The Robinson's House

We moved from the little house to the "Robinson's house," when I was about 2 1/2. It was a stucco house with a livingroom, kitchen/dining room, two bedrooms, a bath, and a hallway leading to the back door. There was also a large dirt driveway and a detached wooden garage where my dad used to work on his stock cars. We had a yard, unlike the little house, with a lawn that I could play on. (At the little house there was a dirt driveway, and area for parking cars where my dad worked on his stock cars, and where I played. Somewhere there is a photo of my friend PJ and I working on a stock car engine with popscicle sticks.)

The Robinson's house belonged to the Robinson family - who owned and rented this house to my parents. They lived on the corner of 6th street and Oregon and we lived next door. Another Robinson family lived in a brown house behind us (on Nevada) and were likely related to our landlords. They had kids near my age, and I played with them when I was old enough to leave the yard.

When I think of the Robinson's house, I think of the dark brown linoleum tile on the living room floor, the green couch, and the heavy black phone in the living room. We had a simple phone number I memorized during that time: Sunset 2-2922. You didn't have to dial the letters, just the numbers then.

There are lots of memories from the time we lived there. . .eating M&Ms, watching American Bandstand with the babysitter, dressing up in the outfit my Grandmother L. made for me, playing with the Robinson's dog "Trixi" and helping her eat her dog food. (Hard dog food in various shapes and colors - tasted like Rye biscuits do now).

My mom told me, that I used to threaten to eat dirt when I was told to do something I didn't want to do. "If you make me, I'll eat dirt! I'd threaten." I don't think it was much of a deterrent, because I can still remember what dirt tastes like. Or maybe I remember the taste of dirt from going to the Pinehurst Race Track on the weekends to watch my dad and his friends race. I remember the time my dad rolled his stockcar on the Southwestern turn. I wasn't old enough to be scared, but I was excited to see him climb out of the car. (There was a picture of my dad and his stock car on the wall of the Tall Pine last time I was in there.) I thought I would be a stock-car racer when I got older, but the track was closed. Now the bar that sat between the track and Division St is gone, as is its name from my memory - but it was still there in the 70s when I was old enough to dance to the tunes of Mary Juma's (Yuma?)Band. The entire area is covered with RVs and trees today.

We were living in the Robinson's house when my little sister was born. I only remember one incident involving her at the time. She was crawling behind the brown stove in the living room, and my mom scooped her up and spanked her. I started to cry. I didn't want my mom to spank the baby.

My dad has photos from that time, as well as some home movies of my 5th birthday party. I had remembered my "doll cake" from that birthday. The movies showed my guests and I sitting on the livingroom floor (on a sheet, I think) eating birthday cake. I wish I had access to that movie today, so I could list the guests. (I can think of some, but not all, and I wouldn't want to leave anyone out - just in case they ever happen upon my blog.)

I used to travel a lot when I was still a pre-schooler. I spent a week or two at a time with the Shaffer's in Cd'A and the same with the Boje's in Otis Orchards (now part of Spokane Valley, I think). At the Schaffer's we'd walk down to Sander's Beach on Cd'A lake to swim. At that time Sander's was a public beach and easily accessed by anyone who wanted to swim there. I loved the smell of the lake - a kind of rotting wood smell from all the logs - and I loved to play in the water.

At the Boje's, my favorite thing to do, was to play dress-up in the basement. The Boje's had 3 girls and they had a lot of dress up clothes. We used to also play with "movie star" paper dolls. One thing I didn't care much for was when we had to go to bed. Their mom used these strap things on the bed, so the covers wouldn't move. I couldn't get out of bed very easily to use the facilities or to get a drink. I remember squeezing myself up and out of the opening at the top of the covers to get a drink one time, only to be told - once I hit the hallway - to get back into bed.

An interesting side note to the Boje story, is that one of the daughter's closest to my age went into teaching. She currently teaches at Kellogg High School under her married name, and has raised her boys in the Silver Valley.