Centennial Golden Muffins

I belonged to the Cloverly Girl 4-H Club for years. My mom was the leader and Nora Libsack was her assistant. All the girls from our Pleasant Valley School and other neighboring country schools joined 4-H. We learned to cook, sew and decorate. Mom was the chief of sewing and making garments with perfect stitches and fit. I still have the little micro black and white checked cotton apron I made for my first project. It was hand sewn and the stitches had to be exactly spaced within the checks. These were small checks. I’m sure mom had me count the checks before I made the stitch. In the fall we entered our summer’s work at the county fair at Island Grove Park. If we made a Grand or Reserve Champion on our projects we could enter them in the State Fair in Pueblo. I was a blue ribbon sometimes red ribbon winner. Some times Mom had a Grand Champion winner that made her and Nora so proud of their accomplishments.

Mostly Nora taught the cooking. I learned to make sugar cookies that came off the cookie sheet perfectly with the smallest amount of distortion. Jellies had to be clear with no bubbles and a perfect seal of the paraffin. I think I made mostly apple jelly probably from apple juice. I like to make jams better now so you have some flavor and little pieces of fruit to spread on a piece of bread. No more messy paraffin anymore to seal the jars. The lids fit tight and a quick turn upside down for a few minutes and the jars are sealed perfectly.

I made bread on summer. White bread, white flour. There is nothing tastier then a piece of warm bread spread with a little real butter. I was reminded of that today. We had a few bananas that were speckling up on the counter from last weeks Christmas fest. From the bottom drawer I pulled out my favorite banana bread recipe tucked in an old cookbook from a collaborative effort of some people from Stan’s engineering job that he had some 35 years ago. I just love that recipe as it has no fat and always bakes up perfectly. I sliced off a few pieces and gave one to my bus driver. He was trilled to receive a piece of homemade bread. He said when he grew up his Mom would always make bake goods from scratch. Not so much today as his wife usually buys whatever the grocery store sells that is already boxed up. I wonder if his mom was in 4-H.

Before we advanced to bread we learned to make muffins. The recipe in the 4-H manual told us not to beat the dough, but barely spoon it together for under twenty strokes. I can still make pretty good muffins keeping to that minimal mixing routine. My friend Lois Goldsmith was in the same muffin group. There was some centennial celebration in the community. Colorado had its centennial in 1976 as it became the 38th state in 1876. I know it wasn’t in 1976 as I was about 10 which would have been 1956. Whatever the celebration, centennial was theme. Lois and I teamed up to give a demonstration at a contest in Greeley. Lois was the presenter and I was the person putting together the ingredients while she talked. We made Centennial Golden Muffins. These were the same muffins are in the second year 4-H cookbook with added golden butterscotch chips. These chips were new to the market as only chocolate chips had been available. This made a delicious change to the standard muffin. Lois and I practiced each day at her house or mine. We made muffins galore to the delight of both families. We were ready for our demonstration at the contest. Lois became sick with mono or some other sort of illness, became hospitalized and wasn’t well enough for the demo we had planned together. There went our big opportunities to be young Martha Stewarts. There was no replacement for Lois, so the show didn’t go on. Thinking back to this time, I probably could have completed the demo on my own, but just didn’t have enough confidence to do it or there were rules about entering specific names for the demo. I still make muffins today skipping the butterscotch chips to add blueberries, cranberries, peach instead.

Christmas

Christmas growing up is but a vague memory. I’ve seen videos when I was about five of a Santa that came to visit on Christmas Eve when we lived in the Tipton house. My mom must have been taking the photos as dad was in the movie so I don’t think that Santa was played by him. This Santa was slight of build so it wasn’t my Uncle Swede either. He was kind of short so maybe it was my Uncle Rodney, Aunt Ruth’s brother who played Santa.

This Santa was the lowest tech ever. He had the red velvet suit, probably made by one of the handy seamstresses in the family, but his beard was not silky and full like the Santas you see today. It looked in the video like white cotton. This was about 1950 when cotton came in a big roll about eight inches wide wrapped in blue heavy cardboard like paper. Poor Santa looked like he had been in the medicine cabinet into that roll of cotton to find a white beard for him to wear.

Santa handed out wrapped gifts for all of us. There was a great racket when he arrived as he jingled these grand bells that were from the horse harness that was placed over the horse’s neck. The bells varied in size and were about 4 inches in diameter and had a great big melodious tone. This string of bells was from my Great Grandfather Frank O. Swanson’s carriage equipment when he would drive his wife to town in a sleigh about Christmas time at the turn of the century in the 1900’s. The strip of bells were handed down to his son, my Grandfather, Carl O. Swanson and then to my Dad, Harold O. Swanson. Dad guarded them with abandon. They are still guarded in one of my closets. I take them out once in a while on Christmas Eve. We have taken a walk through our neighborhood years ago on our way to Cynthia Jones’ house to Christmas Eve dinner. We spent many Christmas Eve’s together with that family as John and their son Geordie were best friends. One evening the houses were all adorned with luminaries along the sidewalks throughout the whole neighborhood on a Christmas Eve. We walked in the middle of the quiet snow-packed streets and gently shook the bells as we walked. They are the best bells I have ever heard.

My dad was a roly-poly guy who made a great Santa for our school, Pleasant Valley. The parents all contributed one present for each child. My dad would put on a Santa suit that probably belonged to the school as I never found any Santa suit remains when I helped clean out their home. I don’t remember any tacky cotton beard. He would Ho-Ho-Ho his way into the school with a big red bag slung over his shoulder packed with gifts. He would call out all the kids’ names. He knew them all as this was a close knit neighborhood. He asked them questions about being good or bad. After they battered back and forth he gave them a gift. In the 1950’s gifts were pretty simple. A few nuts and a fresh orange or apple were a treat. Checker boards, monopoly or a baby doll were a special treat. No one wanted to receive any coal, which was in easy supplier from the furnaces that were then stoked with shovels full of coal.

When we went to church on Christmas Eve at eulota (Swedish name of Christmas Eve service) at 4:00 am on Christmas morning. The ushers passed around little boxes of candy for all the children. There were all kinds of yummy treats that we only saw at Christmas time. Ribbon candy and hard candy filled with creamy or crispy favors are still fragrant in my mind. I loved the cinnamon puffs that made our tongues and lips red.

We would sing out the old familiar Christmas carols that have been around for hundreds of years. Today we attend various Christmas concerts where they play a few of those Christmas carols. I still get a lump in my throat when I hear Joy to the World. It is a lot different hearing live music played with feeling than the same tunes piped into the malls like it is played by drones.

We started going to the Tuba concerts on a Saturday around the first week or so of December outside in downtown Denver at Larimer Square. Hearing those big ole’ tubas belting out Jingle Bells is a delight. On that day twenty or thirty tubas fill the street to play Christmas carols for the Holiday crowds. There are generations of people joining in the fun. They have been gathering for over twenty-five years at various city streets across our nation. My son John took his little girl Anya, age one, to her first Tuba concert in Boston.

Thanksgiving

We don’t make a big deal out of Thanksgiving by stressing out over special foods and filling the house with relatives. Most of our family has moved to different states and friends are spending time with their families. Still I like to bake a turkey even though two out three of us that will be at the Thanksgiving dinner table are vegetarians. It still like the turkey gravy poured over stiffly mashed potatoes and a healthy serving of stuffing drenched in turkey juices where they have been baking for a few hours with a side of jellied cranberry sauce. A black-berry flavored jello filled with crunchy things like chopped cranberries, grapes, celery and nuts is always good. Often I make home made cinnamon rolls and dinner rolls. I always like to eat a cinnamon roll right from the oven while I cooking the rest of the dinner. Pumpkin pie is my favorite although I usually make an apple and cherry pie depending on how many people come to dinner. It will be Stan, Jamie and myself this year.

Several years we also included Ruthie, a neighbor, at our Thanksgiving feast. Her husband Ralph died a few years ago so it is enjoyable to have her come by and help us with the turkey and leftovers. This year she is going to visit her son in Albuquerque for Thanksgiving. We are going down there as well the day after to celebrate Stan’s sister, Irene’s 80th birthday.

One year about 2004, John traveled from Boston with his girl friend for Thanksgiving. We went all out that year to be sure and make a good impression on Rachel. We spent most of September and October taking down that old kitchen wall paper from the 1980’s and painting the walls a soft designer yellow. What is so designer about yellow? It’s just soft yellow. We added some soft yellow and white gingham wall paper to the back splash and the sofit to add some change in the texture. I found some fabric at a wholesale shop with a splash of painterly flowers in yellows, purple and reds. I made a drape for the sliding door and gently gathered valences to top the other two windows.

The table was set with the hand stamped rust and beige table cloth that we bought on our trip to India years back. I made some kind of floral arrangement (not my long suite) from pine boughs and some orange berries from one of the trees in our backyard. I set the table with my Grandma Anna Swanson’s dishes. They have delicate gold trim and look nice on a Thanksgiving table. I have a couple sets of silverware that I use on such occasions. One that we received as a wedding gift that we bought with money Uncle Vern had given us and one from my mom with the initial “S” on the handles. I bought some cute little white lacy looking ceramic snowmen that I threaded a rusty-red ribbon through the lacy part to decorate them up. Each person had a snowman at their place. I figured we could use them on the tree for Christmas ornaments. We enjoyed getting to know Rachel that Thanksgiving weekend. She made a favorable impression on us and we are happy to have her as our daughter-in-law now.

Other Thanksgivings we served variations of the same types of food. When mom was still alive we invited her over to Thanksgiving. I would pick her up from her retirement apartment a few miles from our home. Even though we had the same type of foods, she must have been a bit of a vegetarian herself in her later years. She ate mashed potatoes with some gravy, vegetable, a little jello and a roll. These were servings big enough for a bird. She liked pumpkin pie too. Once she was finished she wanted to go back to her apartment. We were happy to have a few minutes with her.

Early when I married Stan in 1973 I had to learn had to make all this Thanksgiving stuff over years. It wasn’t always easy as pie to put on a Thanksgiving dinner. It takes practice over years. Now, I like baking the turkey on a baking bag best. It seems to work for me and people always eat the turkey without many complaints. I always like to try a new salad or cookie recipe during one of these dinners, which can be a disaster or a delight.

Gravy is always a problem. None of us know how to make it. Simple, I know, but still we don’t get it. Now I just buy an envelope of turkey gravy that you simply add water and heat up for a few minutes. One year in 1973 when we were first married and lived in Brownsville, Texas people came down to visit us in droves. That Thanksgiving, my parents, my friend Bobby Kline and Stan’s friend, Chuck Germeyer all showed up on Thanksgiving. Some how we got dinner on the table for all of them. No special dishes as it takes years to collect all that kind of stuff. I relegated the turkey gravy to Bobbie and Chuck knowing that Bobbie was a good cook. Well, not in the gravy arena. My parents must have thought – what a fiasco to drive all the way to Brownville to watch their daughter struggle with a simple Thanksgiving meal. I probably bought pies that year. Bobbie and Chuck ended up being very close friends that weekend, but ultimately went their separate ways.

By 1976 when we moved back to Colorado we spent a few years having Thanksgiving dinner with Mom and Dad at their house in Greeley. By that time Mom had forgotten whatever she knew about cooking. She had this technique she used to cook her turkey in a Westinghouse oven that kind of steamed the thing into submission. It was a very over-cooked bird by the time it was served on the plate. Stan nick named it turkey jerky. She was still the best pie maker ever and we enjoyed the visit, just not the turkey. We were all hardy meat eaters then.

As a young couple we felt we had to make the parental break to establish our own traditions. So we started going skiing with the kids on Thanksgiving day. That eliminated the need to go to Greeley for Thanksgiving. Mom was probably tired of making the big meal so she said. We would bundle up the kids in the van and off we would go to try out the new sometimes sparse snow, while the turkey baked in the oven using the automatic oven timer. That was some of the best skiing ever before the snow was packed down with snow grooming equipment. We wore our rock skis so those scraps wouldn’t ruin our good skis. The ski tickets were always cheaper then on Thanksgiving Day. The crowds were light as most people were spending the day eating and watching football games indoors. For several years this allowed us some couple-family freedom and still we had turkey dinner on the table later in the afternoon after a morning of skiing.

Growing up I don’t remember too much about Thanksgiving except the year we ate a pet duck with Marlyss’ family which I told about before.

In school the fall was filled with construction paper cut outs of leaves, turkeys and pilgrims. If we were lucky there might be some printed cardboard cut outs that the teachers would hang on the bulletin boards. We had a few at home too that used to decorate the windows.

Thanksgiving held an important part in our lives when we all took time to say a heart felt grace and reflect on things we which were thankful. Now Christmas has crept into our Thanksgiving spirits with advertisements and sales starting in the stores minutes after Halloween. When I grew up no Christmas decorations were applied to street corners or hung in store windows until Thanksgiving was over. Thanksgiving was such a nice time to sit down and have a delicious meal you’re your family.

Last week we saw a line of needy people around the block at the Jeffco Action Center waiting to pick up their box of food to prepare their own Thanksgiving feast. Other centers are offering meals that day in community halls filled with people in need. It seems the connection to Thanksgiving is missing in some of these contrived experiences.

Sometimes maybe just a simple meal, no matter the content, with a sharing of Thanksgiving for our family, country and freedoms would be more appropriate.

Choir Robes

Choir Robes

Our family belonged to the First Covenant Church in Greeley. Every time the doors opened we were there to support and participate in the activities. Sunday, of course, was the biggest day for church.

My Grandparents, Anna and Carl Swanson, were charter members of this church. It started in a different building than the one I became familiar with. Anna and Carl had probably helped build that first church through sweat and economic contributions. I can just see the men planning and working together. Mostly church members were farmers toiling in the fields to raise crops then milk the cows and gather eggs from the chickens. This was a daily job that takes the computer jocks of today to task when they refer to a team managing customer service 24/7. Farmers were on call to operate their farming operation 24/7 with no backup support except their family. Still they believed in the freedom to worship that this country gives to all its citizens. Together they took precious hours from their farming to come together to build a church. Not just the hammer and nails it took to build the frame and lay the bricks, but building a community of friends and relatives with similar values and beliefs.

The First Covenant Church was connected to the main church in Minnesota. During my Grandparents day the church included mostly Swedish folks. The services were in Swedish as was the singing. I found an old Bible from my Grandmother that was in Swedish. The leather cover was soft with wear as were the pages that were thumbed through over time from hours of reading her favorite Bible verses. My dad, Harold, grew up speaking Swedish at home and at church. He learned English and in school and other public places, he and his brother, Clarence would always speak English. Grandma had a thick Swedish brogue when she spoke English. It was music to our ears to hear her talk. Grandpa spoke clear English as he was in the business world selling and buying cattle and meeting with people of all nationalities. It must have been a challenge for my Mom when she married my Dad to acclimate to the Swedish chat between family members at family gatherings. Still we always said grace before every meal in Swedish.

When we cleaned out some of Mom’s stuff in an old barn I found a wooden orange crate full of dusty song books from the first church. They were only an half an inch thick compared to the two inch variety that the next church used. But the songs were the same melodies with some variation of titles or words. The hymn book was in English, but had many verses in Swedish. I thought some day I would take a book apart and frame some of the songs. They would be interesting on a wall in a music room above the piano.

Maybe people don’t have pianos anymore, just keyboards and drum sets along with stacks of CD. Now the young folks have thousands of songs loaded into an Ipod or MP3 player no bigger than a credit card always on – always connected to ear buds hanging from their ears. A shame really that they will miss the opportunity I grew up with to hear music live played from my sister’s fingers stroking the piano keys. Miss a note or not it was delightful to sit next to her on the piano bench and watch her play. If we knew the song my brother and mother might stand behind the piano for a brief verse or two to sing along.

My dad was a good singer. He must have been a baritone. He didn’t sing high tenor notes like Don Lindstrom or really low bass like my brother Alan. Just clear and heart felt. When he was younger for years he sang every Sunday in the choir with my Mom and the rest of the friends and relatives at the church who could carry a tune. Alan found a 78 vinyl recording of dad singing a solo with the choir that Alan had transcribed to a cassette. Now we are into CDs and digital recordings. I have misplaced that short piece of music with my dad’s voice resonating in joy of life to the congregation. Maybe I’ll find it and listen once more.

My mom sang in the middle range too about the same place that I can carry a tune. There were strong singers in the choir. One big soprano voice came were from my Aunt Marion, Marlyss’ mother. Not really my Aunt, but we all called her that as she married my Aunt Ruth’s brother Rodney Johnson. Aunt Marion could take a deep breath with those big old lungs and hit the high notes as clear as a beautiful crystal glass. From time to time Aunt Marion and Uncle Rodney would sing duets. She was always the power house. Vivian Swanson, my second cousin, had a champion soprano voice too. The kind of voice that makes you stop for a minute just to hear her sing.

My Aunt Ruth and Marlyss (Miki) had low alto voices that carried the harmony on Sunday mornings. My second cousin, Ray Duell had a really strong baritone voice and was asked many times to sing songs such as “Our Father, who art in Heaven” and at Christmas time “Oh Holy Night”. Breathtaking really.

One thing about our church was that we sang praises loudly and with vigor. When I married Stan we went to the Catholic Church from time to time. They are timid singers. The songs were not familiar as the ones I grew up singing week after week. Churches were bigger; there was a choir, but not the rejoicing that you find in the strain of church when I grew up. I went to a mega church with my sister-in-law Irene when visiting in Albuquerque. They really sang and sang and sang until the place was a frenzy of voices shouting out at the words on the big screen up front. The First Covenant Church was somewhere between those two extremes in the singing department.

There was always something going on with the Ladies Aid group at church. They gathered for prayer meetings and to study the Bible one a week or so. Then they would sponsor projects to prepare food for church gatherings. There was a big old meeting room in the basement of the church with a large kitchen at the end. Women would bring food from home and people would line up to fill their plates of the best home-cooking from miles around. This of course was before women entered the workforce in earnest. They had their chores at home and helped feed the calves and chickens, then gave of time at the church. Funerals were not catered, but food was brought in by the women of the church to share with a grieving family and their friends. The Ladies aid reached out to the shut-ins making visits to cheer people up as well as visits to nursing homes to share some joy.

My Grandma was more of a worker then a social butterfly. I fit into that mold pretty well. Give me something to do and I’m happy. Let me chat up a storm with some friends and I’m fidgety. I leave that up to people like my sister who relishes in friendships. I spend time with my friends from work, but there is always a plan or goal to get something done. This week we are planning to decorate and fill Christmas stockings for needy children.

In the front of the church there was a large table and a tall velvet curtain. My Grandma had made some of these large drapes for the church. My Mom took over some of those sewing chores also. It seems they changed the drapes several times a year with the change of seasons; deep gold for spring and dark red for Christmas time. Mom was always busy sewing something for her family, teaching little girls to sew in 4-H and sewing something for the church. This included making choir robes and bows for the children’s choir.

Mrs. Osterberg was the minister’s wife who had responsibilities at the church longer than your arm. She had two daughters, Janet – who was my age and Anne who was a couple years younger. Mrs. Osterberg gathered all the little children from about age 5 – 15 to sing in her children’s choir. The kids had one choir loft on the right side of the front of the church and the adults had the other choir loft on the left side. The kids meet every Saturday at the church to practice. Mrs. Osterberg taught us three part harmony and just beamed every Sunday when we sang our songs on Sunday morning. There were probably about 20 kids or so singing and fidgeting during the sermon up front of the church.

I must have learned production projects from my Mom. She sewed up a bunch of those choir robes. They were out of heavy crème colored fabric with a yoke and gathers in a variety of sizes to fit all the kids. At the neck was a big old crispy satin bow. These were also made by Frances and her friends from the Ladies Aid. Each Sunday the kids would gather after Sunday school behind in the crowded room behind the alter to put on our choir robes and have the bows tied. The bows were bright red for Christmas and gold or light teal blue for the rest of the year. My mom was in charge of making sure all the kids got on their robes and had their bows tied and straight. Mrs. Osterberg was a good planner and worked collaboratively with the women of the church to get the maximum help she needed to get the job done. We looked cute as buttons and sang pretty well too.

Track Meets

Once a year in the spring we had community track meets for local country schools that included Pleasant Valley School for kids grade one through eight. There was no such thing as kindergarten at the time I grew up. Barnsville, Lone Tree, Olin were some of the other schools that participated. These schools were similar in that the school was contained in one two-story building that taught 8 grades of children.

The teachers were all a buzz about training us kids to do well in competition with the other schools. At a set aside time during the day, we practiced running the 100 yard dash, high jumping and broad jumping. I can’t remember what we wore during this practice time as little girls usually wore dresses or skirts top school. I imagine we just practiced in our regular clothes as there wasn’t any place to change or store our clothes in lockers.

The high jump was a pole supported by two uprights with nail holes every inch. The nail was moved up for every increment as kids competed. We all stood in line and took turns jumping over the pole into a sand pit. If the pole was knocked off, then you dropped out until there was a declared winner. The younger kids were eliminated early on while the older kids keep on trying to jump over the pole. I’m not sure how that system worked to increase your skills as the poor performers were pulled aside while the high performers had more and more time to practice.

I liked high jumping and always tried real hard to jump high enough to the keep the pole suspended. I can’t imagine wearing dresses as the flare of the dress would have caught on the pole. I think we just kind of stepped over the pole anyway instead of jumping like the athletes do now with style and finesse to barely clear the pole.

Broad jump was also a fun sport. We would run as fast as we could and leap at the starting mark into the sand pit. They didn’t really explain the finer rules of board jumping. They just said to jump as far as you could. I think we had three tries to beat our and other children’s scores. Some times you would fall back onto your hands or touch your feet over the starting line and lose a good score.

Running was never my game. We had to do it anyway. There were kids who were built for running that did the 100 yard dash in record time; at least lightening speed compared to us slow pokes. There were relays where we ran with a baton back and forth in teams of four trying to beat out the other competitors.

Once we were trained, off we would go to the other schools to compete. I think our Mom’s volunteered to take a car load of kids to the school that was hosting the event. It must have been an all day affair. By this time we must have wore jeans to school on event day. Little kids really didn’t wear short at that time.

It was always a fun day. When we participated in our events that were grouped by grades ribbons were handed out: blue for first place, red for second and white for third. The rest of us received green or yellow ribbons for participating.

In between events we hung around with our friends and gossiped about the kids from the other schools. The Mom’s must have brought sack lunches for us to eat as we sat on the grass under a tree. I don’t remember that there were any concession stands for pop or candy. This was very low tech and probably helped keep kids slimmer than our counterparts today who are always sporting a big sugary drink, chips or candy bars.

Marching Band

One summer when I was in junior high I started playing bassoon with my cousin Pam and her cousin Miki (Marlyss) who took up French Horn. Miki did a lot of things with us and since her father was Pam’s mother’s brother we hung around as relatives even though we weren’t really related. Miki gave up French Horn shortly after that summer so she could get busy taking advance placement classes. Pam and I continued with the bassoon through most of high school. I was two years ahead of Pam in school, so after that first summer we were always in different band classes.

I don’t remember if the band learned enough that first summer to be in the marching band, but the next summer we did. Bassoons are not included in a marching band so I was always given something else to play. The next summer Mr. Faulkner, our band teacher from Meeker Junior High, set me up with a glockenspiel. This is a heavy kind of shiny silver instrument that looked like a liar with strips of metal looking similar to a piano that you struck with a mallet. I guess there was some kind of leather contraption that put over your head that had a place to support the instrument while you marched in the band. I doubt if there was any concern for which hand I usually used. The teacher probably put the mallet in my right hand as that is the way the instrument was loaded into the strap so you support it with your left hand and play it with your right. I’m left handed. I don’t think this instrument was too hard to play as all you did was play the melody line one note at a time. I’m sure if I hit the wrong note everyone knew it as this instrument really stood out with it’s high pitched sound when the band played.

Mr. Faulkner marched us in every local parade from here to Timbuktu. The junior high band kids wore white shirts, black pants and black Keds. One summer we marched so much that I worn out the front toes of my new pair of Keds clear through to the toes. My mom was concerned that these shoes were defective and we tried to get Jones’, the local sports store, to replace them as defective. I think they were kind of expensive for the time and Mom wanted to control her limited budget and get the best value. Well, the clerk at Jones’ just looked at us like we were crazy when she heard I was in the marching band. I must have gotten a new pair that day for which my Mom had to pay regular price.

We were in the Greeley 4th of July parade and another one in Estes Park. We must have played for the rodeo as I remember seeing the Greeley rodeo at Island Grove Park with all my band chums.

By the time school started, we were the band that supported the football players at the games. Mr. Faulkner had switched me over to an old silver soprano saxophone he found some place. He was probably tired of hearing that ting – ting – ting of the glockenspiel. I didn’t play with the regular saxophone players as the soprano had different notes similar to the clarinets. I remember I had a lot of fun at the football games talking and laughing with my co-band members.

One time we were leaving and Mr. Faulkner stopped me as I was coming down the bleachers. He said, “Did you forget something?”

I didn’t know what he was talking about until he pointed to the saxophone resting on the bleacher seat where I had been sitting. I guess that saxophone and I didn’t really bond too well.

The next season the teacher moved me to cymbals. They were big old things that at times you had to hold to swish quietly together in time with the drum beats. When you played them, there was a certain way you held them to really get a nice clear crashing sound. I liked playing the cymbals as I always got to line up with the boys who played drums. There were always a lot of shenanigans going on in the drum row. Those guys are probably in Leavenworth now.

During the regular school band classes and for performances I played bassoon. I was mostly 2nd chair of 2 or 3 people. It was fun and I had no plans to be a concert bassoonist so that worked out Okay. We sat right behind the clarinets, next to the oboes in front of the trumpet rows. The trumpet players were always the cute hard to talk to guys. They didn’t want anything to do with the bassoonist that sat in front of them. I always thought that trumpet players must be good kissers as they had to hold their lips so tight when they player their instrument.

By the time I went to high school I started in the intermediate band and then moved up to the advanced concert band, still with a lot of the same kids. You really get to be best friends when you sit by the same kids year after year. I joined the orchestra too and got to know a whole different group of kids playing violins, cellos and bass. We had the opportunity to perform at the annual school musicals. The first year I was singing on stage with a group of girls in South Pacific. Next year I was in the orchestra when we did Oklahoma. Another year we did Brigadoon. My mom was so great. She went to all those performances and sat through them to support me in my activities.

In the high school marching band things were a lot stricter. We practiced every morning; rain, shine or snow. We were out there on the football field to work through the various patterns that our teacher had developed. We had to step so many steps between each ten yard line in perfectly straight lines. No goofing off with this guy, whose name escapes me. He must have had a big budget for band as he had several of us playing cymbals. He bought these smaller sized cymbals with leather straps that we learned to flip and turn to the beat along with crashing together the whole lot of us in perfect time.

By the time Thanksgiving came along we were ready as the Greeley High School band had been invited to present the half time show at the Bronco game at Mile High Stadium. We had new dark black uniforms with those silly hats with big white feathery plums. We were great at this half time performance. All that early morning practice really paid off. They took us to the Continental Denver, which at the time was a pretty nice hotel restaurant at the corner of Speer Boulevard and Zuni Street. They had starched white table clothes and shiny plates loaded up with Thanksgiving dinner. It still can’t compare to a real Thanksgiving with your family.

Halloween

Fall was always a pleasant time on the farm. The crops were mostly out of the fields except maybe for digging up the sugar beets. The weather was still fairly warm with chilly evenings and cooler daytime temperatures. Colorado didn’t have much in the way of color of autumn leaves so we didn’t make much a big deal about it like they do back east in New England with the deep rusty, red and dark oranges colors. We had the gold of Aspen trees in the fall in the mountains against the dark green of the evergreens. When I was a kid our family didn't go out of our way to go to look at the Aspen leaves. I didn’t experience that splash of color of the mountain Aspen until I was married. We would take weekend rides up through Boreas Pass by Breckenridge and see the canopy of bright yellow gold over the mountain roads.

Children were back to school and settling into the drills and tattered school books passed down from children who used them the year before. Mostly little girls wore dresses of calico and gingham. The boys wore jeans or coveralls and plaid cotton or flannel shirts. The jeans were just plain old jeans. Nothing designer or special about these jeans. They might have been Levis or Wranglers, but the brands didn’t mean much at that time. They were just jeans that boys wore to school and to help with the chores around the farm.

Once a year we celebrated Halloween. On that day most everyone came to school in a costume. We had assigned desks so you could guess who the kids were even though they were dressed head-to-toe in odd costumes. One year I remember one of the Howard boys – probably Joe – changed seats with a couple of his 8th grade classmates to fool us younger kids in 5th grade. Joe and his friends had concocted homemade Halloween costumes that covered them so well we couldn't guess who they were. Joe in particular had put on his Mom’s clothes stuffed socks for the boobs and added one of those flowered scarves on his head that he tied with a knot at his forehead. I think I went all day and I never did figure out who he was. I was pretty naive about that kind of stuff. We all made our costumes out of things we found at home. Scarecrows had real straw coming out of coveralls and witches were wrapped in black cloth with homemade pointed witch hats.

One year the Goldsmiths put on a haunted house in their basement. I was probably ten or so at the time. Even though I tried to find out from my friend Lois what her brother Bob was up to with the haunted house I never did find out the gory details until we actually went through the basement. It was dark and scary as we walked down the stairs. The staircase was open so as you walked someone grabbed at your ankles from behind to put your emotions through the wringer. Sheets were put up in a maze. You followed a dark path feeling eyeballs (peeled grapes), brains (cooked spaghetti) and other such concoctions that scared young children. Black cats ran across our path screeching and swishing their tails at our legs. They played a record on their turn table that had eerie sounds along with their own sounds effects of screening and pretend murders taking place.

Once we were sufficiently scared from the basement offerings we went back upstairs for some games. These were the days when you actually dunked your head in a tub of water to retrieve an apple. Harder than it sounds. Apples were also strung on a string from the garage ceiling that you had to grab a healthy bite. The best way was to partner with someone so the apple would stay still. There were popcorn balls made with fresh candied syrup and hot cider to warm your spirits.

Stan and I have tried for recreate that type of Halloween atmosphere with our kids over the years but nothing comes close to the Goldsmith party. Our kids mostly went trick or treating and brought home bags of candy that we checked to make sure no one had slipped in any razor blades in the apples and that all candy was wrapped in its original wrapper. This is a crazy tradition to send your kids out in their costumes to beg for candy on a chilly night. They always had more candy then an army could eat. It made them both just on one big sugar high for weeks while they ate through their stash.

The schools let our little kids dress in Halloween costumes (purchased of course) and served cupcakes or decorated cookies made by some of the mothers. Stober Elementary School had pumpkin decorating contests while John was going there. He won one year with a tall skinny pumpkin that we painted like a clown with a hat and a pom-pom on top. Another year he found a really small pumpkin that he decorated and won the smallest pumpkin contest. At the time little pumpkins were hard to find. Today you can find baskets of them at any local grocery.

We always tried to carve a pumpkin or two when I grew up and then each year as our kids grew up. They were just the ordinary Jack-o-Lantern with eyes, nose and mouth and a candle to light it all up. Now pumpkin carving has become a real art that includes scraping away the hard skin and sculpting interesting faces.

One year when Jamie was about three months old I found a really big pumpkin, cleaned it out and carved the face. I put her in it for a photo. Hope I can find that photo some day. Young mothers. We are kind of silly sometimes.

School Dazes

Pleasant Valley was a country school with eight grades. One top floor room had first and second grade. The other big room had fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grade. There was a big stage in the front of that room. The basement had third and forth grades.

Black chalk boards lined the big kids room. There were pieces of chalk and erasers in the trays at each board. The four grades had the same teacher, Mrs. Guthrie. She was a real old maid stickler. She always wore dresses and hose and carried herself in a maternally manner. As I remember, her hair was mousy grey and she rolled it up in some kind of roll of curls bobby pinned tightly around her head in a circle. She was nice enough and cared a lot about the kids learning something.

She would line us up at the chalk boards, one grade at a time, while the other grades worked on their homework quietly at their desks. She would give us math problems until our hands were fully of chalk. We would right down the problem, then she would say go and be would busily work through the answers. It was always a challenge to see who could finish first with the right answer. I don’t remember being first, but don’t remember being last either. No computers for us as they weren’t even invented yet. I must have learned something this Mrs. Guthrie as I was pretty good at math, algebra, calculus in later years.

Mrs. Guthrie loved to teach us geography. We learned through constant drilling and memorization all the states and capitols, countries and capital cities all over the world, mountain ranges, rivers, oceans, facts about continents, climates and longitude and latitude information. She filled our heads until they almost burst.

Science was kind a skimpy subject for Mrs. Guthrie. It would have been hard to imagine being an astronaut as it information about space travel was limited in the early 1950’s. When I was older and went with a school group on a train to Washington DC by way of Chicago we stopped at the Air and Science Museum. I was enamored with all the information and science displays that we saw. Of course, this was still a time when traveling to places by air was limited. Our family would go down to the Greeley airport just a few miles from our country home just to watch the small aircraft take off and land. What a treat. When traveling from the big Stapleton Airport in Denver, every one dress up in their Sunday best as it was a big deal to be flying in such an elegant way.

At the end of the day at school, Mrs. Guthrie would assign a couple of kids to pick up the erasers and go outside the back porch of the school and slap them together in a great cloud of chalk dust to clean them. It was an enjoyable chore to have a few minutes away from the school time drills.

Music was limited in this school. Once a week or so a traveling music teacher would come around and we would sing some songs. She would play the piano that was upfront in the room and we would sing along. I still can remember some of those simple, friendly songs. Some were patriotic and start something like this; My Country Tis of Thee, Oh Beautiful for Spacious Skies, Mine Eyes have Seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord. Others were local favorite tunes such as Cielito Lindo, Carry me Back to Ole Virginny, My old Kentucky Home, Clementine and many rounds. Christmas songs came next. There was not much separation of church and state in the 1950’s.

The music teacher would split us up and teach us three or four part harmony. Rounds were always fun and would sound really great. My brother was really good at harmony and still today sings with a barbershop quarter.

Mrs. Guthrie drilled us on spelling words daily. She would line up all the four grades on the edge of the stage. Starting from the left side she would read a word. The student would repeat the word and spell it. If they were incorrect, she would go to the next person until someone could spell it right. That person would move up to where the word was misspelled. My friend Lois Goldsmith and I were always tied for last place. This practice set us up for the national spelling bee. I don’t think that any of Mrs. Guthrie’s’ students went to the spelling bee, but she did have her share of pretty smart kids.

I’m not a great speller as I really never learned phonics like some of the students and couldn’t hear the subtle differences of the words. Good thing there is spell check now with computers. My sister was a whiz at spelling and most other subjects as was my brother. It was hard to follow in their footsteps in the same school as the teacher has such high expectations of you that maybe you can’t live up to what your siblings did.

Art was a limited subject at Pleasant Valley mostly confined to drawing with a pencil on a piece of manila colored construction paper. We could use color crayons or cut out colored construction paper and glue it with mucilage to another piece of paper. One summer I went to town to school a College High, now Northern Colorado University. I guess my parents thought I should catch up. I was probably about second or third grade. I was so excited to find out that these kids had interesting art classes that used tempura paints to paint on newsprint. We would put on little smocks to keep out clothes clean and go to town with the paints. I would probably be more artsy today if I had more experience when I was in the country school.

At summer school there was an in door Olympic sized swimming pool. All the girls had to wear a swim cap. Mine was a rubber thing in light turquoise that had extra molded part at the top like a top knot. I tried to learn to swim as best I could, but really only progressed to the back stroke and face forward floating. I still can’t swim very well, but don’t really drown when I’m in the water.

An interesting experience during that summer has stuck with me. There were kids from all over the country taking summer school. Many were kids of parents who were teachers going to the College to update their teaching credentials. One of these kids was a little black kid. I had never really seen a black kid before. Most of the community was white folks or Hispanic folks. This kid mixed right in and did all the activities that that rest of us did with one exception. The first day of swim class he stood over to the side of the pool and wouldn’t come in the water. As he was one of our friends by now we all urged him to come in with us thinking he was afraid of the water. He still stood over to the side. The teacher worked with him for a while and discovered it wasn’t the water he was afraid of, but his background teachings. He was from the south and had learned at an early age that black didn’t swim in the same pool as whites. Though much coaxing and discussions with his parents he finally joined us the pool as this wasn’t the same issue in Colorado that it was in Alabama.

Outings

As I mentioned, our religious beliefs restricted us for dancing, drinking or playing cards. Dad did treat us to an evening in Denver once a year at the Ice Capades.

We put on our Sunday best, even though it was Saturday evening. Dad was a farmer and mostly dressed in navy or grey work shirts and pants during the week. He had a nice suit with a vest that included a watch pocket, crispy starched white shirt and big wide ties for Sundays. My brother Alan still carries that watch that dad had for his watch pocket. Dad always wore one of those fedora hats. This was one of those days for dressing up for all of us. Alan probably looked a little like a clone of his dad with a suit jacket, pants, shirt and tie and shiny shoes. Nancy and I wore dresses with our hair all combed neatly plastered down with wave set. Nancy probably wore nylons, but I still had little white socks with patent leather shoes. Mom had put on her Sunday dress, jewelry and carried a hand bag with a fresh lacy handkerchief.

We would all pile in the car to go to Denver. There were no super highways at the time so we wound through all the little towns like LaSalle, Platteville, Fort Lupten and Brighton on a two way paved road. You could tell that Mom would always get nervous if dad decided to pass a car. You had to accelerate to beat any on-coming traffic. Sometimes the crest of the hill didn’t provide you with enough visibility to see very far.

We might stop at a restaurant to have a special dinner before the show. I’m sure it was not a fancy restaurant, but to us it was grand to go to a place with thick cushy carpets, table clothes, and heavy silverware. I don’t remember what I ate, but dad usually ordered fantail shrimp.

When we got to the coliseum, the place was a busy with people. We walked through the concrete corridors with the flow of the crowds looking for our portal for our seats. We settled in for an evening of entertainment. Dad would have bought a program that we all read while we waited for the show to start. I looked through the program at the photos that depicted what we would see. The star of the show was on the cover. At the time, in the early 1950’s, I think Sonja Henny was a big ice skating star. It seems she also won a gold metal in the Olympics. She or some other beautiful star was on the cover of the program. I was enamored with the pose this skater had in the photo. I was little and it just seemed that with her arms and head throw back that she just didn’t have any boobs. I tried as I might to figure out where her normal body parts were. I was used to women with a little meat on their bones, not just skin and bones in tight costumes. It is amazing what a person remembers.

The skating started and we watched in amazement at the coordinated efforts as they skated around the arena. I particularly liked the finale where they would start with a foursome spinning in a circle in the middle of the rink. Then gradually they added on a person at a time until all the skaters were skating around like spokes of a car. There was always a straggler who couldn’t quite catch up with her place in the line. We would all root for her to clasp hands with her team mates. Such is the simple life of entertainment.

On the way home dad might stop for gas in Brighten. This was when the gas station attendants came running out to pump the gas, check the oil, wash the windows. There were no rest stops invented yet so if you really had to use the rest room it was at the gas station and usually not the tidiest.

We ice skated from time to time when Darling’s lake would freeze over. One of the neighbors would blade off the snow and then we all gathered in our warm woolen coats, hats and gloves for a afternoon of skating. The big kids skated in circles around the lake while the little kids skated on wobbly ankles trying to learn to skate. Boys used brooms or sticks for a makeshift game of hockey. The ice was bumpy from the wind blowing across the water while it was freezing solid. We didn’t care as we just skated over the bumps and crust.

When we moved to Swanson’s house from the Tipton farm, my dad let the washing machine water flood the side of the yard for a little skating rink for me when I was a teenager. There was a tetherball pole right in the middle of the rink. I would skate around and imagine what the real skaters would do with jumps and all those pretty graceful gliding poses. I could almost turn around and skate backwards, but that was about it.

When I went to CSU they had a requirement for 3 quarters of sports. I chose ice skating and found there were actually techniques to skating figure eights and other such feats. I could skate to pass the course, but still never excelled to greatness in that sport. All I remember is that the rink was right outside the student union. I would need to wear my outdoor skating clothes to all my other classes on skating days. My fellow students probably wondered why I wore the same outfit every day to class.

Visits with Cousins

Entertainment in the 1940’s and 1950’s included going to church and visits to relatives. Our religion restricted us from going to movies, a dance hall or spending time at a bar for even one drink of alcohol. I think the first movie I saw was Albert Switzer with my school mates at about age 10. I was so nervous that I would be exposed to some strange happenings, that it was kind of a let down to see the inside of the theater and wiggle in the wooden seats for a couple of hours to listen to the biography of Albert’s life.

Up to about age 6 or 7 we visited my Aunt Ruth and Uncle Swede (my dad’s brother) and their five kids. My brother, Alan, was about the same age and Lynnette who was nicknamed Tiny. Alan probably hung around outside their home in the backyard lot that was set up as a Kiwanis basketball court with his cousins Gene who was a little older and Brad who was a little younger. Uncle Swede was instrumental in arranging for the basketball court to be built on that empty lot. It made it handy for his three boys and other neighbor kids to play good clean sports. Brad the tallest of the bunch really got good at basketball. I remember watching him play basketball at University of Northern Colorado with my parents several times. Dad always liked basketball too. When he was a young man going to College High he was on the basketball team. I’ve seen a photo of him in uniform with the basketball in his hand. I wonder where that photo is today?

Alan played basket ball, but wasn’t tall enough to really go after the sport. In addition, at home usually meant more chores like milking the cows, feeding the calves and cows, fixing the machinery and so forth, if there was any free time. We did have a basketball hoop on our barn. I’m sure it wasn’t really regulation height, but still provided some fun from time to time. I think the Howard boys, Gary, Wayne and Joe who lived about a half a mile north of the Tipton farm might have come occasionally to play basket ball. The ground in front of the hoop was dirt so you can imagine how fun it was to bounce the ball in dirt. You really had to work to get the job done.

When we visited Aunt Ruth and Uncle Swede, Nancy my sister ten years older than me probably visited with Tiny or hung around my Aunt Ruth and Mom to help prepare something for us all to eat. I remember stopping by one Saturday. Aunt Ruth had a cotton print scarf tied around her pin curled hair from the back to the knot at her forehead; Aunt Jemima style. She had just made some kraut burgers, which are home made bread dough rolled out into squares, then filled with cooked cabbage and hamburger. They were yummy. I still make those today for my family. We were Swedish so this German dish was a change. Aunt Ruth was also known for her homemade rye bread that she often baked in a coffee can tin and her little square cakes that were frosted on all sides and then rolled in nuts.

At the time I thought their home was huge as it had all these bedrooms upstairs, hallways and closets. When I look back I see that it was a two-story cracker box filled with kids.

Corky and Pam were born a year after me in 1945 and about a year apart from each other. So we hung out together. Corky probably went out to play basketball or to chase the out of bounds balls. Pam and I looked at Tiny’s stuff for a while, but lost interest easily as Tiny was into finger nail polish, hair curlers and trying on clothes. Pam and I would walk around the block to the small corner grocery and buy a few pieces of candy. Pam was really more of a Tomboy than I was and always was turning cartwheels along the sidewalk and doing flips. As she grew up she was really good at baseball and joined a women’s professional league for a while before she settled down with a husband and raised three really pretty girls who looked a lot like their mom.

Something happened along the way with the parents as about the time I was eight or so in 1954 we stopped going to each other’s homes. Before that we spent every birthday together for both sets of parents and all the kids. These tight family get-togethers mostly included the Grandparents, Carl and Anna Swanson too. Well, life goes on and I guess I was too little for me to be privy to this issue between the parents.

My dad had a sister, Belva, too who lived with her family in New York, Alabama and then Denver. We infrequently visited them. Their kids, Brenda (nicknamed Bunny), Mark and Mike were about 10 or 20 years younger than me. Belva’s situation is another story unto itself.

My Mom had several sisters and brothers. Her sister Shirley was younger than Mom and had four boys. I remember spending quite a bit of time over at their home after the falling out of Dad’s family. By this time Nancy and Alan had mostly gone off on their own at about the age 14 and 18 so I don’t think they went along to visit much unless it was a family picnic in the summer. Aunt Shirley and Uncle Don lived on 10th street, right were the Greeley 4th of July parade passed. Sometimes we would all visit that morning and maybe have a potluck picnic after the parade to celebrate the day.

Other times Mom would visit with Shirley about all the sewing projects she was working on and Dad would chat with Don. I would go upstairs where the boys had their bedrooms and learn what was new. Don had the biggest bedroom by himself. Now that I think about that family I think that Don would probably be in the gifted and talented program today if he was born in a different generation. He always had something going on. As a young kid about 10, he would be growing plants. He had little pots all over every desk, bookcase and window sill. Next time he would be growing orchids that he had ordered from a catalog. He knew their names and had researched all the details about their differences. I was still spending time currying my horse and riding her around in my spare time. One time he had many fish tanks where he was breeding guppies. He had books of stamps, which I also had an interest. He knew all the countries and had the maps memorized.

I didn’t get to know Don’s brothers, John and Tom too well. His little brother Doug mostly stayed by his mommies side when we visited. Don was born the same year as I and was in the same junior high and high school. After a while his nickname at school was Icky as he was so different. Aren’t kids just horrible?

We all went off to college. I went to Colorado State University (CSU) in Fort Collins and Don and John went to Colorado University (CU) in Boulder. After we had gone our merry way as teenagers from several years we had one of those family gatherings at Aunt Shirley and Uncle Don’s on the 4th of July. I hadn’t seen Don for several years and was interested in how he was getting along in school now that we were more grown up. CU was about a year or so ahead of CSU in the 1960’s drug use by the students. Evidently Don had tried out some along with some fringe religious sects. To each his own I suppose.

Our family seems to have the thread of mental illness maybe running through my Mom’s side of the family starting with Aunt Hattie. I don’t know much of anything about her, just that people would call her crazy Aunt Hattie.

At that 4th of July picnic while watching the parade with Don and trying to carry on a conversation about college experiences, I noticed that Don was also carrying on a conversation with invisible people. At least invisible to me. I would stop him and ask who he was talking with to no avail. He just kept on talking away. Later I found out had had gotten married for a while and then surprisingly divorced.

Years of embarrassment and quiet family discussions later revealed that both Don and John had schizophrenia. It must have been a struggle for Aunt Shirley and Uncle Don as health care didn’t always pay those costs for treatment and the general public really didn’t’ understand the issues. It was the quiet, not talked about illness. My cousin John had also married and had a little girl Holly. Then his life fell apart with mental illness. I thin he was one of the attendees at Woodstock so no telling what the trigger to find that mental illness thread. He was hospitalized for year as a mental institution in Pueblo.

Don had also been diagnosed with schizophrenia. After his divorce and figuring out he really couldn’t mainstream into society he took up a Section 8 apartment. As an adult he was obsessed with piano playing. He had never played the piano a lick as a kid, but became a virtuoso as an adult. He would play the piano for hours on end to the point where his dad bought him a piano that connected to ear phones so he would hear the music, but neighbors would not. He wrote music too and played my one of his symphonies that I video recorded one year. I’ll need to convert that to digital some day.

I visited my cousin Don occasionally with my Mom over the years. I would bring him some used clothes from my son John. Don was happy to have them, but always concerned if there was a worn spot in a coat pocket.

I think both Don and John live in separate apartments in Greeley some how surviving through the treacheries of mental illness.

I don’t see my cousins anymore as we have all gone our own ways. It was interesting to think about how these people have touched my live over the years.

Sugar and Butter Sandwiches

At the Tipton farm through the big corral yard to the north of the house was the hired man’s house. This is different from the Mexican migrant workers house in the east part of the yard just pasted the potato dug out. The hired man had a permanent job and worked side by side with my Dad and brother to keep up with the farm work.

I think when I was about six the family that lived there was named Bray. They were regular people raising a family and trying to make a living. You could walk north down the dirt road a quarter of a mile to their house or go through the big corral yard. The corral yard sat mostly empty as I remember that the milk cows were kept in a different corral by the big barn. The corral yard had a big fenced in area for heifers (young cows) or maybe cattle raised only to sell or be butchered for food?

My Grandpa Carl Swanson was a big cattle man more than a dairyman. Carl had a corral on his farm and the one across the street on the property he also owned filled with cattle. He fattened them up on rich grain and hay, and then took them to market in Denver to sell them. Is seems we all thought he was pretty good at that job and highly thought of in the community for his management of cattle.

In the big corral yard at Tipton’s farm was also a concrete set up that was used to wash sheep. We never raised sheep so we just played on that set up. Along the board fence was a few lesser used pieces of machinery and an old buggy that had belonged to Frank Swanson. It was quite the thing with the open bench seat that you could imagine ladies sitting on all dressed to go to town. It had the oak posts that tied onto one horse that used to pull it. My dad showed this buggy with pride to all who ventured into the big corral yard. One summer Frieda Johnson (Carl Swanson’s sister) came with her grown son and liked the wagon so much they took it for her son and hauled it to Pasadena California to display it in their front yard. My dad, mom and I did visit with second cousins and saw the buggy there. It didn’t look near as appealing in a suburban setting. I remember going to their house, but can’t remember the guys name. He was an inventor of some type and was working on the body of a small go-cart type car that he had built himself. He was working with fiberglass which was a new material for the time in the early 1950’s. This was probably the same trip I talked about before when we went to Disneyland.

Another big hay wagon rested against the fence in the big corral yard. It had oak wagon wheels and was made in the about 1909. It had some boards across the bed of the wagon, but they weren’t the boards that came with it. Dad moved this across the street when we moved to the Swanson Farms in the late 1950’s. The wagon sat for in the back yard surrounded by other discards until the 1990’s when my husband Stan and son John dismantled it and hauled it to Lakewood in our Ford van. They reassembled it and the two units of wheels are in my front lawn now. We couldn’t move the long oak bed that connected the wheels together where the bed of the wagon was due to size. Those long pieces stayed behind the milk house for years until we had to burn them while cleaning up the property to sell.

Because my parent taught us the love for old things, especially if connected to departed family I have lots of treasures that probably should be moved along. I like keeping them so I do.

At the north of the big corral yard was a gate that you could peek in and see the hired man’s house. They had a little boy named Richie Bray that was about my age. He was keep mostly to his mommy so I really didn’t play much with him. When I did visit his mom would always offer me a snack which was white bread spread with butter and sprinkled with sugar. That is still a favorite today although I might toast the bread and include some cinnamon with the sugar. Sometimes she had a left over pancake that she did the same thing. I always same one pancake when I make them to cool off, spread with butter and sprinkle with some sugar. Yum Yum.

I think back now about the Bray’s and realize they were pretty poor. They didn’t have any jelly or jam to spread on the bread so sugar was the best treat the mom could offer me.

On the first of day of May, May Day, the tradition was that you would take a bunch of little cups, decorate them with crepe paper, add a pipe cleaner handle and put nuts or small candies in the cup. You would take these to school and pass them out to your classmates. I took one of these little may baskets over to Richie Bray’s through the big corral yard to his back gate. I think maybe my brother or sister went along to tease me. There was some silliness about giving the basket to a boy and then kissing him. I think I gave Richie the basket when he opened the gate and ran like the dickens so I wouldn’t be kissed.

The Greeley Tribune

The Greeley Tribune was delivered every afternoon around four. This was dad’s paper and we couldn’t touch it until he broke it open at the dinner table.

Mom would prepare the meal. Either Nancy or I would set the table with all the silverware in its proper place. I don’t remember having napkins for every day meals. Maybe we did have paper napkins. Paper products such as paper towels and Kleenex were not used to the extent we use them today. There was no dish washer except the women of the house. Dishes were washed by one person in soapy water, rinsed and placed in a drainer for the other person to dry. I was sometimes the drier and maybe my sister or mom the washer. If you were too short to reach the drainer, then a chair was pulled over so you could stand on the chair to reach the dishes. It was so cute to see little Nancy when she was a young child stand and that chair to do the dishes. Then it was my turn as I was 10 years younger than Nancy. Seems a little less cute today now that I think about it and more like child labor. I don’t think either my sister or I have stopped the dish activity in some odd fifty to sixty-five years. I still prefer dish towels to paper towels. However, mine are not the variety that my mom used that came in the laundry soap or held chicken feed. They didn’t have discount store such as a Walmart at the time and it was probably unheard of to buy dish towels when you get them free from soap boxes or feed sacks.

We blew our noses on handkerchiefs. Mom had a drawer with a small box padded with light blue satin that she kept her special handkerchiefs. They were ironed carefully, then folded and put in the box. Some had hand embroidery of delicate flowers while other had her initials. Some had lace edges. More ordinary ones were printed with flowers on the borders. My dad had red bandana type handkerchiefs. He tied them around his neck and brought them up over his nose when he worked in the fields with dusty hay or thrashing the wheat. I remember seeing him all covered with dust and dirt at the end of the day. He always changed his clothes before he came to the dinner table.

Mom had pulled out the comics for him and folded them in fourths so he could read them at his place. We always sat in the same seats at the dinner table with dad at the head. No one touched their food or fiddled with their silverware until we said grace together. It was a Swedish prayer that I know by heart, but can’t read or write any Swedish. Sometimes when we had company we would say a prayer before the meal in English. It was not the same words as the Swedish one. My brother-in-law Bob is the best person for grace. He always has something pertinent to the situation at hand.

We could read the funnies after dad was finished with them. Dagwood Bumested and Beatle Bailey were a couple of favorites. Dick Tracy was in the comics too, but I was too young to follow the story line.

Mom would look through the obituaries to see if anyone she knew had died. This was long before computers with email, facebook and twitter that provide instant messaging. Even phones were party lines that you shared with the neighbors. Some times you had metered phone service that only allowed so many calls per month. I guess that is similar to restrictions on minutes per month on cell phone usage. We used the phone infrequently. So the paper was the communication tool for the community. I suppose I read through the obituaries in the Denver Post occasionally just to see how long people live. I’ve been doing that once I head toward the finish line just to gage your possible live expectancy.

Mom would also cut out quilt patterns that were in the papers. She also subscribed to a few magazines such as Capper’s Weekly, Life and Look. Mom kept some racy True Story romance novels and magazines hidden from the rest of us that she read occasionally probably to break up the day to day monotony of being a farm wife that was filled with a day of chores and responsibilities.

The Sunday paper was the most fun. I think there were colored pages for the comic pages that day. Now we have colored photos throughout the paper.

Mexican Farm Laborers

Farming is hard work. My grandparents started working the fields with teams of horses. In the 1930s when they bought their 80 acre farm, they kept the horses in the big barn. The barn was two-stories. It had a place to store the hay in the upper level. All the harnesses and horse collars were hung on nails on the walls so they would be ready to harness up the animals for a days work. The horses could be let out in a fenced in carrel through the side doors of the barn.

My brother said that Frank O. Swanson, my great grandfather was a really tall big man. The horses were draft work horses and when Frank would sit on the horse his legs extended well down the side of the animal. There is an interesting enlargement of a photo of my dad, Harold as a young child about two in his grandfather Frank’s arms went Frank was sitting on one of these giant horses. I think I have the black and white negative of this photo. Jim, my sister Nancy’s oldest son has the actual photo.

Big horses lots of work. My dad, Harold and his brother, Clarence (called Swede) grew up working the fields with the horses until tractors came along. When they could afford tractors, they switched over from horses to plows, harrows and other machinery pulled by tractors.

Early on we may have farmed the fields at Tipton’s with horses, but mostly I remember Case tractors. My dad was loyal to the Case brand of farm equipment with its bright red-orange paint. Other farmers preferred the green of John Deere or grey of the International Harvester. It was Case for the Swansons. We did have one small grey Ford tractor that was use for smaller farm projects.

We lived in the three bedroom two-story house at Tipton’s. The steep stairs spilled out into kind of a big hall that was my brother’s bedroom. You had to go through that room to my parents bedroom. My twin bed was in my parent's also. Walk around the corner and there was my sister Nancy’s room. She actually had her own staircase, but it seems this was not used very much. Not much privacy with the family walking between bedrooms to get to their room. Different from the way houses are set up today with hallways and doors to each bedroom. We had another bedroom on the main floor by the stair case that was our guest bedroom fully decked out with a double bed, white Martha Washington nubby bedspread and dresser. I don’t remember anyone ever being our guests, at least not often.

We had one bathroom off the guest room that had a big old tub with the claw feet, toilet, sink and some cupboards along one wall. It seems there was also a closet there too. I think the closet was in the bathroom. I was too little to know when the bathroom and running water were installed in the house. It must have been in the 1940’s as there was still a usable outdoor john next to the ash pit outside about 20 feet from the back door. The ash pit was where we burned the trash. It was made of large colored brick and was about ten foot square. It had a two foot square hole in the top where you dump the trash. I think there was an other fifty-five gallon barrel that we throw the cans. Recycling before its time.

There was a large tin shed with big sliding doors used to store machinery at the east end of the yard between the potato cellar and the back yard of the house. There was another brick shed used to store machinry in that same area that probably was used for animals at some time before we moved there as there was no door just the brick walls and overhead roof. It was pretty big, maybe about three double garages wide.

Other machinery was lined up at the edges of the buildings until they were needed for farm operations. It took a lot of different types of machinry to grow all the different types of crops. My dad grew everything; sugar beets, potatoes, alfalfa, onions, sometimes barley or wheat, corn of course and pinto beans. He wasn’t much for vegetable crops like carrots or cucumbers. The soil might have been too rocky or this type of crop didn’t really appeal to him. Now farmers specialize to one to two crops to maximize their return and keep their equipment purchases to a minium.

To work the farm in the summer, Dad would hired migrant workers from Texas or Mexico. They mostly spoke Spanish only and Dad learned enough Spanish to communicate with the Mexicans as we called them. They stayed in a migrant house that was next to the tin shed. It was two rooms with an outside pit toilet. I think he piped in some running water some how. This was low tech and an upgrade from what the migrants had before they came to Colorado to work. The laws and requirements for housing are much different today along with status of migrants being legal aliens or illegal. In the 1940’s – 1950’s this wasn’t an issue. These were just people who needed a job and my Dad had one for them.

Many people lived in this Mexican house, as we called it. It took a lot of people to walk up and down the rows of crops thinning the sugar beets or weeding the fields. Today much of this work in accomplished by machinery or chemicals that treat the soil and seed to better manage the weeds. It was what it was at that time.

We were told to not talk or play with the Mexicans. They were always a raft of children that came with the adult families living in this house. They were told to stay in their yard by the tin shed and we were told to stay in our yard between the chicken coop and barn to the house.

Being the inquisitive kid that I was, I ventured back to the brick shed to play or chat with several of the Mexican kids. I was about five or six at the time. I sat down on the edge of a harrow or some type of equipment that had long metal fingers and was about butt high for a kid to sit. It was stored by the brick building. This was close to the barn so it was almost in our yard, not the Mexicans. The machinery was propped up with a pretty thick wooden stick so it would be ready to load onto the tractor.

As I set there swinging my little legs back and forth waving and chatting with the Mexican kids, the stick wiggled with me. Boom! The stick gave way and the machinery fell on the calf of my left leg. The little Mexican kids ran to the milk barn to get my Dad and brother who were milking the cows at the time. Quickly they lifted that machinery like it was light as a feather and pulled my out from under the machinery. Dad carried me over to the car to check out my leg. I’m sure there was a panic from my mom as she scurried out of the kitchen to see what had happened. I vaguely remember either being scolded for talking with the Mexican kids or expecting the scolding. I don’t remember if it was that night that we went to the doctor or the next day. I’m sure the milking chores still needed to be finished. I remember the doctor saying that the fatty cells were smashed and there would be an indention in my calf. There still is a slight one. As I wasn’t trying out for any beauty contests, it didn’t matter.

Stormy Days

Growing up at Tipton’s farm long before I turned eleven and we moved to the Swanson’s farm a quarter mile around the corner I remembered summer rain storms and winter snow storms.

One evening in the summer the rain just came down in torrents. The lightening crackled in the night’s sky. We always said to count once your see the flash of lightening to determine how close it was to you. If you counted one at the flash and then an immediate roar of thunder, it was close – really close. One of the days with lightening and thunder working together in quick cadence, my sister Nancy and Mom gathered at Nancy’s upstairs bedroom window to look up toward the end of our field where our Dad had gone in his pickup to turn off the irrigation well. The lightening streaked across the sky as thunder clapped too near by to not be frightened.

Dad had to climb down into the pump at that time to turn off the motor. Maybe turning if off helped keep the lightening from being attracted to the motor and shorting it out or worse yet blowing out it out causing a big repair bill. I could sense the concern as my Mom watched at the window with us. With all this lightening in the sky a man walking in the open field might be a target. You could sense her relief as we saw the pickup headlights coming back down the road toward the house.

Mom hurried down the stairs to help Dad out of his wet clothes. We really didn’t have waterproof clothing at the time in the early 1950’s. A canvas jacket, ball cap, coveralls and galoshes was about it. She was right there to help him strip out of his wet clothes happy to see him back from what we viewed as a dangerous mission.

We had storms over the years in Lakewood with lightening cracking across the dark sky and thunder clapping near-by. We would count from when the lightening flashed to when the thunder clapped just to see how it close it was. With most we could count to 5 or 10 before the flash so we thought the lightening was over a mile away. I don’t know who made up that un-scientific method to gage how far way the lightening was, but this little trick gave us some kind of Solis during the storms.

One evening, July 20, 2009, we had gone to bed about 10. The wind chimes tinkled softly and then in rapid clinks. The dog came to the edge of the bed in concern. We got up to see what was happening. In less then ten minutes the lights flash as the electricity went out. I stood by the shaking dog a few feet from the front living room window and watch the pea sized hail drive leaves sideways against the window. The roar of the hail storm was deafening, like a fright train roaring over our heads. With just force I was afraid the hail would break the window.

We all raced to the basement in fear a tornado was passing overhead. It was pitch black as the dog and I felt out way quickly down the stairs. Stan had gathered a couple of flashlights and was close behind. I picked a spot on the floor in front of the sofa not wanting to be in the laundry room where a tub could fall through the ceiling. The dog and I shook together as Stan scurried around checking the basement windows wells to make sure they weren’t filling too full from the deluge of rain and hail to flood the basement.

The hail was over about as quickly as it had started in 10 to 20 minutes as the roar of the storm subsided. We ventured out to the garage to see through the windows how much hail had fallen. About 5 to 6 inches was built up on the driveway. It was pitch black outside so you couldn’t see to well except for the brightness of the white colored hail. We went back upstairs with our flashlights. The back yard was eerie with fog from the cold hail on a warm summer’s night.

We saw neighbors with flashlights doing the same thing in their yards trying to assess the damage. We called a few just to make sure everyone was okay. All of our healthy summer flower planters were beaten to bruised sticks. No thick rows of mums this year fall. Tomato plants beat to shreds, along with the pole beans and zucchini plants that were just setting blossoms. Piles six to eight inches deep covered the lawn and sidewalk from the new growth tips from the spruce trees. We listened to KOA on the crank up emergency radio I had bought for Stan years ago. It seemed the storm had blown over us and moved to the south.

Nothing we could do about it in the middle of the night so we went back to bed. About one - am the power went back on and the emergency siren up the street started blaring. It had evidently been cut out when the power went out. Wouldn’t you think they would have a generator to back that up. When we called our daughter who lives about 3 miles away she said it was hailing there, but not too bad and the tornado siren was blaring. She still had power and was listening to the news about the storm.

We left for vacation the next day and didn’t really assess the damage until we returned a week later. The neighbor hood just ¼ mile away had taken a direct hit from the tornado that loomed overhead and spun off a microburst at 150 miles per hour of wind and hail. Our neighbors on those blocks lost 40 year old trees toppled like matchsticks. Windows were blown out like a flick of a finger on gossamer paper. The siding and bricks were pelted with the hail sized peas to as if shot from a gun. One of our favorite parks filled with 40 years old trees took a direct hit. The trees were uprooted or broken off like they were made of straw. No more shady walks through that open space for years to come.

I had gone to work the next day. Driving down 26th Avenue I could see just how bad the storm was and saw the breath of the storm damage along the way. When I go home that day some of the neighbors had crew of people cleaning up the debris on their yards. When we returned from vacation we got busy with our own clean up. The spruce tips the worst. The wind and hail had almost stripped our big old 40 year old tress bare. They were so lush and full before. Stan started the arduous task of bagging up the sappy spruce tips into 45 gallon thick construction grade plastic bags. One week the garbage took away 15 bags. Next week out went 29 bags. We had 10 bags of cottonwood leaves and many bundles of branches.

At least we have our trees still standing and the little flower planets are returning with some green sprouts.

One time probably in the 1960’s when a big old hail storm flared through Greeley in the summer, Dad’s crops got pelted almost to the ground. After the storm I remember riding in the pickup with him and Mom when we lived at the Swanson’s farm. The rain was flooding through the rows washing beaten crops down the waste ditch. Dad was devastated. All his labors for the year washed away in an afternoon’s hail storm. No crop insurance at the time so it was a full loss to him and the family. Farmers are the eternal optimists. Once the storms hit, they just assess the damage and determine if the crop will still set and corn will continue growing to harvest or plan for a better year next summer. The strength of that spirit keeps them farming in a positive light.

California Vacation

Our family was not really very good at beach vacations when I grew up. Mostly we visited relatives. Dad would load up the old Chrysler and drive on toward California up through Laramie, Wyoming so they could stop off and say Hi to Mom’s brother Daryle and his family. In one trip in the fifties I remember there were no Interstates to speak of. Just big old two lane highways that made passing a bear.

As I remember Dad did 95% of the driving. He would make a job of it driving 800 at least a day. There were no convenient rest stops along the highway so we had to scurry into the sometimes questionable gas station rest rooms. At that time gas stations didn’t sell cokes, Twinkies and chips, but sold their core competency – gasoline and service. Once you drove over the rubber tube the bell would alert the gas station attendant to hop to it and serve you. He would hurry out to greet you, flip open your gas cap and start pumping gas. While the gas was filling up all your windows would be washed, oil changed and a smile to boot.

Boy we have come a long way. Dad would get out of the car to chat with other folks getting gas and carefully watch that his car was being properly serviced. Then off we would go to the next stretch of highway.

We didn’t stop to see stuff much. Mostly just drove and drove toward our destination. We didn’t plan how far we could drive as this was a marathon after all. Mom would read the map and Dad would decide if we could make it to the next town and look for a motel. Places were seedy I’m sure by today’s standards of lodging. Dad would do the negotiating for price and Mom would check out the room for cleanliness before the deal to stay there was struck. We didn’t die of germs so I guess everything was reasonability acceptable.

One trip in the early 1950’s when I was under age 10 we went to California and stopped at Dad’s Aunt Freda and Uncle Elmer Johnson’s house in Pasadena. I think Uncle Elmer worked in the railroad. Aunt Freda was a housewife. They had lots of trees with the most beautiful flowers. Much different from the farm country in Greeley. Aunt Freda was a real trend setter. They had of all things a television. Of course, we didn’t have just an extravagance at that at our home in Greeley. The radio was the main stay.

I was mesmerized and haven’t stopped being glued to the TV set from that day forward. The TV was a big oak piece of furniture with a glass screen about a foot square. The picture was black and white. I enjoyed the children’s shows early in the morning. I’m sure Mom and Aunt Freda enjoyed having me quietly sit and watch it too. That was the big time with Ed Sullivan and Jackie Gleason. Not my Mom’s favorites, but we watched them as Dad liked them. I remember my Grandma, Anna, loved to watch boxing. Go figure.

We stayed in Aunt Freda’s guest room. My dad was a pretty hefty guy most of his life. He sat on the foot of the bed rail to put his shoes on and cracked the rail. He was so embarrassed for breaking the furniture due to his weight. I remember he tried to pay for the bed rail or repairs, but Aunt Freda would have nothing to do with that. He is probably still trying to pay from his grave.

Another highlight was going to Disneyland. This was about the first year it was opened. It was a delight to behold. I had my photo taken in front of a big ole whale with my goofy hat that went quack, quack. I still have the hat with my name embroidered on the back. There wasn’t the same branding push through the media as we have today as most families didn’t even have TVs yet and for sure the internet was just a dream to come some fifty years later.

Dad had some old silent movies he played for us at family gatherings. One of them must have been the original Mickey Mouse character totting around in a cartoon clip. He was one skinny mouse. Not the cute cuddly chubby mouse that we know today.

We probably went to the beach to stick out toe in and squish some sand between our toes while carrying our shoes walking along the surf.

When I married Stan my vacations to California changed to years of visiting various beaches along the coast. He grew up in New York and vacation to him involved beaches. Next week we are going to Cape Cod with our son’s family. His 10 month old daughter Anya has already learned the fun of sand in her toes and the salty taste of ocean water.

Penny Cup

In our family we were taught that a penny saved in a penny earned. Along with that we learned that our parents money was theirs and not to be touched. My day, Harold, had a cup he kept on his desk for pennies. It was burnished copper with an Indian design etched on the outside of the cup and filled in with red. I wonder who has that cup now. The penny cup was about 3 inches across and about an inch and a half high. It probably held less than fifty pennies. My dad wasn’t really a desk type of guy as generally he worked outdoors doing farm things with the cows, fixing stuff in the shop or working in the fields preparing the soil for planting, then tending to the crops during the summer and finally harvesting in the fall.

When he worked at his desk mostly we didn’t bother him as he might have been concentrating on paying bills, as task I’m sure he disliked. But there were time when he worked at his desk when he whistled up a storm. Not really a tune, but just a happy melody he made up to keep his concentration. It was those time he might let you look at his penny cup and count the pennies.

We all collected coins in our own way. Mom was interested in the dates and where they were minted. She started me on a coin collection. She bought me some folders you could press the coins in that matched the dates and mint location. It filled up pretty good. I don’t know where I received my money as I don’t remember an allowance. Sometimes Aunts and Uncles gave us a dollar or five here and there for our birthdays. We were taught to save them all just in case. I could use that money to trade my parents for coins for our collection. That was really the only reason that Dad would let me look through his coins.

He also had a few silly toys in his top drawer of his desk that he used occasionally to show other children and entertain them when they visited. One of the items was a magic tube. It was black and had a glass top. There was some kind of triangular multi-sided bead that floated in black liquid. You would turn the tube with the glass side down and ask a silly question like “am I going to have a good day today?” Then turn over the tube. The bead would float to the top and you could read the answer, “It is decidedly so.”

Another game he had was a trick wooden box that hid a piece of gum. He had another wooden one with a red pointed round end that he snapped through his fingers to make something happen. I forgot what happened. He sure got a kick out of showing these to kids and tricking them.

For a while I saved my money in a glass jar that looked like an elephant sitting on his back legs. I think this jar had some kind of syrup in it when it was first purchased to may a Kool-Aid type mixture. It must have been used by lots of kids as it came with a slit in the screw on lid to save coins.

Diapers

While riding the bus today I overheard a couple of young women who have young babies talking about diapers. One was talking about how easy the diapers today are to use. She mentioned that her mom had a diaper service for a year when her and her sister were first born. That was about 30 or more years ago when cloth diapers were all the rage. She explained how odd it was that diaper pins were used instead of Velcro. Her friend pointed out that Velcro probably wasn’t invented them. She replied, “They should have used tape then.”

My daughter Jamie just turned 42 on August 1, 2009. From my experience, cloth diapers with diaper pins were still the rage and mostly the only choice for her. You had regular diapers for daytime and heavy ones for nighttime. The diaper pail, even if you kept up with the laundry, still had that hint of ammonia smell. Folding diapers was a daily chore. The girl babies were folded a certain way to pad up the middle, while the boy babies had the bulk in the front. Rubber pants were snapped over the cloth diaper to keep everything in tack. I don’t remember Velcro being invented at that time nor were post-it notes or other snazzy adhesive products. It was mucilage and rubber cement for glue and snaps, buttons and elastic for fit. Scotch tape was just plan old cellophane crinkle tape with no special qualities that made it see through or double sided.

Paper diapers were invented about the time Jamie needed diapers in 1967, however due to the cost we only used them infrequently if we were going out for the day. At age two, when she was at daycare, I probably had to provide paper diapers as I can’t remember carrying home any wet cloth diapers. The paper diapers were different than what is used today. The paper was a thick strip of material that was laid into a plastic panty that snapped on.

By the time John came along in 1975, I still had a diaper pail in the nursery and used some of the same cloth diapers from Jamie. Old habits die slowly. We also used paper diapers more frequently. They had really improved and were in one piece with easy open sticky tape for a better fit.

In 2009, my little Granddaughter Anya uses paper diapers only. They are form fitting, collect all that is needed so no spills escape from the elastic legs.

Anya’s mom Rachel is sure missing a treat to use the old diapers as dishcloths or rags. That was really great sturdy fabric.

Jobs I have had

One day on facebook, a social networking website, my daughter-in-law, Rachel, asked this interesting question about what was the most awful summer job. I thought for a few minutes and then the job popped into my mind like a flash of light. I was taking summer classes right after my Freshman year in 1965 at Colorado State University (CSU) in Fort Collins. CSU is known for its veterinarian school. They had a farm and animals near-by that gave students an opportunity to learn things first hand. I answered an ad to work in a lab in the animal husbandry building. I didn’t pay much attention to what it was about at the time. The people were really nice and very smart. Most were working on PhDs or were trained micro-biologists testing out on various theories. My job was cleaning up the lab after they had worked all day. There were beakers and test tube to wash by hand and stack neatly back on the shelves for the next day’s experiences. I worked there for a while before they explained what they really were doing; resting bull sperm. So you can imagine my delight in learning that the test tubes, although rinsed out had carried samples of bull sperm. It sounds odd, but someone has to do the testing and at the time someone had to wash the test tubes. I’m sure now it is all automated. No more sinks full of tubes and beakers.

In the fall I changed jobs as my schedule changed. I worked in a steak house a block from the edge of campus. I would ride my bike during lunch over to the restaurant, serve up hamburgers and steak for a few hours and then back to classes. It worked out OK. I got good tips and they gave me lunch everyday.

My first job was working as a restaurant at Longs Peak Café in Greeley, I was probably between junior and senior high school. Longs Peak Café was the restaurant on the main street where my parents went to lunch right after church on Sundays. We mostly always had the same thing. Dad had Chicken Fried Steak. Mom probably had the same as did it. My brother Alan was such a pill when he ordered halibut. There was a children’s puppet type character on one of the shows I watch on TV. I think the puppet’s name was Haliburton (not the company). When Alan ordered his meal he always ordered Hailburton. I would have a big fit at the table, worried he would be eating my favorite childhood character. He loved to tease me that way. I’m sure my Mom wish he didn’t carry on so much.

Some Sundays’ at Longs Peak Café we meet our Grandparents there. They would sit in the back at the big booth where you have to scoot all the way around the table to crowd us all in. Grandpa would always order the chef’s steak. He was the only one who could order this as it was twenty cents more than anything else the rest of us ate. It seems meals were about $1.35 to $1.99 or so in the 1950s. Yummy thick creamy chicken soup chucked with vegetables were always included along with a salad with our families standard thousand island dressing, the meal with mashed potatoes and gravy, side of canned vegetables and dessert. My grandparents always went wild with a wine Sunday. Being tea tottlers that they were, this was not really wine, but some type of thick grape juice flavored topping on vanilla ice cream. I liked the cobbler which was a thick pie crust shaped cookie placed in the bottom of the dessert dish covered with blueberry or blackberry pie filling with a dollop of reddy whip squirted out of a can.

I begged and begged to work at Long Peak Café. My parents finally gave in. The place was owned by a Greek couple. Alex ran a tight ship. His wife taught me the rules. I learned plenty from the old time waitresses. Beatrice always had the good tables with the regulars including my grandparents. Vi was a skinny little thing who worked like a pistol and probably lived her life on the edge of poverty. Another gal, whose name escapes me, was from Evans. When she found out I had met her brother, she gave me a big lecture cautioning me about getting to know him any better. I guess I took her advise, but was surprised she would steer girls away from her brother. The other side of the table as a waitress was not the same as being served on Sundays as a customer.

My father must have had an interesting life in the early 1930’s before he married my Mom and became a farmer. Probably after high school he became a gold miner in Central City at the Gold Crown mine. My great Uncle Charlie, so it’s said, was a gold miner in Idaho who struck it rich when he found gold. I don’t think dad ever struck it rich with gold and they talked briefly about how some of the mines were salted. Owners were sprinkle some gold around the entrances of mines to make it appear that there was gold to build up the gold fever. In fact the mines didn’t have much gold or they were already clean out. It is just interesting to think that this straight-laced family would send their oldest son off to work in the mines and frolic in the salons after a hard days work. Maybe he didn’t do any frolicking for as long as I knew him he was a real family man earning a living and keeping us in food, clothes with a roof over our heads.