Where were you? (1)

The Day John F Kennedy was shot.

I remember the day JFK was shot. (Nov 1963). I had just gotten out of school and was waiting for my mom or someone to pick me up. I came out of the Pinehurst school by way of the office doors - which was weird, since I was in the old building for classes. Maybe we had PE in the gym before school let out. . .(not sure). A friend of ours, D. (Caldwell) Phillips came by to pick me up. As she walked toward me, she said the President had been shot. I was only 10, so I didn't really understand the magnitude of what had happened. I thought, "Why would anyone want to shoot the President?" I didn't realize it was a mortal wound.

When we got to my house, I think the TV was already on, and my mom was "glued" to the set. For the next few days, that's all that was on television: The President's motorcade, the shots, the President slumping over, First Lady Jacqueline, leaning over the President. News of the President's death, swearing in of Johnson, the first family in black, Little John saluting the casket as the funeral procession went by. It was sad, but I think it was more sad for my mom. She was older, and understood the sorrow of the President's death on his family. I remember the images, but I don't remember the pain.

The Lunar Landing

I was at the Carver's house sitting on the living room floor watching Neil Armstrong step onto the lunar surface. I was glad I shared that moment with my friends. It would not have had the same impact if I had watched it at home. The moment was exciting. We had been anticipating such an event since our early grade school years, when we read books like: Someday, You Will Go to the Moon. We knew this day was history in the making, and unlike a national tragedy, this was national triumph. We talked about what exciting days we were living in, and the posibility of space travel in our future. It was difficult to imagine that the moon we saw in the sky, was actually where our astronauts had travelled and had now set foot. "This is one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." - Neil Armstrong

Pinehurst: Fourth Grade (1)

Mrs. Smith was my fourth grade teacher. As I already alluded, I was disappointed that I didn't get to be in Dorothy Caldwell's class, and I didn't have either of my close friends in my room. Mrs. Smith was strict, but a good teacher. I liked her a lot. She read some very interesting stories to us after lunch, which was the practice in those days. One story was about an island that was slowly sinking into the ocean and how the people who lived there were going to cope with the situation. I have always wanted to find and read that book, but haven't any idea of the title. We were also introduced to Laura Ingalls Wilder, and had her first two books read to us that year.

At the start of the day, after roll call, the pledge, and lunch stats, the teachers would typically read a passage from the Bible to us. I remember Mrs. Smith explaining to us, that teachers were no longer allowed to read the Bible to us in school. I wondered why, but being a kid, I quickly moved on figuring "that's just the way things are." (This was Sept. of '63 when prayer and Bible reading were taken out of public schools.) http://www.afr.net/newafr/wekickedgodout.asp

The third and fourth grade classrooms at Pinehurst were in the old building, east of the main building, across the 2nd grade playground, but connected by a breezeway that ran between the buildings. (The breezeway was a covered walkway, that kept the snow and rain off but allowed the wind to "breeze" through.) The one at Pinehurst school overlooked Main street, had 4x4 painted posts and bordered a driveway for the busses to pick up and drop off students. The old building where we had class was sided with "wavy" aluminum, and contained only 6 classrooms, a teacher's lounge, boys & girls restrooms. I was probably the "original" Pinehurst school building. My class was the second on the right coming in the front door, and overlooked the 2nd grade playground. (The old building has since been removed and replaced by a larger play area.)

Our playground area was to the east of the old building in a large dirt area with a few bushes and Ponderosa Pines. We had some swings a little south of the dirt area. We had to share our playground with the 3rd graders. There was also a large cement structure the school used to burn old textbooks and papers. It drew the curiosity of many a student, and after school hours some kids probably climbed inside, and were covered with soot. There wasn't a fence along the side, and the older (Jr. High) kids would cut across our playground to get to the stores during lunchtime.

Along the front of the playground, there was a strange "fence" made of posts strung with wire cable. (The cable was thick, and before and after school we would try to walk along the cable, like we were high wire acrobats). During recess we would swing on the cables. We also played on the breezeway, mainly jump rope and Barbies. And after the 2nd graders went inside, we got to play on their playground.

One of my favorite "games" in the fourth grade was to pretend I was a queen. E. Larson and some other guys would be my body guards and horses (draped with a jumprope for the reins). My castle was in one of the bushes. This particular bush had a "doorway" made from two upright branches and a root that ran across the bottom of the doorway between them. Past the doorway, there was only room for one person - "me". I would stand inside the bush at the doorway, and give instructions to my minions, who immediately obeyed me without question. Since I was a "good queen," I never asked them to do anything bad. (Mostly, they just waited on me.)

I learned a lot of jump rope rhymes that year, and I loved to jump. We did the usual jumping with rhymes and double dutch (with two ropes going opposite directions at the same time. ) I loved to "run in" and "run out" of the ropes & jump along with others. My favorite jump rope game was "high jumping," where we would raise the rope (like you raise a high jump bar), and we would take turns jumping over the rope. If you caught the rope with your foot or couldn't jump over it, you were out. I was usually one of the highest jumpers. (I was also one of the tallest in my classes, until I reached 6th grade, also).

My love for high jumping may have been one reason I went out for the High Jump in track during my High School years. I wasn't tall enough to score points, but it was a personal thing to see how high I could go. (Besides I was a lousy runner and we had to participate in two events.)
But I digress. I made a lot of new friends at Pinehurst, many of them on the playground where the girls mainly played with girls and the boys with boys. (Except for the pretend things like being "queen.")

I met one girl on the breezeway, who had a broken leg. I remember she had silver crutches - something I had never seen before - and she liked to swing those at people like she was going to hit them. Her name was N. Colombo, and I thought she was really mean. But after her leg healed she and I used to high jump together, and she was really good.

Pinehurst again, summertime (1)

During May of my third grade year, my parents bought a house in Pinehurst. It was on the main street, about a block from the school, and was painted "Battleship Grey." I was excited because most of my life-long friends lived in Pinehurst (or the Bauman Addition across the bridge toward Kingston), and attended the Pinehurst School. Originally my parents had considered buying a lot behind the Johnson's in Bauman Addition, and wanted to build a split level home. Apparently this house was more in their price range, so they bought it. I was a bit disappointed that we weren't going to live as close to the Johnson's, but at least I'd be in school with PJohnson.

In addition to being close to the school, we lived close to everything in Pinehurst. The creek was just down the street a few blocks to the west, and the stores were a few blocks to the east. I could walk or ride my bike to the Caldwells, who lived next to the Post Office, or to the Carver's who lived on 3rd St. across from the school, about a block and a half away.

I spend a lot of my summers playing or hanging out at the school yard up through my eighth grade year. It was the hub of socialization for me and a lot of Pinehurst kids. We rode our bikes all over the school grounds and on the breezeway. We sat on the swings, the merry-go-round, the slides, and the curbs on the breezeway talking and sharing our lives.

Of course I related to you the story about KV and her cousin DB straightening me out on who KV liked and who liked her, lest I try to compete for the same guy. So silly now, that we would be so serious about boys when we were only 9 yrs. old! I really didn't care what she said. I knew that he and I were friends first, and that wouldn't change no matter who came and went.

I looked forward to entering the fourth grade, and was hoping that I would get Mrs. Caldwell for my teacher. PJ got her, but I didn't. I think it was because she was like a grandmother to me, and it would have put each of us in an awkward situation. I didn't have either P Johnson or G Carver in my class as I had hoped, but I became good friends with D Hokanson - who's mother was my second grade teacher at Silver King.

Smelterville Snippets (2)

Bicycle & Colored Easter Eggs

It was either my 6th birthday, or my 7th, that I got my first bike. It was a beautiful red, unfortunately my birthday is in the middle of winter, so I had to wait until spring to learn to ride it. I rode for sometime with the training wheels, then decided I wanted to learn to ride without them. My dad turned me loose in the yard, and I remember tipping into the house, running into the fence etc. But eventually, I was able to stay up without falling. I was so proud!

Colored Easter Eggs was my favorite game to play. I wish I could remember all the rules! One person would be the witch, and the rest would be the Easter eggs. As eggs, we had to scrunch down as small and tight as we could to look like eggs. Each egg would have it's own color, and the witch would have to come and guess what color we were. I don't remember what happened next, if we had to run to a base, or if we just traded places, but then someone else became the witch. (If you know how this game played out. . .I would love to know!)

In order to go to the Jerome's I had to scale the fence. They lived behind us, across the alley, but we didn't have a gate to go through. I don't know if my dad taught me how to scale the fence, but I would fly over it with one quick move. The fence was made of 1x4s hung horizonally on some posts. I would run at the fence, put my right hand on a lower board, crook my left elbow on the top of the fence and flip my feet up and over to the left, landing on my feet on the other side. (Now, that I think about it, maybe this is why I went out for the high jump later in track.)

Dad's Accident

When I was in the second grade, my dad was in a mining accident. The arm on the mucking machine broke and came down on his collar bone, breaking it in two. He had to spend 2-3 days in the hospital in Kellogg. The family would say, it's a good thing he was bent over, or it could have come down on his head. We went up to see him in the hospital, and because my sister and I were too young to go into his room, he came out to the lobby to visit with us in his hospital pjs. I was so scared for him, and upset about the whole thing, I determined I'd never marry a miner. The work was too dangerous.

A few years ago, I found out my dad thought that I was set against marrying a miner, because I was ashamed of his profession. "Oh, no," I told him, "it was because of your accident. I was so afraid of losing you, I couldn't bear marrying someone who worked in such a dangerous job." I wish I had told him sooner.

As some of you know, when I married the Hunk, he was in school to become a mining engineer. I had no idea that could be dangerous. In the first two years after he graduated, he worked at the Crescent mine, and had one horrific accident and one close call. The close call involved a live wire, hanging down that almost hit the man train he was on. The accident, which still gives me the shivers, I will blog about later.

Nickerson's Fire

There was a fire at Nickerson Bros., when we lived in Smelterville. It was at night and the fire lit up the sky to the west of our place. Our family walked over to see what was going on, but we didn't get too close. I was concerned because there was just a house between the building that burned and our house.

Large Holiday Gatherings

We had at least one large Christmas dinner at our place in Smelterville. We had quite a few tables set up in the dining / living room area. The Caldwells came, Dorothy & Glen and several of their adult offspring, spouses and children. The table was loaded with food and there wasn't much room to move around. The house was always hot on the holidays with hot food and numerous people milling around.

The Wizard of Oz

Every year, just before the holidays, one of the networks would show the Wizard of Oz on television. We would watch it faithfully, and soon afterwards I would start having tornado dreams. I wasn't scared of the witch, or her ugly monkeys, probably because I knew they were pretend, but I was deathly afraid of the tornado.

When my husband and I moved to Texas in 1986, I was hoping we would not be subjected to these horrible freaks of nature. However, we settled in "Tornado Alley" without a storm cellar or a basement. In fact, the first weekend we were there, we were under a tornado watch and the girls and I spent the night in the motel bathroom. I may blog later about the storm situation in Texas later, but the point is, my tornado dreams returned when we moved there.

Occasionally now, I have tornado dreams. Usually they involve numerous tornadoes, long skinny, black ones, headed right for our house. In my dreams, I usually get everyone into the basement in a small, safe spot before they hit, but I don't enjoy those dreams. (As a result of my experience, stemming from watching the Wizard of Oz when I was young, I don't think I let my girls watch it until they were in the pre-teen years.)

Smelterville: Weekends in Pinehurst

Aside from Rollerskating, I also spent a portion of my weekends in Pinehurst, staying at the Caldwell's on main street. There house was between the Post Office and the Library and sat back away from the road. The little house we lived in when I was born, was further back and to the right of their home.

Dorothy Caldwell was a school teacher (fourth grade) in Pinehurst, and she was like a grandmother to me. (My grandparents all lived in Utah, and I only saw them about once a year). She and her husband, Glen, had 5 kids who were 7 yrs or more older than I. The two daughters M & D used to babysit me when I was very young. When I was 5, I was the flowergirl in M's wedding. I spent many days and likely a few nights at D & her husband R's place - off and on through my younger years.

On weekends, I had a standing invitation to spend the night at Dorothy and Glen's. I would sleep on the hide-a-bed, watch cartoons on Sat morning, eat Trix cereal and play with their dog Coonie. (By this time Lucky was gone.) Sometimes I would plunk out melodies on their piano, or listen to their youngest son play the "Flying Purple People Eater" on his record player. (He also had a Flying Purple People Eater stuffed animal that hung high by his bedroom door, but I wasn't afraid of it because it was too little to eat anyone.)

One week, Dorothy called me and said she had a surprise for me when I came to stay. I really wanted to know what it was, and she told me a new family had moved in next door (behind the Post Office) and they had a little girl I could play with. She told me the family was all boys except the one little girl, and she was excited for me to come and play.

That weekend, I met the Carvers for the first time. The parents and all 6 kids lived in the very small home. I remembered the parents bedroom was past the kitchen before we'd go out the back door in a porchlike area. (And it probably was). They had just moved to Idaho from West Virginia at the invitation of some relatives who lived in the eastern part of Shoshone County. They had four boys, the girl, and then another baby boy. The girl M and I became very good friends, but I also became friends with the boys who were near my age. G was my age, S, a year older, and B 3 yrs older.

When I went over to play with M, we usually ended up outside playing Tarzan with some of her brothers. S was Tarzan, I was Jane, M was "girl" (a role we invented for her), G was Boy and B was Cheeta. They was no tree house, but we would play in the base of the trees and pretend it was a tree house. When we couldn't play outside, we would watch movies inside. I really looked forward to going to Caldwell's and playing with the Carver kids.

In addition to being my weekend get-away, the Caldwells also were the first people I knew who bought a color televison. They got theirs in about 1963. Our family was invited to come every Sunday night to watch Bonanza and Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color in COLOR! It became our Sunday night ritual and I loved it.

Earliest Memories

Standing in my crib (actual baby crib) seeing my relatives lying in bedding on the floor of the little house. A couple of my mom's sisters and their families had come to visit us. From that visit, I also remember playing "Star Light, Star Bright" and having cousin Mike pick me up and carry me cause I had been "caught."

I remember the national anthem at the close of the broadcast day on the little TV. . .(but that could have been a flash-back when I saw it years later). I remember "Gucky" (Lucky) the Caldwells' yellow lab who came over to play with me. I loved to throw his rubber ball for him, and watch him fetch it - until it was so saliva laden, that it soaked my hand.

The little house was located among some Ponderosa Pines a ways behind, and a little to the left of what is now the Pinehurst City Library. It consisted of 3 rooms: the L-shaped livingroom / kitchen, the bedroom, and the bath. It seemed so small years later when one of my cousins - Bob - and his wife came to Pinehurst and lived there for a while.

I also remember my brother, Steven, sitting in the high chair. I was waiting to see if he would leave some applesause for me to eat. I loved applesause. It took me a few years to understand this memory. My sister, R, was born when we lived in a different house, and for years I wondered who the baby was in the little house. I don't know who "jogged my memory," but I realized one day the baby had been Steven. Steven had been born with a birth defect and died suddenly at 10 months of age.

We never talked about him. In those days, while my parents (and me?) were at the funeral, some of my parent's friends went into the house and cleared out all reminders of Steven. (Except his baby book and a few pictures I found years later). At that time they believed it helped the parents get over the death of the child. My mom was so traumatized by his death, she lost a lot of weight. I think she just buried the memories of him, because losing him was so painful.

I have a snipet of memory from the funeral home. (And if it bothers you - skip this paragraph.) I don't know if it was the actual funeral, or if it was just a viewing. . .but my Dad was holding me and Steven was lying "asleep" in a high "bed." I remember saying, "Daddy, aren't we taking Baby Steven home with us?" I didn't understand what was going on, and I don't know if anyone tried to explain it to me. After all, I was only two.

We must have moved from the little house shortly after that. For years, my memories of the little house were always happy ones. I didn't realize that memories for my parents were sorrowful.