'67 - Summer of Love (2)

Something happened the year I turned 13. I got a crush on an older kid. He rode his bicycle past my house everyday that summer of '67, and I was smitten. I sat out on the front porch in the evenings and listened to the radio play the latest rock tunes. Early one evening, he rode his bike past the house and stopped across the street at the street corner. He called to me to come over to talk with him. I was so excited, and so scared. (What if he tried to kiss me?)

I left the security of the porch and strode across the lawn and the street to the corner, by the stop sign, where he stood with his bike, under the branches of the neighbor's tree. He had leaned his bicycle against their fence, and was waiting for me. His eyes were blue and his hair blonde, and I thought he was the best looking guy I had seen in a long time. I was nervous to be standing near him.

We made small talk, then he asked me what I was going to be doing the next few days. "We are leaving on vacation in the morning," I confessed, wondering if he would try to kiss me good-bye.
He didn't move closer, but wanted to know where I was going and how long I would be gone. (He must really like me, I thought.) Soon the conversation ended. I don't remember if I was called into the house, or if he had to go, but he took off on his bike, and I sauntered home -glowing, I think.

I finished packing and went to bed early, because we were leaving the next morning. I remember getting in the car, and wishing I didn't have to go. I wanted to stay. Just when things were getting interesting - I was off for Utah for three weeks. I laid in the backseat and stared up at the telephone poles outside the car window. The telephone lines went up one pole and swooped down to the next. Up and down, up and down, just like the emotions in my heart. I had been so encouraged, so excited, and now I was down, down, down.

I probably cried off and on, but disguising my sadness from the family. We were not the kind of family that showed our emotions. . .especially sorrow and disappointment. How could I stand the wait - 3 whole weeks - before I would see him again. It just wasn't fair!

I don't remember any of the particulars about that vacation, except that my cousins were out pacing me in their experiences. My cousin, LD, who was two years younger, told me about kissing boys behind some curtains at her school. Good grief! She just finished the 5th grade! Another cousin who lived in Las Vegas, and was a few months older than I was going to parties where there was a lot of drinking and older guys. I felt inexperienced, but safe. I was glad I didn't have to deal with such pressure.

I probably had a lot of fun on vacation despite my sorrow. LD and I usually went swimming at the public pool in Provo, shopping, and to the 4th of July parade and carnival. We were old enough now that we didn't need to stay with the family all the time, and were venturing out on our own more. At the swimming pool, there were always guys who like to show off for us, and that was a distraction from my beau back home.

Finally, the day came for us to load up and drive home. I couldn't wait to get there. I was excited to find out what the future would hold for this "biker-guy" and I. We arrived home, and as always, I sat out on the front porch in the evening. I waited, and waited for him to drive by on his bike. . .but he did not. The next day, or two or three, I rode my bike to the store, past his house, just for a glimpse of him. . .

For some reason, only known to young almost women, I thought I could impress him by making him think I could eat anything I wanted, and never gain weight. I would walk past his house eating ice cream from the Tall Pine, and then refuse to eat sweets at any other time. I made at least one trip past his house everyday. I was sure as soon as he saw I was back from vacation, that he would ride his bike past my house around sunset, and stop to talk - or call me over to the corner. . .but it was not to be. I don't think I saw him again that summer. And while I was entering 8th grade at Pinehurst in the fall, he would be going to High School in Kellogg.

Looking back, he may have obtained his driver's license while I was gone or found someone else older and more interesting, who wasn't going on vacation. Maybe he realized I was just a kid, and he was a young man. Regardless, our "love" was a short-lived. For several years, I blamed the end of it on an ill timed vacation.

Pinehurst: Snippets from '63 - '64

Three cents for the Governor

I used to get an allowance to spend each week. When I was in Smelterville, I think it was 50 cents - but in Pinehurst I think it was raised to $1. I would walk down the street to the Post Office / craft store. In those days, the Post Office took up half the building, and a craft store was in the other half. The craft store had a lot of yarn, and the lady who worked there was usually knitting something. I really liked to buy these animal crafts in boxes with styrofoam, feathers, pipe cleaners, etc. that cost 99 cents. The one I specifically remember was an Ostrich you could make with the styrofoam balls painted lavender for the head and body. After it was made, it would stand up on it's pipecleaner legs, and it may have hung by strings so you could make it walk.

One summer day, I went down (probably on a Friday - when I got my allowance) to purchase one of these animal kits. When the lady rang it up she said, "One dollar and two cents, please."

I replied, "I thought they were 99 cents, and I only have a dollar!"

She explained, "Well, now you have to pay state tax of 3 cents on a dollar."

"I guess I can't get it then," I offered. "I'll have to go home and see if I can get 2 more cents." But I was thinking, What a rip-off. I have to pay 3 extra cents for nothing. When I went home I had to have one of my parents explain to me why a kid has to pay money and get nothing for it. They called it tax - but it really wasn't anything.


Banana Bikes

Sometime after we moved to Pinehurst, I got a new bike. I think it was for Christmas. It was larger than my first bike, and I'm pretty sure it was turquoise. (See picture. This is a 1964 Murray jet fire girls bike. Except for the seat - which was likely 2-toned turquoise and white - it looked like that.) It was a great bike, and I would ride it down to the store (Morbeck's) on the southwest corner of Division and Main. (Many of you will remember it as Wilber's store in the '70s). I'd ride it all over the playgrounds at Pinehurst school. I loved it, because with the larger tires, it would go further with each petal, than my smaller bike had.




The next year, however, bicycle styles changed, and since my bike was only a year old, I couldn't get one of the new stingray bikes - but I think my sister got one. (She may have inherited my older red bike, and was now old enough to have a nice bike of her own.) My dad didn't want me to feel like an odd ball with this old bike, so he bought me a "banana seat" and the "sting-ray" handle bars to put on my bike. (Try doing that with a kid now-a-days!) Now my bike was a monster. It was the Grandmammy of all sting rays - twice as big as most, with the cool seat and handlebars. Dad even removed the flat part of the back fender, so the transformation would be complete.



I don't know how old I was when I realized how ugly that bike was, but I eventually quit riding it - banana seat and all. Everyone else's bikes were small enough to do wheelies, and mine was a morphed-out Brontosaurus. I couldn't get the front two wheels up for anything. It was embarrassing.

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.)