek to the swimming spot was about four miles long, down the canyon on a somewhat precipitous road, that I was told was an old stagecoach route to Placerville from Grizzly Flat. Our old van hit every pothole and bump in that road, I am sure. There was even a spot that had to be filled in and shored up occasionally where a slide had narrowed the road to almost impassibility. Getting there was just the beginning of the excitement. The river, at the point where the road crossed in a ford, was shallow and swift which is why it had been chosen as a bridge-less crossing in the old days.
A back eddy had created a nice pool and sandy beach that was ideal for our intentions. Cece, in her svelt blue swimsuit-clad figure and Dan in his roto shape and red swim trunks would frolic happily in the sand and wade in the pool defying the Summer heat. Xochitl came down with us when she visited and we floated scrap-wood boats into the current, letting them go and wondering if they would float all the way down to her home in Galt. Later, when we came back from Idaho, Becca made her debut at the swimmin’ hole in soakers and diapers and splashed little fudgy legs and arms in the cool water. After the Lopez ladies came to live at Sandridge, all of them and all of us filled the van to overflowing but made it down and back in style. Rosa kept pushing the limits of the “don’t go past” boundry, eagerly and bravely wanting to savor new territory.
Dan had near death experience once when his little feet went out from under him and he slipped under the waters of the shallow “wading” pool. Luckily, I was a step away and could simply reach under the water and lift him back up. He neither spluttered nor cried, but quickly went back to his serious mud daubing pursuits. He seemed nonplussed and it did not deter him from future visits. All-in-all, my memories of the river are warm, golden ones full of laughter and fun.
9-10-2010
Gardens, Then and Now
I am watching my wife out the window and as I write she is humming and busy in the garden. So much of our life together has had a garden involved. One of my first pre-marriage, memories of her is in the back yard of Ronnie Way, red bandana around her hair, cultivating the rock-hard ground in the back for a small garden. Millet’s famous painting, “The Woman With The Rake” would aptly fit the description.
On Sandridge Road, our garden was huge! Long bountiful rows of corn and beans, squash plants and tomato plans by the tens were loaded with goodies. The soil was so perfect, sandy, rich loam. Rototilling it into a fine powder was a snap and one of Dan’s and Cece’s favorite rides was on the handles of our big Sears tiller. Later, while I watered the trenches between the corn both of them would love to play hide and seek, back and forth, in and out. The eight foot high deer fence did NOTHING to keep them out and we often saw them from our wndow, jumping over it as if it was a joke.
Yakima, too, was very fertile and we had big gardens over on the east side of the house. One year we grew a whole ten foot square of sunflowers in a rectangle, gathering them up at the top and making a sunflower house. Twining morning glories that grew naturally, made it a colorful structure. Becca loved to go in there and considered it an impromptu playhouse. We had many (too many?) tomato plants and the kids were great at gathering and executing the tomato horn worms that would eventually show up (we did not spray). Boy, the chickens LOVED the hornworms…we had learned that from our little plot in the back yard on K Street in Davis.
Going back, out of order to Davis, the years we lived on L Street, we had a bionic garden, the result of rabbit poo brought over from the University animal area. (We always wondered if the miraculous qualities of that poo did not come from the rabbits being housed near the ill –fated nuclear beagle experiment. ) There are pictures of our children dwarfed by beans and corn and we grew immense pumpkins, one being large enough (a picture exists to prove this) that Dan could, and DID, get inside.
So now watching Kate in the garden, little suburban spot that it is, I am reminded of our larger, rural gardens and the fun we had with our kids, as they and the veges grew up together.
9-11-2010
Consumnes River Daze
Our house on Sandridge Road held many pleasant aspects to our little ones growing up. The vineyard of munchable grapes, a terraced lawn that a howling father could be pushed down in the red wagon, Cece’s play forts, Winnie the Pooh’s house, the old, rusty 1934 Chevy truck (sorry, Grandpa, had to get that in!). One of the biggest draws, however, was swimming down on the Consumnes River.
The trek to the swimming spot was about four miles long, down the canyon on a somewhat precipitous road, that I was told was an old stagecoach route to Placerville from Grizzly Flat. Our old van hit every pothole and bump in that road, I am sure. There was even a spot that had to be filled in and shored up occasionally where a slide had narrowed the road to almost impassibility. Getting there was just the beginning of the excitement. The river, at the point where the road crossed in a ford, was shallow and swift which is why it had been chosen as a bridge-less crossing in the old days.
A back eddy had created a nice pool and sandy beach that was ideal for our intentions. Cece, in her svelt blue swimsuit-clad figure and Dan in his roto shape and red swim trunks would frolic happily in the sand and wade in the pool defying the Summer heat. Xochitl came down with us when she visited and we floated scrap-wood boats into the current, letting them go and wondering if they would float all the way down to her home in Galt. Later, when we came back from Idaho, Becca made her debut at the swimmin’ hole in soakers and diapers and splashed little fudgy legs and arms in the cool water. After the Lopez ladies came to live at Sandridge, all of them and all of us filled the van to overflowing but made it down and back in style. Rosa kept pushing the limits of the “don’t go past” boundry, eagerly and bravely wanting to savor new territory.
Dan had near death experience once when his little feet went out from under him and he slipped under the waters of the shallow “wading” pool. Luckily, I was a step away and could simply reach under the water and lift him back up. He neither spluttered nor cried, but quickly went back to his serious mud daubing pursuits. He seemed nonplussed and it did not deter him from future visits. All-in-all, my memories of the river are warm, golden ones full of laughter and fun.
9-10-2010
Gardens, Then and Now
I am watching my wife out the window and as I write she is humming and busy in the garden. So much of our life together has had a garden involved. One of my first pre-marriage, memories of her is in the back yard of Ronnie Way, red bandana around her hair, cultivating the rock-hard ground in the back for a small garden. Millet’s famous painting, “The Woman With The Rake” would aptly fit the description.
On Sandridge Road, our garden was huge! Long bountiful rows of corn and beans, squash plants and tomato plans by the tens were loaded with goodies. The soil was so perfect, sandy, rich loam. Rototilling it into a fine powder was a snap and one of Dan’s and Cece’s favorite rides was on the handles of our big Sears tiller. Later, while I watered the trenches between the corn both of them would love to play hide and seek, back and forth, in and out. The eight foot high deer fence did NOTHING to keep them out and we often saw them from our wndow, jumping over it as if it was a joke.
Yakima, too, was very fertile and we had big gardens over on the east side of the house. One year we grew a whole ten foot square of sunflowers in a rectangle, gathering them up at the top and making a sunflower house. Twining morning glories that grew naturally, made it a colorful structure. Becca loved to go in there and considered it an impromptu playhouse. We had many (too many?) tomato plants and the kids were great at gathering and executing the tomato horn worms that would eventually show up (we did not spray). Boy, the chickens LOVED the hornworms…we had learned that from our little plot in the back yard on K Street in Davis.
Going back, out of order to Davis, the years we lived on L Street, we had a bionic garden, the result of rabbit poo brought over from the University animal area. (We always wondered if the miraculous qualities of that poo did not come from the rabbits being housed near the ill –fated nuclear beagle experiment. ) There are pictures of our children dwarfed by beans and corn and we grew immense pumpkins, one being large enough (a picture exists to prove this) that Dan could, and DID, get inside.
So now watching Kate in the garden, little suburban spot that it is, I am reminded of our larger, rural gardens and the fun we had with our kids, as they and the veges grew up together.
9-11-2010
Our house on Sandridge Road held many pleasant aspects to our little ones growing up. The vineyard of munchable grapes, a terraced lawn that a howling father could be pushed down in the red wagon, Cece’s play forts, Winnie the Pooh’s house, the old, rusty 1934 Chevy truck (sorry, Grandpa, had to get that in!). One of the biggest draws, however, was swimming down on the Consumnes River.
The trek to the swimming spot was about four miles long, down the canyon on a somewhat precipitous road, that I was told was an old stagecoach route to Placerville from Grizzly Flat. Our old van hit every pothole and bump in that road, I am sure. There was even a spot that had to be filled in and shored up occasionally where a slide had narrowed the road to almost impassibility. Getting there was just the beginning of the excitement. The river, at the point where the road crossed in a ford, was shallow and swift which is why it had been chosen as a bridge-less crossing in the old days.
A back eddy had created a nice pool and sandy beach that was ideal for our intentions. Cece, in her svelt blue swimsuit-clad figure and Dan in his roto shape and red swim trunks would frolic happily in the sand and wade in the pool defying the Summer heat. Xochitl came down with us when she visited and we floated scrap-wood boats into the current, letting them go and wondering if they would float all the way down to her home in Galt. Later, when we came back from Idaho, Becca made her debut at the swimmin’ hole in soakers and diapers and splashed little fudgy legs and arms in the cool water. After the Lopez ladies came to live at Sandridge, all of them and all of us filled the van to overflowing but made it down and back in style. Rosa kept pushing the limits of the “don’t go past” boundry, eagerly and bravely wanting to savor new territory.
Dan had near death experience once when his little feet went out from under him and he slipped under the waters of the shallow “wading” pool. Luckily, I was a step away and could simply reach under the water and lift him back up. He neither spluttered nor cried, but quickly went back to his serious mud daubing pursuits. He seemed nonplussed and it did not deter him from future visits. All-in-all, my memories of the river are warm, golden ones full of laughter and fun.
9-10-2010
Gardens, Then and Now
I am watching my wife out the window and as I write she is humming and busy in the garden. So much of our life together has had a garden involved. One of my first pre-marriage, memories of her is in the back yard of Ronnie Way, red bandana around her hair, cultivating the rock-hard ground in the back for a small garden. Millet’s famous painting, “The Woman With The Rake” would aptly fit the description.
On Sandridge Road, our garden was huge! Long bountiful rows of corn and beans, squash plants and tomato plans by the tens were loaded with goodies. The soil was so perfect, sandy, rich loam. Rototilling it into a fine powder was a snap and one of Dan’s and Cece’s favorite rides was on the handles of our big Sears tiller. Later, while I watered the trenches between the corn both of them would love to play hide and seek, back and forth, in and out. The eight foot high deer fence did NOTHING to keep them out and we often saw them from our wndow, jumping over it as if it was a joke.
Yakima, too, was very fertile and we had big gardens over on the east side of the house. One year we grew a whole ten foot square of sunflowers in a rectangle, gathering them up at the top and making a sunflower house. Twining morning glories that grew naturally, made it a colorful structure. Becca loved to go in there and considered it an impromptu playhouse. We had many (too many?) tomato plants and the kids were great at gathering and executing the tomato horn worms that would eventually show up (we did not spray). Boy, the chickens LOVED the hornworms…we had learned that from our little plot in the back yard on K Street in Davis.
Going back, out of order to Davis, the years we lived on L Street, we had a bionic garden, the result of rabbit poo brought over from the University animal area. (We always wondered if the miraculous qualities of that poo did not come from the rabbits being housed near the ill –fated nuclear beagle experiment. ) There are pictures of our children dwarfed by beans and corn and we grew immense pumpkins, one being large enough (a picture exists to prove this) that Dan could, and DID, get inside.
So now watching Kate in the garden, little suburban spot that it is, I am reminded of our larger, rural gardens and the fun we had with our kids, as they and the veges grew up together.
9-11-2010
Monday, September 6, 2010
Commode a la mode
Coming from the warm California clime, I don’t think we truly understood the cold that we were to encounter at Powell. Sure, Kate and I had some experience in the Sierras but the Idaho/Montana mountains can be COLD! We found that out in a hurry!
I forget which of these two events happened first but one morning, not long after school had started for the day, I got a call from Kate that she was trapped in the mobile home, the door would not open no matter how hard she turned the handle. This had happened with our dual-pane windows before. The earth stove was so efficient in keeping the inside toasty, the condensation would form on the INSIDE of the windows and walls too. This of course, would freeze with the cold air coming in between the walls and the window frames, door frames too, as it turns out!
Marshalling up the forces (all eight of the students) and declaring an early recess, we all trudged down the road to our living space. I had an audience watching intently as I tried to pry the door open with a screw driver…NO LUCK. Brute force was what was needed! Tying together two jump ropes that the students had fortunately brought along (for a normal recess) I tied them onto the doorknob. Getting the children to pull on the rope along with me, and motioning Kate to push from inside while turning the handle we had success. BANG! The door flew open revealing a smiling duo of Dan and Cece and then Kate. However, the victim of the event, the doorknob stayed tied to the rope and had pulled out of the door. Luckily it was an easy fix and another cold weather legend was born.
Memory being what it is, I think the above happened just before the frozen toilet episode. That had the makings of a REAL tragedy that was thankfully averted!!!! Believing that we were seasoned Pacific Northwest dwellers, we left our faucets dripping a bit. Leaving Powell for a week at Christmastime, 1981, we had a wonderful time being feted on Ronnie Way by G and G. Flying home via Denver, (The airline never new we had stowed away an un-paying passenger, a tiny embryonic Becca! Many used barf bags were a testament to her presence…poor Kate!), returning to Missoula and driving over the pass, safely this time, on our still-new studs, we came home to find the toilet totally frozen; the bowl was an oval of solid ice. That was a scary sight! The faucets were fine, the pipes were ok but the toilet was a solid lump.
Boiling water on the stove, eventually we were able to thaw the tank and bowl out enough to be operational. Thank God there were no cracks, no damage had been done except to our nerves. The oldies about, experienced Forest Service personnel, laughed when they heard and informed us after the fact, that they would usually flush anti-freeze a couple of times and then fill the bowl with it when leaving for extended winter periods. That is knowledge that we thankfully have not had to use again to this day.
9-3-2010
I forget which of these two events happened first but one morning, not long after school had started for the day, I got a call from Kate that she was trapped in the mobile home, the door would not open no matter how hard she turned the handle. This had happened with our dual-pane windows before. The earth stove was so efficient in keeping the inside toasty, the condensation would form on the INSIDE of the windows and walls too. This of course, would freeze with the cold air coming in between the walls and the window frames, door frames too, as it turns out!
Marshalling up the forces (all eight of the students) and declaring an early recess, we all trudged down the road to our living space. I had an audience watching intently as I tried to pry the door open with a screw driver…NO LUCK. Brute force was what was needed! Tying together two jump ropes that the students had fortunately brought along (for a normal recess) I tied them onto the doorknob. Getting the children to pull on the rope along with me, and motioning Kate to push from inside while turning the handle we had success. BANG! The door flew open revealing a smiling duo of Dan and Cece and then Kate. However, the victim of the event, the doorknob stayed tied to the rope and had pulled out of the door. Luckily it was an easy fix and another cold weather legend was born.
Memory being what it is, I think the above happened just before the frozen toilet episode. That had the makings of a REAL tragedy that was thankfully averted!!!! Believing that we were seasoned Pacific Northwest dwellers, we left our faucets dripping a bit. Leaving Powell for a week at Christmastime, 1981, we had a wonderful time being feted on Ronnie Way by G and G. Flying home via Denver, (The airline never new we had stowed away an un-paying passenger, a tiny embryonic Becca! Many used barf bags were a testament to her presence…poor Kate!), returning to Missoula and driving over the pass, safely this time, on our still-new studs, we came home to find the toilet totally frozen; the bowl was an oval of solid ice. That was a scary sight! The faucets were fine, the pipes were ok but the toilet was a solid lump.
Boiling water on the stove, eventually we were able to thaw the tank and bowl out enough to be operational. Thank God there were no cracks, no damage had been done except to our nerves. The oldies about, experienced Forest Service personnel, laughed when they heard and informed us after the fact, that they would usually flush anti-freeze a couple of times and then fill the bowl with it when leaving for extended winter periods. That is knowledge that we thankfully have not had to use again to this day.
9-3-2010
Sewing Machine Madness
In our household, an appliance that was in regular use in later years was the sewing machine. This was due to Becca's influence in many ways. When we were first married, my mother's old Singer (1960'ish) was the staple and filled our sewing repair needs. It was pressed into extreme service when the weather turned coolish and Fall approached. Halloween was around the corner and usually last-minute requests for elaborate and fanciful costumes came flying in. I have this picture in my mind of Katie at the machine late in the evening before the school costume parade the next day. This would be the time that the thread would invariably break or the needle would bend and snap. Then there was the bobbin that would empty itself at a crucial moment. ARRGGHH! Some of the requested costumes, such as the "medieval princess on horse", or the wizard's pointed hat, would require special angles and pre-constructions and I think the old machine was taxed to the limit. The seamstress put in heroic efforts, though, and with some torn hair and gnashed teeth, the costumed Parrish child would caper proudly around he next day, wanting to wear out the costume before the show. Certainly they made a splash on Halloween.
For whatever reason, probably the result of a 4H class, sometime in the mid-1990's, we purchased a new sewing machine in Yakima at the Bernina Sewing Center. It had all the bells and whistles and Becca was instrumental in deciding which one was purchased. I rember that the instruction book looked like the pre-flight manual for a 747 jet. I know that I was and I think that Kate was bit overpowered by it. Not so Becca ! She looked at the drawings inside the door covering the needle assembly, glanced at the book and took off, threading the thing with dispatch as we stood by in awe. Soon the new machine was being broken in on various Becca projects.
One such project was a tablecloth and napkins created in the space of less than an hour. Previously, Pop and Becca had gone to the fabic store and purchased some reddish, fall-colored, fabric, adorned with white and yellow sunflowers. I believe that Kate had been at her class at Heritage College. Dinner was almost ready and Mom was expected momentarily, when the brainstorm of making it fancy and nice hit Becca. Running to the sewing machine, arms and thread flying, soon she was feeding material through that poor mechanical slave at a FURIOUS pace. It was just ROARING! Mom came home and the table cloth had ben completed with four insanely fast ,machine gun sounding zips through. By the time Kate sat down to eat, two napkins were done with miniature versions of sound like Nellie running cold on three cylinders. After grace was completed, a triumphant and beaming Becca came in with the last two napkins, the entire ensemble of which we have and use to this day.
Becca still has that machine and I am not sure how much use it gets these days. No matter, it has earned an honorable rest if not retirement.
9-6-2010
For whatever reason, probably the result of a 4H class, sometime in the mid-1990's, we purchased a new sewing machine in Yakima at the Bernina Sewing Center. It had all the bells and whistles and Becca was instrumental in deciding which one was purchased. I rember that the instruction book looked like the pre-flight manual for a 747 jet. I know that I was and I think that Kate was bit overpowered by it. Not so Becca ! She looked at the drawings inside the door covering the needle assembly, glanced at the book and took off, threading the thing with dispatch as we stood by in awe. Soon the new machine was being broken in on various Becca projects.
One such project was a tablecloth and napkins created in the space of less than an hour. Previously, Pop and Becca had gone to the fabic store and purchased some reddish, fall-colored, fabric, adorned with white and yellow sunflowers. I believe that Kate had been at her class at Heritage College. Dinner was almost ready and Mom was expected momentarily, when the brainstorm of making it fancy and nice hit Becca. Running to the sewing machine, arms and thread flying, soon she was feeding material through that poor mechanical slave at a FURIOUS pace. It was just ROARING! Mom came home and the table cloth had ben completed with four insanely fast ,machine gun sounding zips through. By the time Kate sat down to eat, two napkins were done with miniature versions of sound like Nellie running cold on three cylinders. After grace was completed, a triumphant and beaming Becca came in with the last two napkins, the entire ensemble of which we have and use to this day.
Becca still has that machine and I am not sure how much use it gets these days. No matter, it has earned an honorable rest if not retirement.
9-6-2010
Forts and Playhouses
There is no number in the universe large enough to account for the number of “forts” and playhouses that have been constructed by these two hands over the years. Well, perhaps that is a small exaggeration but if you count the sheet-partitioned ones in the basement of Gilbert Road in the winter and the cardboard washing machine box creations over the years it gets close to truth.
Cece was the first client of these structures and her childhood domains were mainly of the cardboard box type. The under-the-stairs alcove on Sandridge Road was her first cavern, walls lined with pampers for dolls and whatever use she could conjure up. The inhabitants of this place were mainly of the sawdust-filled variety. Her top bunk bed in San Ardo was next…an improvisation if ever there was one. It also sported the pamper armor belt for protection around the sides. There was one wooden “fort” on Sandridge Road that came out of Dennis Price’s classroom at Sierra School. It was a red, white and blue platform that had a ladder access and was propped up against the fence partitioning off the huge cement water tank/fire reservoir. In no time it sported stuffed animals, a plastic cooking set (courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa) and various artworks by the proprietress. This set-up suffered from the elements, though, and was never a primary residence.
It was also prone to fatherly sneak tickling attacks which were often not appreciated by the home-maker in residence.
Daniel’s get-a-ways were of a more rustic nature. A grape stake enclosure with plywood roof in Davis, created in the perpendicular angle of the backyard fence and covered with creeping vines from next door is the one that I remember best. This of course does not include NUMEROUS cardboard box creations, stacked on top of each other for observation post use and decorated inside with crayoned knobs, gauges and radar screen drawings. As his little sister grew up and shared these spaces (Dan was a good natured landlord) other crayon scrawls of kitties, doggies food and people figures would find themselves in the empty spaces between his artwork. Rain damage was the usual cause of abandonment of these sites.
There was an infamous tree fort built in a mulberry tree in Davis. This large, shady giant was situated by Eighth Street on the southern side of our property. Various spying and underhanded doings (vigorously denied to this day) allegedly occurred there with its tempting proximity to stopped cars at the light in the intersection. “Can you hit that one?” etc. were dares that form the modern allegations of abuse. Cousin Rosa looms large in these and parental figures will probably never know the truth. Under this tree fort was a rectangular structure built to be an early “dollhouse” for Becca and Catherine Curly.
The “crown of creation” of all these forts has to be the only one that is still in existence. Becca’s playhouse in Yakima, was literally built from the ground up as she and Theresa played in it. The contractor, yours truly, was forced to work under stressful conditions as impatient, Gunnysacks- dress wearing, girls made green apple, mud, grass and seedpod pies and other loathsome concoctions that were always forced upon the reluctant builder. Scrounging for used building materials slowed the construction process and was not kindly understood by the future owner. Finally, when the building was done, composition roofed, curtained and painted white did the smiles really appear. Then it was furnished with lavish taste, using old quilts, afghans, pillows and with real electric light pirated from the carport outlet. Teresa Borton, partner in imagination and execution of these play scenarios, bought a beautiful honeysuckle that was planted by the south corner of the playhouse. It went crazy and grew to a lush frenzy over that whole side pf the house.
It is my memory that not too long after its completion it morphed into a “reading room” as a maturing middle schooler kept residence. In later years, driving by the old place, we have seen it sporting a buttercup yellow paint job but outlasting the enormous and ancient poplar trees that once shaded its back. Eternal? Timeless? Only the years will tell. But this contractor hopes one day to again build forts, tree houses and the like for yet another generation of chidlins.
9-3-2010
Cece was the first client of these structures and her childhood domains were mainly of the cardboard box type. The under-the-stairs alcove on Sandridge Road was her first cavern, walls lined with pampers for dolls and whatever use she could conjure up. The inhabitants of this place were mainly of the sawdust-filled variety. Her top bunk bed in San Ardo was next…an improvisation if ever there was one. It also sported the pamper armor belt for protection around the sides. There was one wooden “fort” on Sandridge Road that came out of Dennis Price’s classroom at Sierra School. It was a red, white and blue platform that had a ladder access and was propped up against the fence partitioning off the huge cement water tank/fire reservoir. In no time it sported stuffed animals, a plastic cooking set (courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa) and various artworks by the proprietress. This set-up suffered from the elements, though, and was never a primary residence.
It was also prone to fatherly sneak tickling attacks which were often not appreciated by the home-maker in residence.
Daniel’s get-a-ways were of a more rustic nature. A grape stake enclosure with plywood roof in Davis, created in the perpendicular angle of the backyard fence and covered with creeping vines from next door is the one that I remember best. This of course does not include NUMEROUS cardboard box creations, stacked on top of each other for observation post use and decorated inside with crayoned knobs, gauges and radar screen drawings. As his little sister grew up and shared these spaces (Dan was a good natured landlord) other crayon scrawls of kitties, doggies food and people figures would find themselves in the empty spaces between his artwork. Rain damage was the usual cause of abandonment of these sites.
There was an infamous tree fort built in a mulberry tree in Davis. This large, shady giant was situated by Eighth Street on the southern side of our property. Various spying and underhanded doings (vigorously denied to this day) allegedly occurred there with its tempting proximity to stopped cars at the light in the intersection. “Can you hit that one?” etc. were dares that form the modern allegations of abuse. Cousin Rosa looms large in these and parental figures will probably never know the truth. Under this tree fort was a rectangular structure built to be an early “dollhouse” for Becca and Catherine Curly.
The “crown of creation” of all these forts has to be the only one that is still in existence. Becca’s playhouse in Yakima, was literally built from the ground up as she and Theresa played in it. The contractor, yours truly, was forced to work under stressful conditions as impatient, Gunnysacks- dress wearing, girls made green apple, mud, grass and seedpod pies and other loathsome concoctions that were always forced upon the reluctant builder. Scrounging for used building materials slowed the construction process and was not kindly understood by the future owner. Finally, when the building was done, composition roofed, curtained and painted white did the smiles really appear. Then it was furnished with lavish taste, using old quilts, afghans, pillows and with real electric light pirated from the carport outlet. Teresa Borton, partner in imagination and execution of these play scenarios, bought a beautiful honeysuckle that was planted by the south corner of the playhouse. It went crazy and grew to a lush frenzy over that whole side pf the house.
It is my memory that not too long after its completion it morphed into a “reading room” as a maturing middle schooler kept residence. In later years, driving by the old place, we have seen it sporting a buttercup yellow paint job but outlasting the enormous and ancient poplar trees that once shaded its back. Eternal? Timeless? Only the years will tell. But this contractor hopes one day to again build forts, tree houses and the like for yet another generation of chidlins.
9-3-2010
Friday, September 3, 2010
Lamby and "No John"
The early days of my budding relationship with Kate, I would go over to the Cooper’s house and visit. How “old world!” Often sent over on my bike by my mother bearing presents of fresh baguettes and flowers “for Alice”, I see now after some years that she must have been in collusion with Mom Coop to see if they could stick their recalcitrant kids together. I guess it worked, hence all this writing!
My first vision of Cece was of the back of a dark haired little blanketed form in the crib, sleeping soundly. For many early days over the next almost two years, she seemed about as welcoming as that first glance. I would go over soon after and there would be Cece, splayed out on the floor of the front room, on a quilt, protected by a wooly lamb, a present from her aunt Susie. I do not remember many smiles at me, rather infantine gravity as she seriously studied my face…perhaps trying to divine my evil intent. As she grew older and vocal powers were added to her repertoire, I would tease her and play with the lamb, having it run away from her and would receive a grunt in reply.
Time passing (and my being boringly repetitious by nature I am told) she learned that this “John” would not go away for long and that she seemed to be burdened with me showing up in her life. More alarmingly, my penchant for stealing her lamb (the repetitious part) seemed not to go away. Finally, arriving near the age of two, and mastering the salient syllable that defines that age and stage of child development, the words “No” and ”John” began to be linked when I would pull my Lamby disappearing act. Eventually, “No, John” would become a mantra, repeated over and over, but slowly becoming accompanied with a slight smile and eventually a laugh. It was as if she understood that I REALLY was not going to steal Lamby and maybe if she smiled I would finally stop this nonsense. (She’d given up on my going away, I guess.)
No such luck. Over the blessed (to me) 33 years since those days, many, many, many times I have taken and hidden Lamby from its perch on Cece’s pillow, whether it was in the apartment in San Jose or multiferous like apartments, or houses in Seattle. Finally, it has come down in later years that Cece has hidden Lamby away in a safe recess, away from my evil grasp. I never see Lamby any more and suppose that I will have to enlist Rusty’s help in locating and coming into possession of the coveted fluffy object. As one would expect, I have aged over the years but Lamby seems to be still as pristine and fuzzy as when I first gazed upon it. Loving care and lavish attention have seen to that. Lamby has not suffered from my nefarious attempts at kidnapping. I don’t hear, “No, John” much anymore but I guess Cece has won out in the end.
Or perhaps I did. The era of my being called “John” before “Poppa” became the norm was crowned by events in our first house, on Adams Way in Placerville. The fireplace being the only heat besides unreliable baseboard heaters in some rooms, a daily fire in the fall and winter was a necessity. In the early days, after Kate and Cece had come to the central mines, I would bust kindling and light a fire in the morning or upon returning in the evening from somewhere. Cece would watch the fire preparation from a safe distance by the couch or the doorway to the hall, snug in sleepers and robe. When match went to paper and the first flaring of flame made itself known I would suddenly feel a little presence pressed against my back as I knelt on the hearth. Then slowly, a head would appear around my side and a gravely serious face would scrutinize the growing flames. Finally, after all had become warm in front of me, and it was obviously safe, a little body would scoot around my side and plop itself in my lap, her back pressed against my chest, hands folded on her lap, enjoying the warmth of the new found fire. A smile would eventually beam up at me from her upturned face.
Not trusted with Lamby, I was seemingly OK and to be trusted in making her warm and keeping her safe from the scary fire. Fatherhood had been duly conferred! I felt like a King!
9-2-2010
My first vision of Cece was of the back of a dark haired little blanketed form in the crib, sleeping soundly. For many early days over the next almost two years, she seemed about as welcoming as that first glance. I would go over soon after and there would be Cece, splayed out on the floor of the front room, on a quilt, protected by a wooly lamb, a present from her aunt Susie. I do not remember many smiles at me, rather infantine gravity as she seriously studied my face…perhaps trying to divine my evil intent. As she grew older and vocal powers were added to her repertoire, I would tease her and play with the lamb, having it run away from her and would receive a grunt in reply.
Time passing (and my being boringly repetitious by nature I am told) she learned that this “John” would not go away for long and that she seemed to be burdened with me showing up in her life. More alarmingly, my penchant for stealing her lamb (the repetitious part) seemed not to go away. Finally, arriving near the age of two, and mastering the salient syllable that defines that age and stage of child development, the words “No” and ”John” began to be linked when I would pull my Lamby disappearing act. Eventually, “No, John” would become a mantra, repeated over and over, but slowly becoming accompanied with a slight smile and eventually a laugh. It was as if she understood that I REALLY was not going to steal Lamby and maybe if she smiled I would finally stop this nonsense. (She’d given up on my going away, I guess.)
No such luck. Over the blessed (to me) 33 years since those days, many, many, many times I have taken and hidden Lamby from its perch on Cece’s pillow, whether it was in the apartment in San Jose or multiferous like apartments, or houses in Seattle. Finally, it has come down in later years that Cece has hidden Lamby away in a safe recess, away from my evil grasp. I never see Lamby any more and suppose that I will have to enlist Rusty’s help in locating and coming into possession of the coveted fluffy object. As one would expect, I have aged over the years but Lamby seems to be still as pristine and fuzzy as when I first gazed upon it. Loving care and lavish attention have seen to that. Lamby has not suffered from my nefarious attempts at kidnapping. I don’t hear, “No, John” much anymore but I guess Cece has won out in the end.
Or perhaps I did. The era of my being called “John” before “Poppa” became the norm was crowned by events in our first house, on Adams Way in Placerville. The fireplace being the only heat besides unreliable baseboard heaters in some rooms, a daily fire in the fall and winter was a necessity. In the early days, after Kate and Cece had come to the central mines, I would bust kindling and light a fire in the morning or upon returning in the evening from somewhere. Cece would watch the fire preparation from a safe distance by the couch or the doorway to the hall, snug in sleepers and robe. When match went to paper and the first flaring of flame made itself known I would suddenly feel a little presence pressed against my back as I knelt on the hearth. Then slowly, a head would appear around my side and a gravely serious face would scrutinize the growing flames. Finally, after all had become warm in front of me, and it was obviously safe, a little body would scoot around my side and plop itself in my lap, her back pressed against my chest, hands folded on her lap, enjoying the warmth of the new found fire. A smile would eventually beam up at me from her upturned face.
Not trusted with Lamby, I was seemingly OK and to be trusted in making her warm and keeping her safe from the scary fire. Fatherhood had been duly conferred! I felt like a King!
9-2-2010
Winter on Lolo Pass
Rank flatlanders when we came to Powell, (though I prided myself on not being one), our big, light, Chevy van was ill-prepared for REAL winter driving in the Rockies. We were not too worried in the beginning, our visions of rugged Forest Service personnel driving huge 4 wheel drive rigs, (mushing dogsleds?) was rudely shattered by little Honda Civics in street tires jetting to and fro over the Lolo Pass. Confidence over-rode common sense and blithely proceeding to Missoula, Montana for our late Fall/early Winter monthly shopping trip, we received a lesson that has never been forgotten.
Going up the Pass from Powell had been no problem. Getting an early start for a full day of shopping, and hugely enjoying the wonderful fairyland of snow covered peaks, valleys and forests, we crested the top and began our descent, again without problems. Dan and Cece were singing Christmas carols non-stop, over and over, at the top of their lungs, enjoying themselves hugely. A parent or two would chime in from time to time. Almost to the bottom, near the Lolo Hot Springs, disaster struck! On a flat, level stretch, (the worst kind) we hit undetected black ice! Suddenly the van was going down the road SIDEWAYS!!!!!!!!!! I struggled to keep the steering wheel turned in the direction of the skid as every good driver’s ed student learns. I honestly forget if Kate was yelling, gasping, screaming, etc. I do remember that the kids suddenly became VERY quiet.
After what seemed like an eternity, the van straightened out again and we slowly coasted to a stop (my foot was off the gas). There was no other traffic on the road, thankfully, and for several long moments we breathed slowly in and out, savoring life. It was indeed a divine miracle that the van had not rolled over! Starting up again, silently sharing a knowing glance and NO words, we drove slooooowly to Missoula and our first (heretofore unplanned) stop was at Sears. The purchase? Four new studded snow tires! I seem to remember that we splurged on Mall food in a sort of thanksgiving meal that noon.
Chugging back west in the late afternoon darkness, we confidently (too much so?) began the return ascent of the Pass. Christmas carol singing was again the order of the day, however, in no time it was pitch dark and snow began to fall thick and fast. Our tires were great and we clanked along but the windshield wipers, though good ones, could not move the accumulation fast enough and the darkness hampered visibility. There was not a light to be seen or followed in all of that black wilderness. I was driving almost blindly and soon the road was totally covered with snow. Kate, from her “feed the troops and attend to kid’s needs” position on the passenger side often opened the door and kept the edge of the pavement, or what she guessed the edge of the pavement to be in sight. In time, even that was indistinguishable and we were relegated to going up the middle, or what we thought was the middle of the highway. Sheer drops on one side or the other just loomed as inky black nothingness in the night. We could only follow faint and fast disappearing tire tracks ahead and hoped that the makers had not made a mistaken turn!
I do not remember being conscious of seeing the top of the pass, only blackness. There was no mistaking the downward thrust of the road, however and that was a relief. A more huge relief was spotting the lights of the state road maintenance facility and finally seeing the resident snow plow chugging past us on its way to clear the pass. Soon, the Lochsa Lodge sign lights welcomed us home and we turned on the wonderfully groomed roads leading to the Forest Service compound. Jim Bougie and his huge front loader had done their job well. You can bet we kissed the snowy steps of our trailer when we arrived home a wiser couple of budding mountain dwellers.
In later years, driving to visit Powell in the summer and seeing some of the sheer drops and steep stretches of the Pass, I shudder and think back to that first night of mountain winter driving lessons. Our Guardian Angels worked overtime that night.
9-2-2010
Going up the Pass from Powell had been no problem. Getting an early start for a full day of shopping, and hugely enjoying the wonderful fairyland of snow covered peaks, valleys and forests, we crested the top and began our descent, again without problems. Dan and Cece were singing Christmas carols non-stop, over and over, at the top of their lungs, enjoying themselves hugely. A parent or two would chime in from time to time. Almost to the bottom, near the Lolo Hot Springs, disaster struck! On a flat, level stretch, (the worst kind) we hit undetected black ice! Suddenly the van was going down the road SIDEWAYS!!!!!!!!!! I struggled to keep the steering wheel turned in the direction of the skid as every good driver’s ed student learns. I honestly forget if Kate was yelling, gasping, screaming, etc. I do remember that the kids suddenly became VERY quiet.
After what seemed like an eternity, the van straightened out again and we slowly coasted to a stop (my foot was off the gas). There was no other traffic on the road, thankfully, and for several long moments we breathed slowly in and out, savoring life. It was indeed a divine miracle that the van had not rolled over! Starting up again, silently sharing a knowing glance and NO words, we drove slooooowly to Missoula and our first (heretofore unplanned) stop was at Sears. The purchase? Four new studded snow tires! I seem to remember that we splurged on Mall food in a sort of thanksgiving meal that noon.
Chugging back west in the late afternoon darkness, we confidently (too much so?) began the return ascent of the Pass. Christmas carol singing was again the order of the day, however, in no time it was pitch dark and snow began to fall thick and fast. Our tires were great and we clanked along but the windshield wipers, though good ones, could not move the accumulation fast enough and the darkness hampered visibility. There was not a light to be seen or followed in all of that black wilderness. I was driving almost blindly and soon the road was totally covered with snow. Kate, from her “feed the troops and attend to kid’s needs” position on the passenger side often opened the door and kept the edge of the pavement, or what she guessed the edge of the pavement to be in sight. In time, even that was indistinguishable and we were relegated to going up the middle, or what we thought was the middle of the highway. Sheer drops on one side or the other just loomed as inky black nothingness in the night. We could only follow faint and fast disappearing tire tracks ahead and hoped that the makers had not made a mistaken turn!
I do not remember being conscious of seeing the top of the pass, only blackness. There was no mistaking the downward thrust of the road, however and that was a relief. A more huge relief was spotting the lights of the state road maintenance facility and finally seeing the resident snow plow chugging past us on its way to clear the pass. Soon, the Lochsa Lodge sign lights welcomed us home and we turned on the wonderfully groomed roads leading to the Forest Service compound. Jim Bougie and his huge front loader had done their job well. You can bet we kissed the snowy steps of our trailer when we arrived home a wiser couple of budding mountain dwellers.
In later years, driving to visit Powell in the summer and seeing some of the sheer drops and steep stretches of the Pass, I shudder and think back to that first night of mountain winter driving lessons. Our Guardian Angels worked overtime that night.
9-2-2010
Jerry Johnson Hot Springs
Towards the end of our nine months at Powell Idaho, we finally ventured to a wonderful spot that we had been told about but sadly never got to before. Crossing the wide Selway River on a wooden suspension bridge was exciting enough. The sturdy structure was strong enough for horses and pack trains but seemed so much less so. In actuality the Warm Springs trailhead (Mile Marker 152) is an entry for packing into the Selway-Bitteroot wilderness area that lies beyond. The quiet, soft, needle padded trail was well developed leading us into a grove of sizeable cedar trees and after about three quarters of a mile appeared natural rock ringed pools of steaming, odorless, water. Later research revealed that these primitive springs, and their parent creek, were named for a prospector that built a cabin nearby in 1898. Alleged 140 degree water pours from two waterfalls further up the creek and the soaking pools below cool off to an average 100+ degrees.
Our two little ones (Becca was present but not of the outside world yet) were fascinated and after a moment or two of hesitation, Cece gingerly tried the water temperature with her big toe. Pronouncing it fine, she peeled to her sky blue swimsuit and slowly immersed herself up to her waist with Kate’s help. Getting Daniel out of the backpack carrier that I had hiked him in on, we quickly shucked off his little jumpsuit and even soakers and diapers. I went in with him and held the little, chubby, roto-man in my arms. You could visibly see him relax in the warmth and playing his hands idly in the water, he simply allowed himself to be held in a floating position forever, it seemed.
Not wanting to get too overheated and perhaps mindful of vague tales of unhealthiness in publicly used hot springs we did not dally for too long. Getting Daniel out was a big chore as he had totally become limp lump of protoplasm, a little putty boy. Getting his clothes back on un-resisting and spaghetti-like appendages was hard! Finally we succeeded and he was back in the pack and on my back. However, I do not think it was 100 yards along the trail before he was asleep and Cece followed him quickly once we were back to the van wending our way home.
What a wonderful day! That is one place I would love to visit again.
9-1-10
Our two little ones (Becca was present but not of the outside world yet) were fascinated and after a moment or two of hesitation, Cece gingerly tried the water temperature with her big toe. Pronouncing it fine, she peeled to her sky blue swimsuit and slowly immersed herself up to her waist with Kate’s help. Getting Daniel out of the backpack carrier that I had hiked him in on, we quickly shucked off his little jumpsuit and even soakers and diapers. I went in with him and held the little, chubby, roto-man in my arms. You could visibly see him relax in the warmth and playing his hands idly in the water, he simply allowed himself to be held in a floating position forever, it seemed.
Not wanting to get too overheated and perhaps mindful of vague tales of unhealthiness in publicly used hot springs we did not dally for too long. Getting Daniel out was a big chore as he had totally become limp lump of protoplasm, a little putty boy. Getting his clothes back on un-resisting and spaghetti-like appendages was hard! Finally we succeeded and he was back in the pack and on my back. However, I do not think it was 100 yards along the trail before he was asleep and Cece followed him quickly once we were back to the van wending our way home.
What a wonderful day! That is one place I would love to visit again.
9-1-10
Elmira Shenanigans
The year before we left to go to Yakima, Washington, I taught at Elmira Elementary School, in Solano County. Though it was part of Vacaville Unified School District, it was out in the country a piece and was known as a sort of “farm school.” Students in the past had helped to create a baby animal farm and had raised chickens, a goat and rabbits. There had also been a vegetable garden that was student driven, all under the tutelage of Shelly Dally, the legendary teacher and later Vice Principal there. My year there was a wonderful breath of fresh air, because of the enlightened teachers and administrators, the reprieve from the lower elementary grades (I FINALLY GOT TO TEACH SIXTH GRADE…My favorite!!!!) and because for a special reason, Daniel went to Fifth Grade with Mr. Beck in the next portable. It was great! Not the least of the treats was the fact that the school was situated about 500 yards from the Southern Pacific Main Line and trains incessantly roared by, causing teacher Parrish to spend much time on the stair landing leading to his classroom. Elmira, was a quiet sleepy, little old railroad town. A relic and monument to the era of steam engines, a rusting old steel water tank still stood by the tracks, marking Elmira’s once great importance as a water stop. Lazy afternoons, after school, Dan and I would wander over to that tank and poke around the weeds at its base, hoping to find a rusty relic or two before heading home.
The legends surrounding Elmira in our family, however, have to do with the crazy antics of a father/teacher and his two youngest children. These occurred on weekends or other “gotta work in the classroom days” when Becca and Dan would accompany me there. Patiently waiting while I dittoed (yes, we had ditto machines then!) copies of lessons and did lesson planning for the coming week, when chores were done the fun began. We closed the blinds of the portable making it very dark. Then, taking some fuzzy, cloth, stuffed fruit and vegetable shapes that I had found in the closet upon my starting there, we would laugh and shriek and run around the room, caroming into desks and chairs, trying to hide on the floor while the person in possession of the soft fruits and veges hurled them at the sounds they heard. More often than not it was a “miss” but all too often the larger bulk of the paternal figure would register a “hit” making me “IT.” When we were all tired out and panting, we’d open the door and go outside to look at the “farm” before going home. I wonder what my students thought when they arrived early Monday morning and Mr. Parrish had forgotten to straighten up the desks and chairs from the insanity of the weekend. Did they think the custodian was lazy? Perhaps they guessed the truth. If they had any good sense of their Sixth Grade teacher, they probably did.
Progress has caught up to Elmira and now the whole area is built up with ugly tract homes. The old SP water tank is gone as is the Southern Pacific itself. Big Union Pacific freights still roar past but the school has been shrunk, many portables (mine included) are gone as is the “farm.” More numerous and modern neighborhood schools have taken over the load.
Time has passed Elmira by but our golden memories of fun live on.
9-1-2010
The legends surrounding Elmira in our family, however, have to do with the crazy antics of a father/teacher and his two youngest children. These occurred on weekends or other “gotta work in the classroom days” when Becca and Dan would accompany me there. Patiently waiting while I dittoed (yes, we had ditto machines then!) copies of lessons and did lesson planning for the coming week, when chores were done the fun began. We closed the blinds of the portable making it very dark. Then, taking some fuzzy, cloth, stuffed fruit and vegetable shapes that I had found in the closet upon my starting there, we would laugh and shriek and run around the room, caroming into desks and chairs, trying to hide on the floor while the person in possession of the soft fruits and veges hurled them at the sounds they heard. More often than not it was a “miss” but all too often the larger bulk of the paternal figure would register a “hit” making me “IT.” When we were all tired out and panting, we’d open the door and go outside to look at the “farm” before going home. I wonder what my students thought when they arrived early Monday morning and Mr. Parrish had forgotten to straighten up the desks and chairs from the insanity of the weekend. Did they think the custodian was lazy? Perhaps they guessed the truth. If they had any good sense of their Sixth Grade teacher, they probably did.
Progress has caught up to Elmira and now the whole area is built up with ugly tract homes. The old SP water tank is gone as is the Southern Pacific itself. Big Union Pacific freights still roar past but the school has been shrunk, many portables (mine included) are gone as is the “farm.” More numerous and modern neighborhood schools have taken over the load.
Time has passed Elmira by but our golden memories of fun live on.
9-1-2010
Chama
On several family vacations in the mid-1980’s, one of our stops (my primary destination) was Chama, New Mexico. This small berg in the northern part of the state holds much charm, and wonderful memories of summers in the cool northern New Mexico mountains. Perched within 17 miles of the southern Colorado border, the aspen trees were already beginning to turn color when we’d trek through in August, after summer school sessions were over.
The historic and preserved narrow gauge railroad of the Cumbres and Toltec, held sway in my mind. I know that Cece focused on the Dairy Queen there as an oasis after long car-bound miles across California and Arizona. She inaugurated the family into the mysteries of Blizzard shakes on our first trip in 1986, and ever after our van was a fixture in its parking lot in late afternoon when we were in town. We have a wonderful photo of Becca, then four, in a frilly blue dress, running wild and free, long hair trailing behind her with the snow-capped Sandia Mountains in the background. It looks as if it was taken in a verdant wilderness and not five feet from the old cooking grease collecting vats behind DQ !!!
Chama Creek was a sylvan, aspen speckled, boulder strewn watercourse that ran near our campground and under the spindly steel truss bridge of the railroad. Waiting for the afternoon return train from Cumbres Pass, the kids, Kate and I would wade in the creek, refreshed by its sparkling, cool and clear water and build little rock dams backing up the flow and making it deep enough for Cece, Dan or Becca to sit in. Then the far off, drawn out hoarse whistle of the locomotive could be heard and we would scramble to the bank to be in time to watch the narrow gauge engine and its cars pound across the shaking and shuddering steel bridge. Many times a friendly wave from the engineer would be accompanied by yet another shrill blast of the whistle, answering Dan and Becca’s arm pumping requests. The train would pass leaving the sweetish smell of coal smoke lingering behind.
I have memories of Dan and I prowling around the “rip track” in the rail yards in Chama, where derelict locomotives and cars, surrounded by weeds, sage and willow, were cannibalized for parts to keep their other cousins alive and running. Invariably, Dan would discover an interesting piece of rust or a half-melted chunk of coal in a bizarre shape and add it to his collection of oddities. He once found a partially skeletized rodent skull and was only just dissuaded from carting it all the way back to California in the van, much to the relief of everyone’s olfactory senses.
Once, Cece prevailed upon her stern, camping parents to rent a small, quaint log motel cabin in town. I can still see her look of rapture as she emerged from a luxurious steamy shower and threw herself on the overstuffed bed, delighting Becca who bounced around with her. The rigors of pseudo-pioneer life were not for Cece!
Our road trips were a miniature version of a major military campaign. Interlocking milk crates were piled in need order in the back of the van. Each held certain quantities of food, utensils, camping gear or other needed items. On early trips, the small, child-sized porta-potty was placed strategically (for dumping) by the side-sliding door. Legend exists that not only children used it, however. Each child had an assigned seat/car seat, and we had created small, color identified surplus ammo boxes w/lids, holding toys, coloring pads and crayons, pencils, etc. for self entertainment while traveling. Emergency snack supplies were kept by the front driver/passenger seats for unruly inmate pacification. Story telling was a BIG request and millions of renditions of “the good and the bad twins” were re-enacted as the miles flashed past. The tales that old Chevy van could tell! The grey hair that Kate and I possess!
9-1-2010
The historic and preserved narrow gauge railroad of the Cumbres and Toltec, held sway in my mind. I know that Cece focused on the Dairy Queen there as an oasis after long car-bound miles across California and Arizona. She inaugurated the family into the mysteries of Blizzard shakes on our first trip in 1986, and ever after our van was a fixture in its parking lot in late afternoon when we were in town. We have a wonderful photo of Becca, then four, in a frilly blue dress, running wild and free, long hair trailing behind her with the snow-capped Sandia Mountains in the background. It looks as if it was taken in a verdant wilderness and not five feet from the old cooking grease collecting vats behind DQ !!!
Chama Creek was a sylvan, aspen speckled, boulder strewn watercourse that ran near our campground and under the spindly steel truss bridge of the railroad. Waiting for the afternoon return train from Cumbres Pass, the kids, Kate and I would wade in the creek, refreshed by its sparkling, cool and clear water and build little rock dams backing up the flow and making it deep enough for Cece, Dan or Becca to sit in. Then the far off, drawn out hoarse whistle of the locomotive could be heard and we would scramble to the bank to be in time to watch the narrow gauge engine and its cars pound across the shaking and shuddering steel bridge. Many times a friendly wave from the engineer would be accompanied by yet another shrill blast of the whistle, answering Dan and Becca’s arm pumping requests. The train would pass leaving the sweetish smell of coal smoke lingering behind.
I have memories of Dan and I prowling around the “rip track” in the rail yards in Chama, where derelict locomotives and cars, surrounded by weeds, sage and willow, were cannibalized for parts to keep their other cousins alive and running. Invariably, Dan would discover an interesting piece of rust or a half-melted chunk of coal in a bizarre shape and add it to his collection of oddities. He once found a partially skeletized rodent skull and was only just dissuaded from carting it all the way back to California in the van, much to the relief of everyone’s olfactory senses.
Once, Cece prevailed upon her stern, camping parents to rent a small, quaint log motel cabin in town. I can still see her look of rapture as she emerged from a luxurious steamy shower and threw herself on the overstuffed bed, delighting Becca who bounced around with her. The rigors of pseudo-pioneer life were not for Cece!
Our road trips were a miniature version of a major military campaign. Interlocking milk crates were piled in need order in the back of the van. Each held certain quantities of food, utensils, camping gear or other needed items. On early trips, the small, child-sized porta-potty was placed strategically (for dumping) by the side-sliding door. Legend exists that not only children used it, however. Each child had an assigned seat/car seat, and we had created small, color identified surplus ammo boxes w/lids, holding toys, coloring pads and crayons, pencils, etc. for self entertainment while traveling. Emergency snack supplies were kept by the front driver/passenger seats for unruly inmate pacification. Story telling was a BIG request and millions of renditions of “the good and the bad twins” were re-enacted as the miles flashed past. The tales that old Chevy van could tell! The grey hair that Kate and I possess!
9-1-2010
Nellie
How many events or things can I claim as integral and watershed to our children growing up? I do not know but for a space of ten years, from 1988 to 1998, an old 1930 Chevrolet truck loomed large and often in the events of their lives. Driving Daniel and Becca to and from Elmira school; 4H parades with kids sitting on hay bales in the back; driving down country roads to pick up Katie on her long-range bike rides; driving to Putah Creek with Jumper (dog) or going off to the Old Truck Museum in Woodland to scrounge parts, Nellie carried us all. Cece even took a turn learning to double clutch and drive the truck but thereafter eschewed it for the easier and more socially acceptable Suburban.
My love affair with Nellie began in 1976, as an answer to a want ad in the Mountain Democrat in Placerville. Sitting in a driveway in Shingle Springs, and making me only $800.00, poorer, she became mine and established herself as my iron mistress; in later years Kate’s only rival. I did get the engine to run, in the year I tinkered with it as Nellie rested beside the stairs to my over-garage apartment. But I never drove the truck, a broken clutch throw-out bearing the culprit. Then, in 1977, my 1967 Mustang having been totaled after hitting a deer (It hit me!) I needed a car. My friend Carl Larsen had a 1974 BMW Bavaria that was languishing in his garage…a trade was made…and Nellie passed out of my life for 11 years. During that time, I often visited Carl and watched the frame-up restoration that he did on the truck, drooling at his expertise and wishing Nellie was mine again. I was busy however with a new marriage and growing family and there was no place in our lives, let alone our finances for her.
My shock and amazement can be imagined when in 1998, answering the phone at our house on L Street in Davis, Carl offered to GIVE me back the truck. He had turned his interest to Jeeps. For the price of a rental car trailer and several tanks of gas in our Chevy van, Nellie came to reside in Davis on the front lawn. Kate immediately became a widow and the kids and I were always currying the streets of Davis, giving rides to their friends on Alice Street, taking the dog to UCD (while Katie biked there), driving to school in Elmira, where I taught, going to get biker Katie in Winters when she had run out of light and it was too dark and lonely to bike back. On one of those trips, in the glow of the old 6 volt headlights, an owl swooped down at us, almost hitting the truck cab. Its eyes and face seemed so gigantic in the reflected light.
On one memorable trip to “go work in the classroom” at Elmira Dan and I got caught in a downpour. Having no glass in the door windows, the plastic bags we stretched over them kept little rain out…we were drenched.
The old 48 star American flag we had on a pole behind the cab (it must have been some holiday) bled in the rain and ended up pink, lighter pink and blue!
Becca’s 4H club sat in the back of Nellie on a parade at the opening of the West Valley fair in Yakima. What a sight it must have made to see all those happy, wide-eyed children in white 4H uniforms stacked in back! I can only imagine how grimy and grubby they were on the return home that night! That truck truly made a show in Washington, bringing the light to neighbor Kermit Gothberg’s eyes and encouraging him to drive his old, unrestored 1937 Packard sedan to our place to “let the two vehicles visit.”
Nellie is ours no more but she resides in friend and neighbor Keene Brewer’s barn with his other collectable cars. She is resting in good company.
My love affair with Nellie began in 1976, as an answer to a want ad in the Mountain Democrat in Placerville. Sitting in a driveway in Shingle Springs, and making me only $800.00, poorer, she became mine and established herself as my iron mistress; in later years Kate’s only rival. I did get the engine to run, in the year I tinkered with it as Nellie rested beside the stairs to my over-garage apartment. But I never drove the truck, a broken clutch throw-out bearing the culprit. Then, in 1977, my 1967 Mustang having been totaled after hitting a deer (It hit me!) I needed a car. My friend Carl Larsen had a 1974 BMW Bavaria that was languishing in his garage…a trade was made…and Nellie passed out of my life for 11 years. During that time, I often visited Carl and watched the frame-up restoration that he did on the truck, drooling at his expertise and wishing Nellie was mine again. I was busy however with a new marriage and growing family and there was no place in our lives, let alone our finances for her.
My shock and amazement can be imagined when in 1998, answering the phone at our house on L Street in Davis, Carl offered to GIVE me back the truck. He had turned his interest to Jeeps. For the price of a rental car trailer and several tanks of gas in our Chevy van, Nellie came to reside in Davis on the front lawn. Kate immediately became a widow and the kids and I were always currying the streets of Davis, giving rides to their friends on Alice Street, taking the dog to UCD (while Katie biked there), driving to school in Elmira, where I taught, going to get biker Katie in Winters when she had run out of light and it was too dark and lonely to bike back. On one of those trips, in the glow of the old 6 volt headlights, an owl swooped down at us, almost hitting the truck cab. Its eyes and face seemed so gigantic in the reflected light.
On one memorable trip to “go work in the classroom” at Elmira Dan and I got caught in a downpour. Having no glass in the door windows, the plastic bags we stretched over them kept little rain out…we were drenched.
The old 48 star American flag we had on a pole behind the cab (it must have been some holiday) bled in the rain and ended up pink, lighter pink and blue!
Becca’s 4H club sat in the back of Nellie on a parade at the opening of the West Valley fair in Yakima. What a sight it must have made to see all those happy, wide-eyed children in white 4H uniforms stacked in back! I can only imagine how grimy and grubby they were on the return home that night! That truck truly made a show in Washington, bringing the light to neighbor Kermit Gothberg’s eyes and encouraging him to drive his old, unrestored 1937 Packard sedan to our place to “let the two vehicles visit.”
Nellie is ours no more but she resides in friend and neighbor Keene Brewer’s barn with his other collectable cars. She is resting in good company.
Halloween
Short of Christmas, I do not think that any other holiday in the calendar year brought as much frenetic activity (sugar highs ?) and delight to the Parrish household as did Halloween. Besides being my favorite holiday, the fervent imagination of our oldest, Cecilia, coupled with the last-minute-pressed-into-service costume making skills of Katie, and the voracious appetites of all of us for the Trick-or-treat spoils made this a legendary time.
So many antics over the years fell on this holiday that this will be a compendium of all of them that stand out in my memory.
I have early visions of Cece walking down Main Street in Placerville in the children’s parade. She is housed in a large box, decorated to look like a Christmas present. Another year, in San Ardo, she was a chick, complete with yellow crepe paper “feathers” on her sneakers and a tail of the same material, her whole body being wrapped in the stuff. She won 1st place in the costume judging, beating out many store-bought/ glitzy outfits!!!!!! The year we were in Powell, Idaho, Dan was Pooh Bear, wrapped in a yellow, fuzzy sleeper and a short red T shirt. The belly was all his !!!!!!!!
Our move to Davis, coupled with Cece’s advancing years and tastes brought on a more sinister flavor to our costuming. Desiring to make EVERYONE into a punk rocker, both Daniel and I sported Mohawks and could be seen in torn clothing, draped in chains and wearing some of Kate’s earrings. One year, Dan was “Mr. Money” with play money glued all over whatever he was wearing underneath and sporting large dollar bill sandwich boards. Rebecca seemed to escape this treatmen, my memories of her are as a fairy or ballarina, and later in Yakima a cow or a Medieval princess on a horse (the horse part of the costume actually being around her waist...a two legged horse?). Dan was a Wizard one year and Katie dutifully sewed robes and a wizard hat. Then, in Junior High, Cece abandoned costumes all together and with her friends Flannery and Colleen, could be seen screaming and running down the streets of Davis followed by a panting paternal figure allegedly close by for “protection” though I wonder what madman would take on those three and survive to tell about it. The piles of candy on the floor of the front room after these mad forays beggar description. Oh, the trading and bargaining that went on! “I will give you five Tootsie Rolls for one mini-Snickers” etc. I DO remember furtive parental hands reaching into the piles to casually pick out a coveted morsel or six hoping to escape detection.
Even later, in Washington where snow was on the ground for our first Halloween (1991) and in later years it was COLD and wet, we would bundle our gang, Theresa and Byron Borton and Scotty Brewer into a Chevy Suburban of whichever family and drive the country roads to isolated and far between houses of friends that waited to be descended upon. Was this a modern version of a pioneer Halloween? One year, in Yakima, we had a neighborhood pumpkin carving contest and there were about forty people and 17 or 18 pumpkin entries. The compost sprouted hundreds of pumpkin plants the following spring!
For several Halloweens in Dan’s later years (in Yakima), much gory detail and destruction was heaped upon the old house by the Borton’s corrals., transforming it into a haunted house. Byron, Dan and Scotty, along with others would slap red paint on the walls, strategically place skulls and blinking lights in corners, drape cobwebs and imbed axes and hatchets in the walls. The crowning touch was Byron, laying in the old bathtub covered with sheets dabbed in red paint and food coloring all over him. On his chest was a real beef liver. Sound effects were rampant (even a real, running chain saw) and Cece and friends and later youth groups from Bill and Marla’s religious education classes were scared and delighted by the macabre scene.
EVERY Halloween our gang had a big pumpkin carving mess in the kitchen, always ending up with happy, scary or surprised jack-o-lanterns. This has continued to this day and even though we are separated by distance, cell phone pictures of our respective creations are sent back and forth on the air waves. I doubt, until the event of grandchildren, that the much beloved holiday will ever be the same again. Then, watch out !!!!!!!!
So many antics over the years fell on this holiday that this will be a compendium of all of them that stand out in my memory.
I have early visions of Cece walking down Main Street in Placerville in the children’s parade. She is housed in a large box, decorated to look like a Christmas present. Another year, in San Ardo, she was a chick, complete with yellow crepe paper “feathers” on her sneakers and a tail of the same material, her whole body being wrapped in the stuff. She won 1st place in the costume judging, beating out many store-bought/ glitzy outfits!!!!!! The year we were in Powell, Idaho, Dan was Pooh Bear, wrapped in a yellow, fuzzy sleeper and a short red T shirt. The belly was all his !!!!!!!!
Our move to Davis, coupled with Cece’s advancing years and tastes brought on a more sinister flavor to our costuming. Desiring to make EVERYONE into a punk rocker, both Daniel and I sported Mohawks and could be seen in torn clothing, draped in chains and wearing some of Kate’s earrings. One year, Dan was “Mr. Money” with play money glued all over whatever he was wearing underneath and sporting large dollar bill sandwich boards. Rebecca seemed to escape this treatmen, my memories of her are as a fairy or ballarina, and later in Yakima a cow or a Medieval princess on a horse (the horse part of the costume actually being around her waist...a two legged horse?). Dan was a Wizard one year and Katie dutifully sewed robes and a wizard hat. Then, in Junior High, Cece abandoned costumes all together and with her friends Flannery and Colleen, could be seen screaming and running down the streets of Davis followed by a panting paternal figure allegedly close by for “protection” though I wonder what madman would take on those three and survive to tell about it. The piles of candy on the floor of the front room after these mad forays beggar description. Oh, the trading and bargaining that went on! “I will give you five Tootsie Rolls for one mini-Snickers” etc. I DO remember furtive parental hands reaching into the piles to casually pick out a coveted morsel or six hoping to escape detection.
Even later, in Washington where snow was on the ground for our first Halloween (1991) and in later years it was COLD and wet, we would bundle our gang, Theresa and Byron Borton and Scotty Brewer into a Chevy Suburban of whichever family and drive the country roads to isolated and far between houses of friends that waited to be descended upon. Was this a modern version of a pioneer Halloween? One year, in Yakima, we had a neighborhood pumpkin carving contest and there were about forty people and 17 or 18 pumpkin entries. The compost sprouted hundreds of pumpkin plants the following spring!
For several Halloweens in Dan’s later years (in Yakima), much gory detail and destruction was heaped upon the old house by the Borton’s corrals., transforming it into a haunted house. Byron, Dan and Scotty, along with others would slap red paint on the walls, strategically place skulls and blinking lights in corners, drape cobwebs and imbed axes and hatchets in the walls. The crowning touch was Byron, laying in the old bathtub covered with sheets dabbed in red paint and food coloring all over him. On his chest was a real beef liver. Sound effects were rampant (even a real, running chain saw) and Cece and friends and later youth groups from Bill and Marla’s religious education classes were scared and delighted by the macabre scene.
EVERY Halloween our gang had a big pumpkin carving mess in the kitchen, always ending up with happy, scary or surprised jack-o-lanterns. This has continued to this day and even though we are separated by distance, cell phone pictures of our respective creations are sent back and forth on the air waves. I doubt, until the event of grandchildren, that the much beloved holiday will ever be the same again. Then, watch out !!!!!!!!
Baby Bacchus
California is and has always been a premier wine region. The warm and temperate climate and sandy, loamy soils are perfect for grapes to ripen for viticulture. However, there is one step that MUST happen for grapes to become wine. They must be picked, boxed and carried to the wine press. This is an integral step. In our small pocket vineyard on Sandridge Road, near Placerville, this integral step was short-circuited by our, then 2 year old Daniel.
We had about twenty vines of admittedly non-wine appropriate Thompson Seedless and Concord grapes. Situated right below the house, the vines we mature and bore well; in full flower they formed long, leafy avenues of shade and VERY good picking and eating. Probably more times than I can remember but one day that I particularly do remember the following scenario was played out by our son.
Probably coming back to reality from busy chores or attending to Cece and infant Rebecca, Katie realized that Daniel had disappeared from her radar. Together we searched the house with no luck and with panic rising. It was a long toddle down the driveway to Sandridge Road but not un-doable to the sturdy little boy. Our closer neighbors the Handys had several horses and it was hoped (feared?) that he had crawled or wormed under or over the wire fence to see these. Visions of dire results flooded my mind. I checked the garage (one of his favorite haunts) and all around the house under the second floor deck. Nothing!!! Gazing out to the lower six acres and the (treacherous) murky pond, did not bring a little figure into view. Panic was rising. We both were incessantly calling out his name.
With the intent of searching the long corn rows of our garden, I started out across the drive calling his name when my progress was arrested with a shout and whistle from Kate. Looking over she smilingly beckoned me in the direction of the vineyard, right below the house. Running over, the sight that met my eyes was one of hilarious and profound relief. There sitting on the ground in rubber-encased, diapered splendor was our little dark-haired boy. His little tank top was streaked with juice stains and his mouth was CRAMMED full of grapes, so full he could not speak. His chubby little fists were likewise full of semi-squashed grapes, obviously the intended for the next feast. He looked up at us intently with his large brown eyes seemingly inquiring what the problem was, why all the noise and dismay? He was having the time of his life there, among the leafy green vines, having his own grape festival for all the world like a miniature version of Bacchus. I do not doubt that the Roman God of wine and viticulture was smiling down at his dutiful little disciple.
We had about twenty vines of admittedly non-wine appropriate Thompson Seedless and Concord grapes. Situated right below the house, the vines we mature and bore well; in full flower they formed long, leafy avenues of shade and VERY good picking and eating. Probably more times than I can remember but one day that I particularly do remember the following scenario was played out by our son.
Probably coming back to reality from busy chores or attending to Cece and infant Rebecca, Katie realized that Daniel had disappeared from her radar. Together we searched the house with no luck and with panic rising. It was a long toddle down the driveway to Sandridge Road but not un-doable to the sturdy little boy. Our closer neighbors the Handys had several horses and it was hoped (feared?) that he had crawled or wormed under or over the wire fence to see these. Visions of dire results flooded my mind. I checked the garage (one of his favorite haunts) and all around the house under the second floor deck. Nothing!!! Gazing out to the lower six acres and the (treacherous) murky pond, did not bring a little figure into view. Panic was rising. We both were incessantly calling out his name.
With the intent of searching the long corn rows of our garden, I started out across the drive calling his name when my progress was arrested with a shout and whistle from Kate. Looking over she smilingly beckoned me in the direction of the vineyard, right below the house. Running over, the sight that met my eyes was one of hilarious and profound relief. There sitting on the ground in rubber-encased, diapered splendor was our little dark-haired boy. His little tank top was streaked with juice stains and his mouth was CRAMMED full of grapes, so full he could not speak. His chubby little fists were likewise full of semi-squashed grapes, obviously the intended for the next feast. He looked up at us intently with his large brown eyes seemingly inquiring what the problem was, why all the noise and dismay? He was having the time of his life there, among the leafy green vines, having his own grape festival for all the world like a miniature version of Bacchus. I do not doubt that the Roman God of wine and viticulture was smiling down at his dutiful little disciple.
Coyote Chewpies
I have never seen a litter of Coyote pups in their den, or even out and about. No doubt they bark and whine a lot after birth, when hungry or feisty or bored. Poor mom and dad coyote! I bet, though, that no coyote parents as lucky as were a pair in the Nevada desert in 1986. They received a gift of a chewpie or two to keep little yowlers quiet.
We were coming back from one of our legendary car camping trips when this happened. Our tour had taken us camping and future job hunting to Chama, New Mexico, Crested Butte and Gunnison, Colorado. More events from this trip will be told later. Having eaten wonderful donuts in Grand Junction, Colorado, and blasted across the Utah desert we were, by later afternoon, into the rather parched and sunburnt Nevada desert on the way to Ely. Our goal was to spend an unusually luxurious night in a motel there. Having been in the car all day, nerves were frayed, the inhabitants were hot and tired and boredom had reared its ugly head. Pop was pooped from “telling us a story” and Kate was at the wheel. (Seems like she drove a lot!)
Becca had been in the habit of ALWAYS having a favorite pacifier (chewpie) or six, laying around to soothe frazzled nerves and the like. I had rigged up a chewpie lanyard using a WW I army pistol lanyard so when she fell asleep or became occupied and it was expelled the pacifier would not land on the less-than-pristine floor of the car, or ground, etc. This part of the afternoon on our car trips was prime chewpie use time and Becca was going at it with a vengeance. Cece, by now almost 10, decided to help Mom and Pop with the heretofore unsuccessful “You don’t need a pacificer anymore” campaign. She told a charming tale of a baby coyote named Bob and suggested to Becca that the poor baby coyotes out in the desert weren’t as lucky as Becca was. They did not have chewpies and wouldn’t it be a great idea to give them some since Becca was a big girl and did not need them anymore?
Silence, profound and thoughtful, reigned in the van and all eyes were on the little car-seat bound figure. Suddenly, with a “Here baby coytees” (actual pronunciation), a chewpie flashed out the side window of the van and rolled into the margin of the desert by the roadside. Asking me to unhook her “back-up” chewpie from the lanyard, she hurled that one out the window with a little laugh.
I am grateful that a ticket-hungry Nevada State Trooper was not following us that afternoon and we did not get cited for littering. Also, if I remember correctly, that night in the motel, a miraculous spare chewpie was found in Becca’s suitcase and withdrawals were appeased. The exact date that weaning from pacifiers happened eludes me, but this event is forever etched in my mind. I am sure that somewhere along Highway 95, in eastern Nevada, there is a faded sign, written in coyote-ese, saying: “Thanks Becca, for sharing!”
We were coming back from one of our legendary car camping trips when this happened. Our tour had taken us camping and future job hunting to Chama, New Mexico, Crested Butte and Gunnison, Colorado. More events from this trip will be told later. Having eaten wonderful donuts in Grand Junction, Colorado, and blasted across the Utah desert we were, by later afternoon, into the rather parched and sunburnt Nevada desert on the way to Ely. Our goal was to spend an unusually luxurious night in a motel there. Having been in the car all day, nerves were frayed, the inhabitants were hot and tired and boredom had reared its ugly head. Pop was pooped from “telling us a story” and Kate was at the wheel. (Seems like she drove a lot!)
Becca had been in the habit of ALWAYS having a favorite pacifier (chewpie) or six, laying around to soothe frazzled nerves and the like. I had rigged up a chewpie lanyard using a WW I army pistol lanyard so when she fell asleep or became occupied and it was expelled the pacifier would not land on the less-than-pristine floor of the car, or ground, etc. This part of the afternoon on our car trips was prime chewpie use time and Becca was going at it with a vengeance. Cece, by now almost 10, decided to help Mom and Pop with the heretofore unsuccessful “You don’t need a pacificer anymore” campaign. She told a charming tale of a baby coyote named Bob and suggested to Becca that the poor baby coyotes out in the desert weren’t as lucky as Becca was. They did not have chewpies and wouldn’t it be a great idea to give them some since Becca was a big girl and did not need them anymore?
Silence, profound and thoughtful, reigned in the van and all eyes were on the little car-seat bound figure. Suddenly, with a “Here baby coytees” (actual pronunciation), a chewpie flashed out the side window of the van and rolled into the margin of the desert by the roadside. Asking me to unhook her “back-up” chewpie from the lanyard, she hurled that one out the window with a little laugh.
I am grateful that a ticket-hungry Nevada State Trooper was not following us that afternoon and we did not get cited for littering. Also, if I remember correctly, that night in the motel, a miraculous spare chewpie was found in Becca’s suitcase and withdrawals were appeased. The exact date that weaning from pacifiers happened eludes me, but this event is forever etched in my mind. I am sure that somewhere along Highway 95, in eastern Nevada, there is a faded sign, written in coyote-ese, saying: “Thanks Becca, for sharing!”
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