Saturday, November 29, 2014
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Sunday, November 23, 2014
Jim
Jimmy Fell Out of the Window
One day mom was cleaning and the kids were messing around upstairs. Some of the windows had screens and some didn't. All of a sudden Jimmy fell out of the second floor window. He landed on some bushes and we had to take him to the doctor. Luckily he was okay. The best thing is we got safety suckers.
The Steamer
The Steamer
The Paper Route
The Paper Route
drive and Richard and Betsy would have to run them up to the front porch because they didn't have plastic bags for papers back then When they'd get home they would be so cold they thought they would die. Craig would pay them about a buck for their help.
Horseback riding
Horseback riding at Hi Ute Ranch
Betsy never liked horseback riding. She never felt safe. The family bought horses when she was in high school. We kept them at a ranch that was a half hour out of town. Richard always tried to get her into going horseback riding with him but she never wanted to. Finally he said "Come go with me and I'll help you saddle them up." We took them out of the barn and Richard put the saddle and reins on and got them ready to go. Betsy climbed on the horse and the horse got spooked and ran into the barn. The horse kept running around in the barn, and Betsy kept hitting my head on all the rafters. All the while she was screaming bloody murder. That was the end of horseback riding that day.
Richard talked her into going back the next week and promised her that nothing would happen. They got up to get the horses and the horses were out in a big pasture. They took the reins out to get the horses and bring them back in. The horses were clear at the end of the pasture. Richard didn't want to walk them all the way back to put the saddle on so Richard said "Let's just put the reins on and ride them bareback." Of course Betsy didn't want to do it but he talked her into it. We were riding the horses back in, and we had to go through a little stream. The horse galloped over the stream and Betsy landed in it. Needless to say she didn't go horseback riding for another 10 years. Richard is always trouble.
Pigeons
Homing Pigeons
When we had homing pigeons you have to train them. First, you take them about a house away and they fly back. Then you go about a block away and you have them smell something so they'd learn to come back to the house. We would keep going a little further away each day. It took all summer to train them.
Pets
Not Your Typical Pets
All the kids worked for dad. Once we got to junior high we'd walk down to the store after school (about a mile and a half). I was in charge of dusting and vacuuming and once in a while I could file. We started at 25 cents an hour. The older kids when they got to 16 got to start delivering furniture. When Craig was out delivering furniture and when he'd drive out in the country he'd always come back with animals. He'd bring home pigs, rabbits, homing pigeons. My mom about flipped out. She didn't let us keep the pigs. We even killed the rabbits once and ate them for dinner.
Monkeys
Monkeys
Because we all worked for dad, we all had our own spending money. When Jimmy first became a cub scout he got Boys Life and in the back of the magazine there were advertisements. You could order stuff COD which meant you paid when it was delivered. He ordered two monkeys from Boys Life. It probably cost about $10. A couple of days before it was delivered, Jimmy gave the money to mom and told her he had a delivery coming. When the box came, mom asked what it was and they said monkeys. They were little squirrel monkeys. We thought they'd been cooped up in the crate so we figured they would want to get out and play. So we took them out of the crate and we could not get them back in. They were running wild so we were trying to catch them. They sort of scratched so we covered ourselves in thick quilts and chased them. After that Jimmy got them a better cage and we had them a couple of years.
The Treehouse
The Treehouse
When Betsy was six and in first grade we had a great treehouse in our front yard. It had a couple of different levels with boards hammered into the tree trunk for a ladder. My brothers were fixing the ladder so some of the boards were missing. We still wanted to climb up so we just stacked a chair on top of another chair to climb up. The Pie Seller who was about 12 was coming by selling pies and he said, "I'll hold the chairs for you." He didn't do such a good job and the chairs fell and Betsy fell too. He didn't know what to do so he left. Betsy had to crawl into the house and mom wasn't home. Mom came home and said she had a broken ankle so she took her to the doctor and she had to get a cast for 6 weeks.
The Great Plate Smashing
The Great Plate Smashing
The rule of the house is that you eat everything on your plate. We couldn't leave the table until we finished everything. My mom made some goofy meals - it was probably liver or cooked peaches or something else Betsy didn't like. Sometimes we would stuff it in our mouth and go spit it out in the bathroom. We had just gotten a new fancy brass garbage can in the living room. Betsy thought that would be the perfect place to put her plate so she put the whole plate in the garbage. It was a big fat heavy plastic plate. My mom found it and she was so mad that she smashed it on her head and the middle circle of the plate broke out. Betsy learned not to use the living room garbage.
Smile
Smile
Richard and Betsy used to get the giggles sometimes during prayers. This drove mom crazy. So she was getting mad because we were giggling and she told us to "Wipe that smile off your face." Richard took his hand and swiped it down his face to wipe the smile off and that just made them laugh more. They got sent to bed with no dinner.
April Fool's Day
April Fool's Day
Cars
Cars
In the olden days there were not suburbans or vans. There also weren't seat belts. We would sit three deep when we'd go to church with the biggest kids on the bottom, the middle kids on their laps and the smallest on the top laps. If we went on vacation we'd have to take two cars.
Balcony
Third Floor Balcony
We had a little tiny balcony on the third floor. One day somebody was driving by and stopped by to let us know that Jimmy has lit a little fire on the balcony. He did not want to take his trash out and decided just to burn it. Luckily it didn't do any permanent damage.
Back Porch
Back Porch
When they were about 5, 7, and 8, Jimmy Richard and Betsy were playing in the little enclosed porch off the back door. We would keep newspapers and stuff out there. We had safety matches. In the olden days safety matches would only light on the box. We would take a match and run out back and try to light it on the floor of the porch. When it didn't work, we would run put the match back in the box and get another one and try again. All of sudden, one of them lit and caught fire on the newspaper. I'm not exactly sure what happened after that but Betsy ran to her cousin's house and didn't come back until the fire engine came. Richard and Jimmy kept telling my mom that Betsy was here too but she denied it. I don't think the truth really came out until a family reunion 30-40 years later.
The Fire Extinguisher
The Fire Extinguisher
When Betsy was in high school dad had a Mercedes. One night she was out gallivanting with her friends and they would see people walking along the sidewalks and they would shoot them with the fire extinguishers (they just had water in them). They were having a great time soaking people until They came across some little punks who after they sprayed them they kicked the doors in on dad's car. We knew they were in trouble so Betsy went home and Richard tried to help her get the dents out with the toilet plunger.
The Flags
The Cemetary Flags
Our church used to be by the cemetery and quite often we would walk home after primary which was on Wednesday afternoon. We'd walk home five or six blocks. As we were walking home one day we saw all these flags on all these white graves so Richard and Betsy thought it would be great if we took all the flags and took them home and decorated our front yard. We thought we would be very patriotic. We probably collected 100 flags and we took them home. We had them all over the front yard even lining the sidewalks to the front door. We thought it would be really fun if we called the newspaper so they could take a picture of our patriotic yard. One of the older kids said that probably wasn't a good idea since we'd stolen all the flags. Someone mentioned that maybe we should take them back but since we didn't know whose graves they went with we just left them in our yard instead.
Waterhaven
Waterhaven
We belonged to a private community swimming pool that about 20 families used. They built it behind a house on Second Avenue and we belonged for years. We would all do our work in the morning and have lunch and then would go over for the afternoon. We liked it best when no one else was there. We had a great time making up games, relays, synchronized swimming competions. We'd have little Olympics, diving competions and play water balloons. We would play there for hours.
Chicken Dinner
Chicken Dinner
When mom and dad would go out of town we would have two old maids come take care of us.. One of them said we were going to have a chicken dinner and that it was going to be so fun. Well it gets to be dinner time and we don't have chicken for dinner, and we can't figure out what is going on. We asked where the chicken dinner was and she told us we were having it after dinner. So after dinner we get everything cleared up and she started putting newspaper all over the floor and she started throwing cheerios, popcorn, and marshmallows on the paper. She told us to get down and act like chickens and eat all the food. So we did and had a lot of fun doing it.
Friday, November 21, 2014
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