Ridin'

In my late 20's and early 30's I spent a lot of weekend days the boonies with my dirt-riding buddies: my best friend, Dan, and my brother, Denis. We would spend full days riding our motorcycles through mud, dirt, rain, snow, and everything else, pausing only occasionally to smoke a bowl or munch a candy bar while hiding beneath a dripping fir tree.

I was usually the instigator of our weekend forays into the damp Pacific Northwest forests, and if it was raining that didn't stop me. I'd pick up the phone Saturday morning and call Dan.

"You ready to go?" I'd ask, knowing his answer.

"It's pouring down rain!" he'd groan, trying to talk me out of it.

"Damn right--perfect for bike riding!"

It was always the same song and dance, and with the same results: We went ridin'. As we would say, "The worst day ridin' is still a damn good day."

Good times.

My Favorite Copilot

One of the best chapters of my life began when Sarah was born. I was privileged to see her arrival into the world, and from that time on I couldn't get enough of her.

One of my favorite activities was reading books to her. Being the garage sale shoppers that we were, we amassed a considerable library of kids books. We always selected the books with interesting story lines, nice artwork, rhymes, and all sorts of various creative criteria. In other words, we didn't pick just any book. The end result of our efforts was a shelf that contained over 600 books. When she was at her toddler stage she would arm herself with as many books as she could carry (which was quite a few since they were mostly softcover books), wander over to where I was sitting, plop the pile in my lap, and climb up. She would pay rapt attention to everything before her, absorbing every word and picture like it was the only thing in the world at that moment. When I eventually would close the last one, it was not at all uncommon for her to go directly over to her bookshelf and repeat the process. She didn't grab just any books either--she was as selective with her choices as we were when we first bought them. She had favorites, but she loved them all.

Sarah was copilot in my old 1962 Chevy 4x4 when she was a toddler. I loved having her sitting next to me as I drove around!  She sat in a forward-facing booster seat we found at a garage sale that placed us almost shoulder to shoulder when she was strapped in, sitting as tall as we did. She enjoyed seeing the world unfold before her eyes as we drove around. She had a great view of everything instead of being hidden way down low the way most small kids are kept in car seats. I wanted her to see what I saw!

Random Remembering

It's funny how things--random things--pop into my mind for no apparent reason. One evening I was sitting in the hot tub, staring up at the dark sky and thinking of nothing in particular. All of a sudden I flashed back to a movie I watched back when I was in the Air Force.

It was 1974 and I was in Biloxi, Mississippi, the electronics training facility for Air Force personnel. I was somewhere in the early stages of an 8-month stay. The base theater was just a short walk away, and I went to the movies as often as I could. I saw a lot of good movies and a lot of bad ones. This particular one was called It's Alive. I don't remember the details, but I believe it was the very last line spoken in the entire movie. It was the epic moment in the movie when the "regular" people had beaten the odds and won. The leading man was doing some equivalent of the symbolic wiping of the brow when his co-star got off the phone and uttered matter-of-factly,

"Another one was born in Seattle."

With perfect timing a guy down near the front of the theater wails, "Nooooo..!!"

It was perfectly hilarious, both for its comedic timing and delivery, but also for breaking the tension of the movie climax. The whole theater laughed.

I have no idea why that popped into my mind suddenly after over 40 years, but it did. I guess I just needed to share it with the world.

Our Favorite Car Dealer

There was a legend in these parts a few decades ago. Well, he was somewhat legendary.

Dick Balch was a wacky car dealer with a maniacal laugh that you just couldn't ignore. He and his sledgehammer were notoriety in the Seattle/Tacoma area. His typical TV commercial would consist of him delivering a few choice tidbits of car salesmanship, followed directly with his signature line, "If you can't trust your car dealer, who can you trust?" At that point he would swing his sledgehammer into the car he was trying to sell you. It almost always resulted in a broken window or dented body. That's when he'd utter his crazy laugh and say something like, "how was that?" as he looked off camera laughing. Sometimes his blows just glanced off with little or no damage, but he didn't care. We still got the crazy laugh.

People of the Pacific Northwest thought of him as a celebrity of sorts. Imagine how cool it was to have him show up at a high school basketball game one evening! I played the alto saxophone back then (badly, I might add) and during basketball season played in the "pep band" that sat in the bleachers during all the games. Dick Balch made a flamboyant appearance one evening, and spent a long time signing autographs on his 8 x 12 promo glossies. He was wearing the exact getup that he wore in the picture too. Here's mine:

Facing Junior High

I was pretty nervous starting junior high school.  I knew very little about it.  For instance, I couldn't quite wrap my head around the fact that I would have six different teachers every day.  I wouldn't have that one devoted teacher that would be my caretaker, nurturer, and tutor for a year-long slice of my life.  That one teacher that--whether loved or hated--would be there every day for me.  I wouldn't have my own desk to keep my personal belongings in, and I would instead have a locker somewhere.  It was a lot to digest.  It sounded very scary.  Maybe for most people the transition of going from grade school to junior high is probably not that big of a deal.  Sure, they're going to a different school, on a different bus, in a different place, but their friends are all there with them in the same situation.  They have that familiarity to keep them from being too scared.  They can compare information and share knowledge during their transition.

I was not so lucky.

Students from Auburn, Algona, and Pacific were all in the same school district, but having moved from Algona to Auburn right after I finished the 6th grade meant I was on the other side of that district. I had to attend a different junior high school than I would have otherwise.  In those days there were two junior high schools in Auburn, and where you lived within the district determined which one you attended. The fact that our family moved from the southern part of the district to the northern part during the summer meant I was going to the other one, so while I may still have been in the same town (but at opposite ends) as the junior high school I would have attended had we not moved, it might as well been in a completely different state. The result was the same: I didn't know anybody.  I had no friends there, no knowledge of the school, and wasn't ready for the shock of having six different teachers in as many hours.

I can't even imagine what must have been going through my head then.  Puberty was screaming through my body, and with that of course came awkwardness, anxiety, and fear.  I was a mess I'm sure.  Everything anyone said that was directed at me was likely amplified by the hormones and lack of self-esteem and blown out of proportion in my mind. I walked through the throng of students feeling like I had a spotlight on me or a storm cloud above me much of the time.  I felt overwhelmed and alien. 

When any particular class ended at the bell ringing was a thing that took some getting used to. Jumping up and surfing a crowd of people in the hallways as we all tried to get to our next class on time was like salmon swimming upstream.

I don't remember many of my teachers.  I do remember a couple of them, but given how many I had I should remember more.  I guess they didn't have a huge impact on me. I remember Mr. Srail, my band teacher, Mrs, Williams who taught me typing, Mrs. Emerson that read classic literature to the class in English, and Mr. Taylor, who threw me out of his math class every now and then.  Usually some sort of wisecrack I made tipped the scale, followed closely by a, "Williams! Out of the class!"

Moving Out and Visiting

"When I turn 18 I'm going to get an apartment."

Those words were spoken and repeated many times during my teenage years.  Probably sometimes during periods of frustration, and other times just a boasting "mark my words" sort of promise to anyone listening.
In retrospect, that's not quite what happened. I joined the Air Force.

While some people might think I nipped any chance I had of ever having any personal freedom at all right in the bud, I don't agree. Joining the military was my ticket out. I needed to get out of my parents' household, and I needed to do it as soon as I could pull it off. There is no way the average 18-year old kid is ever ready to live on their own. They don't have income, skills, knowledge, or sensibilities needed to juggle the day-to-day things that come with being a responsible head-of-household. I don't know about now, but back then it wasn't taught anywhere other than in the home--if even there. Schools didn't teach real life skills. All of these things--and more--are lessons that I learned while on my own in the Air Force. They were not always easy, and I didn't always make the right choices.  Nevertheless, I learned.

I was only one day into my new military career when I questioned my choice and wondered what the hell I had done. I suddenly felt very alone, and in a strange, hostile environment. Fortunately, I got over it quickly.  When it came time for me to visit home for the first time I couldn't wait to go. A month at home! Well, by the time my visit home was nearly over I was ready to go back to my other life. While I was welcomed home by everyone with open arms, it didn't take long for things to change.  Slowly over time I again began to feel the restrictions and lack of freedom that drove me away to begin with. There was a subtle feeling of resentment I began to get from dad, like I was in the way, doing nothing but freeloading.  The welcome was eroding.  I couldn't wait to leave by the time my departure date arrived.  There was one time a few years later when I visited home and I actually cut my trip short by over a week for that very reason. I wanted to go back to the familiar comfortable place back where I was stationed. Again, I wanted out of their house.

That was when it occurred to me:  I wasn't returning home for a visit--I was just visiting someone's home.

The Red-haired Girl

At some time in my adult life it became apparent to me that I had a certain affinity for redheads. Ladies with flaming red hair tend to catch my attention like no other. My gaze sometimes borders on leering I'm sure, but I can't help it. I think that it probably has something to do with a girl I went to school with way back when.

See? How could I resist her?

From first through sixth grade, Brenda Lewis was in all of my classes. There was something about her that I fell in love with. She was not a very outgoing girl, but she wasn't really a shy girl either.  She was always in clothing that looked to be homemade or maybe second-hand, but she was always very well put together.   She was always very well groomed, and her pretty red hair always shone. That tells you that she was a girl that was being raised with good sense and practical values. She had such a cute smile! Like me, she started wearing glasses all of a sudden, and like me, her glasses were goofy looking. Unlike mine, however, hers were stylish. I think what made us goofy-looking was that we were little kids wearing glasses. I know for a fact that I made fun of her glasses because that's what boys do. Who was I to poke fun? After all, I had them too. She had a toothy grin and the cutest dimples! I can still see her face. I seem to recall one of her front teeth having a chip in it. She probably played hard like I did. I had a serious crush on her and I'll bet she never knew.  I'm sure I punched her and pinched her and made fun of her like all boys in love do.

Moving away from Algona after 6th grade caused me to completely lose touch with all of my old classmates from Algona.  They all attended Olympic Junior High School a the south end of Auburn while I attended Cascade at the north end.  We didn't have ways to stay connected with each other like we do now.  Brenda moved more than once during that time and ended up leaving the area completely.  I tried to find her many times over the years--usually when reunion time came, but never had any luck.  It's much harder with women because of the fact that they adopt their husband's name when they marry.  Now during the quest for fellow graduates of the Class of 1974 at Auburn for our 40-year reunion, we have Facebook in our corner rooting for us.  Finally, after all these years, Brenda has been found!  We haven't met each other yet but have yakked several times via computer.  Her beautiful red hair has been replaced by gray, and my once-brown hair is close behind.

Inside we're still the same little kids we were over 40 years ago!

Camping

Washington State is a great place to live if you like to go camping, and we did our share. My family went camping quite a bit when I was little. It got us out of our little bitty house and into the expansive outdoors.  And it was free. That probably played a significant part in it.  Because my mom's parents were avid campers we were able to kind of slide into the camping world easily with little help from them.  They helped us out with things like having the necessary supplies and equipment, setting up the campsite, getting firewood, building the fire, cooking... All those things you take for granted when it comes to camping.

When we first began to go camping it was just our family and our limited camping equipment. Early on we only had a big canvas tent--probably military surplus. It was the standard military color of olive drab green, so it's very possible. I don't think we even had sleeping bags in the early days--just lots of blankets. As we got older, our camping equipment got a little better. At one point we bought a tent-trailer. It was small, light, and a lot less trouble to set up than a tent. Because everyone was getting older and took up more space might have been another reason. We had a small pup tent that was our supplemental family shelter. I used it every time, and I think Don was usually out there we me as well. It was like the "big boys" annex.

Camping occasionally caused us grief.  The sunburns, mosquitoes, cuts, scrapes... Those sorts of things.  I remember one time I was exploring near our camp that caused me some grief that was a little out of the ordinary.  I think I was pretty young--say, 8 or 10.  I was walking along on top of a dead log that was laying on the ground, and when I got near the end my foot fell through.  It was apparently the home a a pretty good-sized nest of bees or yellow-jackets or something.  I was immediately enveloped by them and was stung multiple times as I ran screaming blindly through the woods.  Luckily, I'm not allergic to such things.  There was one time when me and Don were on the other side of the river we were camped next to.  I don't know what we were doing, but Denis apparently wanted to join us.  The trouble was, Denis was very, very young.  I heard a holler and looked over to see him tumbling down the river end-over-end in the shallow, fast-moving water.  I ran out into the river and grabbed him with no trouble.

There was a lot of exploring to do when we got to a new campsite. That was always my favorite time.  I loved to go running off all directions to learn what kind of interesting features and terrain our new temporary home had.  We always camped near a river, so that was usually the first thing we investigated.  Trails, fallen logs, rivers--I loved exploring it all.

Another reason to go exploring was to get out of the way of setting up the tent. That was one of two things that always got under dad's skin. He had no patience at all when it came to setting up tents or stringing lights around the the Christmas tree.  I liked (and still do) camping a lot but I grew to really hate getting everything ready beforehand and putting it all away afterward. I think dad is to blame for that. He was always surly when it came to that kind of task-oriented stuff. It either rubbed off on me or I'm just the same way because of heredity. I don't like prep work or cleanup.

In later years, motorcycles were added into the camping thing.  Our family ended up with 3 50cc Honda Minitrails, and we loved to go tearing around on those.  I'm sure we pestered mom and dad to death with our, "Can we go riding now?  How about now? Can we go yet?" talk.  Those were fun times.

Musical Awakenings

When I was growing up there were times when a strange restlessness would hit me. I would get a strange feeling almost like I was missing or forgetting something--or like I was in the wrong place. I wasn't aware enough to know what it was. I was just a kid after all. What did I know? I hadn't lived life yet.  I had no experiences to gauge anything by.  I was growing up in a generation where a huge amount was changing and cultural upheaval was taking place, and I only got to witness snippets of it in newspapers and on TV.  It was fragmented information, and no doubt hugely biased and slanted, depending on the source.  I got to hear parental mumblings about it all the time when the news came on TV. I was in a place where I thought, "if my dad hates it, it must be good!"  One time (I was probably late junior high or early high school age) our family came out of Massey's grocery store and there was a young guy out there that had hair well past his shoulders. My dad chuckled and said something like, "How'd you like to have hair like that?"  I answered no, but my mind screamed yes.

Music had smacked me upside the head early in life.  I watched the shows like American Bandstand and Where the Action Is on the television each day. I was a kid that wanted to be 'where the action was' myself.  Although I felt like I was missing something and felt the world was passing me by, at that point in my life I had no idea what or where 'the world' even was or how to get there. All I knew was that there was cool stuff going on down on the beaches of California, and that would have been good enough for me. I would feel a kind of a stirring when certain songs came on. Everyone does, right? A few of my favorites were, To Sir, With Love, California Dreamin', These Times, They Are a Changin'.

I didn't know of anyone my age then that cared about the new music anywhere near as much as I did.  I was so into the music I couldn't get enough. It felt like a new, exciting hobby. It was like an awakening in me. I wanted to learn, listen, and absorb everything about the new, hip music that was taking the country by storm. When all this started, I was still a kid, pulling Tonka trucks behind me with strings, making them do peel-outs in the dust and dirt.  The difference was, I was holding an AM radio in one hand while I was doing it, listening to music on KOL or KJR. When mom would go into town for shopping I would plead with her to stop at the music store in Auburn so I could get the latest version of the KOL top 40. I monitored the rise and fall of the songs from week to week, and I knew them all. I lived them.  When we moved to Auburn I never missed one of those Top 40 leaflets.  I wish I had them all now.

Do Se Do and Promenade!

I have never been a fan of any kind of dancing. Okay, that's not quite accurate.  I do like slow dancing, but I don't consider it dancing really.  To me, slow dancing is like holding your partner with feeling and absorbing them--being one with them--and shuffling your feet while you're doing it.  Come to think of it, it's more like a moving hug.  I guess I'd just as soon throw the shuffling out of the equation and just get down to the hug part.  Drift off and just let it all go.

Back to the story.

In 4th grade we were subjected to the ritual of square dancing. Apparently our teacher, Mr. Alspaugh, was a square dancer.  He knew the dance, and he knew how to announce (or whatever they call the musical chanting they do that sounds like an auctioneer.)  I say we were subjected to it because I don't think it was a choice with many of us kids at that age--especially boys.  I pretended to hate it like all the members of the "girls are icky" fan club did at the time, however, I was a fan of girls. When the subject of classroom square dancing first came up I was excited. Touching girls! I remember being so nervous about having to be close to them.  It never really got easier for me either. Even though I knew all the girls very well, as far as interaction went I didn't have anything other than the usual classroom activities.  (Trying to catch glimpses of panties while on the playground equipment didn't really count, although that was one of my favorite things.)   Now we got to not only touch them, but hold them! Okay, not holding them really--I mean the ways that square dancers hold: Do-Se-Do's, promenades, and all that stuff that's exclusive to square dancing. Basically, I got to touch and hold them briefly.  Still, briefly counted!

What we actually did with our dancing I don't remember exactly. I think we ended up doing some kind of public exhibition or recital thing one evening for our families.  Square dancing was a fun part of grade school.  It was something I would never would have done had I not been forced, but I'm glad I was.  Thanks, Mr. Alspaugh.

A Little Mother's Day Trauma

Traumatic experiences stick with you throughout your life. No matter how old you get they never go away. It's as if a traumatic event in your childhood places a bookmark in your memories. A dark and indelible bookmark. I've had a few, but I think this is the earliest one I can remember.

During one of my early years in grade school--like possibly 2nd grade--we had a class project:  We grew a watermelon plant. Each of us had our own little square light yellow and white Smith Brothers Dairy milk carton, trimmed down so it was about 2 inches tall. They were all neatly lined up in the window of our classroom, each with our names proudly written on them. The idea of the project was to create a plant that we grew from a seed, nurturing and caring for them ourselves to give to our mom on Mother's Day.

We had lovingly placed a watermelon seed into the rich, dark brown Algona dirt just as we had been shown by the teacher. Every day we gave our plant a little water and a little love.  And every day we dreamed excitedly of that special day when a sprout would appear. When little buds of green finally made their tentative appearance we could scarcely contain our excitement! I just knew that my little baby plant was the best, as I'm sure every other kid did about their own plant.

At last, the day had arrived: Mother's Day!

It was finally time to present the gift to my mother. I was so proud and excited--I could hardly wait to see the look on her face when I gave it to her! I walked the several blocks I had to walk each day, carefully cradling my mother's gift of life that I had so lovingly raised from a seedling. I was probably less than 100 feet from home when I tripped and fell--scattering my precious gift all over the edge of the road. I was devastated. I cried and cried, walking the rest of the way into the yard and into the house, still crying. Through all the blubbering and the tears, mom managed to coax the events of the tragedy from me. I led her to it, where she scooped it all up and put it back into its carton as best she could.

Thank goodness mothers are so good at picking up the pieces.

Playing Outside

Bicycle storage and laundry

Socializing!

I'm sure mom loved the non-winter months when she could kick us out of the house all day long so she could get things done.  She worked hard at maintaining her family. Between diaper washing, cooking, cleaning, and fixing us when we were wounded (which was often), she had a full-time job, so even when it was raining we had plenty of playtime outside. There were places there where we could play to a certain extent even when it was raining. Before we all came along, my grandpa built a structure in the yard for entertaining. I guess there were often family get-togethers and cookouts, so he built a special place for those social times. It was a big, rectangular concrete pad, open on all four sides, and had a regular pitched roof with cedar shake shingles on it. It was constructed of small, round, hand-smoothed logs, and it made a fun thing to play under when it was nasty out. I remember jumping up and swinging on the framework all the time too. I was pretty small then, and it seemed pretty big to us.  It was also where the laundry was hung to dry all year long. Who had a dryer?

The amazing car ramp

Another thing we had a great time with was our car ramp. It was a work of art, built by my dad and grandpa out of really beefy lumber they picked up at the dump one day. I think the planks were a full four inches thick, and I believe they were a foot wide. The ramp was built to drive a car up on top of, so you know it was plenty beefy. I think each of the sides that the tires drove on was two planks wide, so there was plenty of room. It was tall enough for an adult to work easily under a car without stooping over too much. It was heaven-sent when it comes to playing. It was a bicycle magnet! I can't count the number of times I fell off that ramp. It was used constantly by us. We would ride our bicycles fast enough to make it all the way up, but sometimes we'd misjudge and not quite make it, and end up falling off the side, landing in a tangled heap with our bicycle. The opposite happened too. Misjudging the speed wasn't really the cause, but missing the brakes in time would occasionally cause one of us to go all the way off the back side of the ramps. As high up as they were, it usually caused considerable pain when that happened. I can recall falling off sideways while turning around on the top too. Very painful.

Valentines and 6th Graders

When I was elementary school there was no such thing as "politically correct" or treading lightly to keep from offending anyone. Jewish? Too bad--schools celebrated Christmas. It was the mainstream holiday and the mainstream "one size fits all" set of beliefs. Everyone at school was exposed to it whether it was their flavor or not.  I generally enjoyed all the holiday-related things that took place in grade school, but one of my favorite experiences with a holiday at school was Valentines Day, and specifically in grade 6.

6th grade was the year that girls were becoming very, very important to me, and I became fixated on them.  I was changing and had a lot of things going on in my head, and to complicate it even further, the girls were changing too.  I know they had the same changes of inner confusion and turmoil going on that the boys did, along with physical changes that were more obviously more apparent.  But it wasn't all about the girls that had developing boobs, it was deeper than that.  Even though most of them were the same girls that had been in the same classes with me for all the previous years (small towns are like that), it was different in 6th grade.  I think both sexes became a little more... hmm... respectful?  Shy?  There was an strange element that came into being with puberty.  It's as if a couple of our adjustment sliders got moved.  Innocence went down.  Confidence went down.  Awkwardness went way up.  We may have already had awkwardness, but as pre-puberty children we were blissfully unaware of it.  All of these things happened at varying degrees and we found ourselves in unfamiliar territory.  For kids that had older siblings, or even aunts and uncles, the transition was probably a lot less problematic.  For the oldest kid with parents that had no siblings like myself, the road was pretty rocky.  I became painfully aware of everything around me.

Valentines Day was celebrated every year of our schooling, but it became different in 6th grade.  At least to me it did.  It had a completely different feel to it.  Our classroom was equipped with a set of "mailboxes" for valentines to be placed in--one for each of us, with our name lovingly written on it. All the students were encouraged (required?) to participate by the teacher, Mrs. Davis. I think the boxes only had slots in them so nobody could see who had more or less than somebody else did. I loved the whole idea of it, and I was filled with excitement over the whole thing.  The selection of the valentines themselves was probably done by mom on a shopping trip.  After all, what did I know about valentines?  I remember spending a lot of time making sure that everybody got one, and that nobody was denied.  I remember the nervous excitement of putting them all into their respective mail slots--waiting until the perfect time so I could do it without anyone watching.  I got such a feeling of warmth and goodness when I shyly slid valentines into each of those slots, picturing in my my mind the same warm feeling of warmth by the recipients as they opened them and read the token little cards. I got an especially warm feeling putting the valentines into the girls' mailboxes of course. It was a pretty important event for someone that was as shy around girls as I was. Of course it was a very passive thing, but in my own little mind I was really reaching out.  When it came to Valentine's Day and we got to open our mailboxes, it was as if every valentine was designed, printed, folded, and filled out specifically for me.  The handwriting was written to me.  The valentine was meant for me.  At that moment I felt almost as if I were the only one receiving a valentine from the sender.

It was a very special time.

Fist of Anger

[this was posted in a previous blog some time ago but I thought it warranted being reposted]

At some point in my life it became a hard and fast rule in my mind to not listen to my dad. I think it came from the following story. I honestly think that he thought he was giving good advice most of the time, but this particular time it became painfully clear to me that he was not. This stand out moment came to me one time when I was junior high school age.

All my life I remember hearing the same shitty thing from my dad when myself and one of my siblings would get into an argument, or one of my brothers or sisters would get into an argument with each other.  "Punch him in the mouth!" the wise ol' man would say. He thought he was being funny and smart. Some of the times it was probably his way of saying not to bother him because he was doing important "dad" stuff like reading the paper or taking a nap on the couch. Other times he would give a half grin when he would say it, so I'm pretty sure he was pleased with his witty way of parenting. Then one day it happened.

I was out in the back yard, and I don't remember exactly what was going on but I apparently got pretty mad at Don. For a split second it came to me like one of those scenes from a movie. Metaphorically speaking, there, on my shoulder, appeared a little devil version of my dad. "Hit him! Punch him in the mouth!" Came suddenly into my mind. Without thinking twice, I plowed my fist into Dons face.

I knew the instant it happened--the split second it happened--that it was horribly wrong. I had just pasted my own brother in the face. Why? Because my dad told me to. For years he told me to. I have never felt so remorseful about something in my life as I did that moment. It was as if dad was driving my fist, and dad was Don... both at the same time. It was anger, it was retaliation, it was "Get out of my head and LEAVE ME ALONE!" It was not meant for my brother. He was the innocent victim of some sort of strange, welling anger that rose within me. An anger that was directed at my dad but found Don instead.

I stood helplessly as he screamed and mom came running. When i told her what had happened and why, I think she was more than a little dumbstruck. I think she understood it--and couldn't believe it--both at the same time. She tended to Don's face and sent me to my room to lie down--I thought it was to await dads wrath when he got home. As I lay there with this horrible tumble of emotions spilling around in my head, I made up my mind on one thing: That was the last time I heeded my dad on anything.

That night nothing was ever said to me... By him or anyone.  It seems to me that a parent should have had a discussion about it--however awkward it would have been. A serious debriefing to talk about how wrong it was to have been saying that sort of thing to us kids all those years. Not him. He never could believe he was less than our superior. I continued to pretend I was listening to him when he spoke his mind, but I promptly ignored it immediately afterward.

I'm so sorry, Don.

Learning and English

As I became older and the school years came and went, so did my desire for school learning. I found myself resenting the structure, the requirements, and the differing subjects that were hurled my way. My grades were not bad, but could have been considerably better. As more than one of my report cards so eloquently put it, "He's a bright student, but he doesn't apply himself." Another thing that was a familiar sight in my records was, "...disturbs his neighbors." I have always found it hard to focus on things I was told to focus on--partly because I was told to focus on it.  However, give me something that I wanted to focus on or wanted to learn and it consumed me. One of those things came to be my love of reading. I was read to at a very young age, and it apparently sparked something within me. Reading allowed me to escape, to dream, to explore, to wonder, and to experience things through others' eyes and words. I read a lot back then. I was one of those kids that might be caught by a parent while reading under the covers with a flashlight late into the night. Reading stories really broadened my mind and made me think and analyze things. Reading others' viewpoints, ideas, and perspectives really helped me to question things.  I became a skeptic, a thinker, and random assembler of multiple fragments of thought.

When I was in my junior high years English was the only academic subject that came to me naturally. No matter what the specific subject, if it fell under the broad category we call English I seemed to always do well at it. Maybe it has something to do with me being the oldest of the five kids and having things explained to me in greater detail than I might otherwise had I been a later arrival in the family. Spelling, sentence structure, punctuation--all of those things have always been something that have come fairly easily to me.  I would like to credit Mrs. Emerson at Cascade Junior High School for actually reading to us in class.  It was she that first exposed me to classic literature, reading Charles Dickens' Great Expectations aloud to the class.

The desire to write that I've had in recent years makes me wish I had expanded my learning even more. It would have come in handy many times over. After all, I have enjoyed blogging and stuff like that for several years now. I have to believe I would be so much better at it had I studied harder. Isn't that always the case though? Story of my life. I do a great job at what has to be done, but not much more than that. I sometimes think I'm an above average achiever at being ordinary.

Being a Paperboy

Being a paperboy wasn't just about the regular income it provided.  During Christmas I had this little thing I would do. I would go and buy a couple boxes of Christmas cards and fill them all out. Then some early evening I would go around and ring each doorbell or knock on each door to deliver them personally. I wouldn't just leave them if nobody answered. I wanted to deliver them face-to-face in hopes I might get a tip. In lots of cases it worked. The typical exchange would just be me identifying myself, something like this:
  "Hello, I'm Rick, your News Tribune paperboy, and I just wanted to wish you a merry Christmas."
In many cases I would get something like, "Oh that's so sweet! Just a minute..." and they would disappear inside and come back with money. I made out pretty good during that annual ritual. There were a few customers that gave me something special regardless, like one customer that gave me a 3-pound box of Russell Stover chocolates every year.

Collecting was something that I had to do monthly and I didn't care for it. It would have been fine if everyone would have paid me the first time out, but there were always people that weren't home or didn't have the money the night I stopped by. I did like getting out and about actually doing it though because it was always after dinner instead of the afternoon time when I delivered their papers, and I could do it at my speed.  One evening when I was out collecting I cut between a couple of houses to jump over to the next street instead of going all the way to the end of the block.  In doing so I got a unexpected bonus. There, in a brightly-lit bedroom window facing the driveway, was a girl standing naked! Of course I stopped and gazed, totally flabbergasted at what I was seeing. No curtains drawn and only a couple of feet from the window, she was apparently trying on a bunch of nighties or something, because she kept at it for several minutes. What I really found interesting was when I noticed that I knew her. She was one year older than me and played clarinet in band class. Well, as you might imagine, I never looked at her quite the same after that night!

Sunday mornings were vastly different than any other delivery day. First of all, it was an early morning delivery. All the other days of the week were afternoon deliveries. That meant I had to actually set an alarm and get up in the wee hours. Secondly, the papers on Sunday were huge. They arrived at my little delivery stand in the alley (a small, wooden open-front structure provided by the paper company) at some time during the wee hours of the morning in multiple bundles. There was the main news portion, and in addition was the bundles of ad circulars (or "inserts" as we paperboys called them) and I had to marry them all together into one fat paper. Sundays were sufficiently oversized enough that I couldn't fit them all in my carrier bag like I could on other days. That prompted me to buy a cart to put them all in, and I would anchor that to my bicycle and pull it behind me like a trailer.

Sunday morning deliveries meant I was out in pretty cold conditions some days. I remember one time on a particularly cold winter morning warming my hands up under the stream of warm air coming out of a laundromat exhaust. Sunday mornings also gave me time to do things I shouldn't do. After my papers were all delivered I would sometimes roam the town looking for something interesting. That usually meant doing something I shouldn't be doing or going somewhere I shouldn't be going. The city was practically closed on a Sunday morning. No cars to speak of, and no people or activity anywhere. I remember browsing through stuff in front of our local grocery store on a few of those mornings. Apparently, a lot of things were routinely left outside each night. Maybe they just didn't have room or things were too heavy or whatever. Bins full of heavy things like pumpkins, presto logs, or things like that. I remember one morning finding a bunch of Raid Yard Guard bug spray left out, ripe for the picking. I found out that they had some sort of high-powered spray that shot out for quite a distance, and I ended up grabbing one or two of them and riding around shooting stuff with it. I was in borderline juvenile delinquent mode I guess. I found one cafe on the west end of Main Street that was open on Sunday mornings and I would stop by there and play their coin-operated games from time to time. That was my first experience with a pinball machine. They also had a cool helicopter game that you could fly around inside of a glass case. It was mounted on an axle and it flew in circles while you were controlling the movement with two joysticks, hitting pegs for points as you went around and around.

Those were fun times. I was operating solo and enjoying it--nobody following me, watching me, or monitoring my actions. In most cases I was back home before anyone even got out of bed.

Becoming a Paperboy

I've already shared a few of my enterprising ways in previous blog posts--how I learned at a pretty young age that if I were to ever get something I wanted for myself I was going to have to do something to earn it. There wasn't much money to go around in our family, and the family values we all shared were not going to just hand it out anyway.

When we moved to Auburn I became a paperboy. It was a perfect fit for me.  I loved riding my bicycle, the town was completely flat with sidewalks throughout, I loved getting away from the family, and I wanted money.  Being a paperboy taught me about managing time and money, responsibility, interaction with people, and other important life skills.  I had customers I loved and customers I hated, and it taught me how to get along with them both.  Apparently, my success with doing it rubbed off on my siblings because at least two of them got paper routes when they got older as well.  As a matter of fact, Jackie was the Auburn Globe News' first female paper carrier, and got herself a mention in their paper for it.  Denis used to deliver his on his unicycle from time to time, and I believe he got his picture in the paper for it.

I took on a route for the Seattle Times at first. I did that route for a year before switching to the Tacoma News Tribune, and I did that paper for another three years, stopping only because I was old enough to get a "real" job.  My paper route was in a older, more established part of Auburn, so a lot of them were older people, having lived in their homes for many years. I don't remember exactly where my first paper route ran, but my long-running News Tribune route was between Main Street and 4th street southeast, and from Auburn Way to M street. That was 4 blocks one way and 12 blocks the other. I didn't have a huge number of customers--I believe it was just under 40. A usual day was from 30 minutes to an hour to do the whole route.

Being a paperboy for any length of time is a feat, let alone doing it for four years. Living in an area that gets rain so many days of the year can test your ability or desire to cope. You have to keep yourself dry, comfortable, and healthy, and above all, you have to keep he newspapers dry and in good shape. Customers don't care how nasty it is outside, they are paying for a product that they expect will be delivered to them on time, in good condition, and placed in a safe place. I took my paper route seriously and would try to do a good job. I respected the wishes of the people that didn't want me riding on their grass or wanted their paper placed in a specific spot.  If it was raining I always tried to put the paper in a good place to keep it dry, like inside their storm door. If it was windy I made sure to tuck the loose edge of the paper under the doormat so it wouldn't blow all over.

Our Motorcycle Family - Part 2

As I got a little better, I was given the opportunity to ride dad's bike. To my young eyes, it was a huge monster.  I couldn't touch the ground, it was loud, and it was powerful. I don't know who besides my dad and I were there, but one time we were out riding somewhere near the Stuck River in Auburn and came to a long semi-steep section of gravel road a lot of other riders were having fun on.  I don't remember if dad asked me if I wanted to climb in on his S90 or if he told me to, but the fact remains: I did it.  Well, almost. I was young and couldn't touch the ground while on it, but I could easily touch the foot pegs and controls.
(I've already related this event in a past post on another blog, but it basically went like this:)
At the bottom of the hill he held it running while I climbed on.  All the other riders stayed off to the side, watching and giving the next rider their attention and respect as riders do.  He gave me instructions as he held me up.  He knew I could ride it, but this hill unfolding before me was a monster to my young eyes.
  "Keep your foot down on the gearshift so a rock doesn't knock it into neutral," he said, adding, "just hold the gas wide open and keep it straight."
My eyes were probably big as saucers.  I'm sure all the guys on the hill (I'm thinking there were a dozen or so) were focused on my 'rite of passage' on dads motorcycle.
  "Ready?" he asked.  I nodded nervously.  "Okay, here we go!"
He steadied me as I let out the clutch and gave it gas.  As I started going he let go and hollered, "hold it open!"
I held it open all right, and for a little while I did pretty good, but I picked up speed, and with that speed came some fishtailing, and pretty soon I was going from side to side, and finally crashed.  I was crying like crazy as the closest guys helped me up and picked the bike up.  Dad caught up with me, laughing.  Probably somewhat proud at how far I had went before crashing.  Me, I was overwhelmed by everything.  It was huge.  I think I got whoops and hollers from the guys out there that day.

Posing for my picture

As I got older I was able to ride on my own, and would be occasionally be granted permission to ride on our dirt track during the day when dad was at work.  It's odd to think that I would be out there blasting around the track crazily with no helmet and no adult in sight.  I remember our policeman, Rick Baird, would occasionally stop and watch me go around and around as he had his lunch in his cop car.

Dad's 100cc Bultaco Lobito

There became a time when my dad's S90 was not good enough for him or he just wanted something completely different.  When that notion hit him he bought himself a brand new Bultaco Lobito 100.  It was different than what I was used to.  Way different.  Instead of a vroom sound, it made a sharp crackling, "ying, ying, ying" sound, sort of like a chainsaw but different.  Powerful sounding.  It was unmuffled, and the crackle the exhaust made actually hurt my ears a little.  Besides the different sound of it, it had it's foot controls reversed.  Instead of shifting with my left foot and braking with my right, it was the other way around.  It was also crazy fast.  Unlike anything I had ever ridden.  It scared the hell out of me.  I did eventually get comfortable on it, but still respected it immensely.  I would occasionally get permission to take it over to the Interurban trail and ride it between Algona and Auburn.  No helmet, no supervision.  It's a wonder I didn't kill myself.

Our Motorcycle Family - Part 1

At some point during my childhood dad became heavily into motorcycles. Actually, he was always a car and motorcycle guy. As a stereotypical rebellious teenager, he was a guy that grew up in the era when the hot setup was transplanting a Cadillac V8 into an old Ford and painting it primer-black. He had a love for anything like that.

Dad giving the family a ride

In those days there weren't too many varieties of motorcycles available. There was, of course, Harley-Davidson, and there were the British bikes too--like BSA, Triumph, Norton, Matchless, and others. All of these were great bikes but were all expensive. At least to a family our size it was. They were also all fairly big and unwieldy to smaller, more inexperienced riders. It was no wonder then that when the invasion of new, small, Japanese motorcycles hit the U.S. he was all over it. From the time he bought his first full-size Honda 50 we always had motorcycles around. He started a little business on the side that he used to be able buy his own parts at wholesale. All the things that he went through often, like gaskets, cables, and other this were made a lot more affordable to him that way. He also did a lot of wheeling and dealing on bikes at were repairable, fixing them and either selling them or keeping them for our own family enjoyment. Small Hondas became his new hobby.

Dad's pride and joy Honda S90

His personal dirt bike was a Honda S90, lovingly modified to outperform most any other one of its size. I remember him sitting in his chair watching TV while hand-polishing engine internals. He even went so far as to send the camshaft to a small company in California after finding out that they could put a custom race grind on it. It was not unusual for him to have his motorcycle in the house while he worked on it.

We were able to ride a lot back then.  The only people that wore helmets in those days were racers.  There were no advocacy groups bent on trying to tell the public what was best for them. With no helmets and not much in the way of laws we could go riding up and down the streets if we wanted--license or not.  At least in Algona we could. We were fortunate that we didn't have to though.  We had a field on our property, and it became a motorcycle track.  I started out riding an old Honda 55 that my dad had.  With a bike that size I didn't need anyone to help me get going.  While it was a full-sized motorcycle, it had a step-through design, so it was the "girls bike" equivalent of a motorcycle.  It was my stepping stone to riding a real motorcycle.

The Algona Hillclimb

Algona was a town that was almost as if it were drawn in small scale. The length of the city blocks were smaller than those found in a standard town, as was the width of the roads. The tar-and-gravel roads were lined with ditches to allow storm water to run off them. Algona was way too small to have storm drains or sewers, but it was big enough to have a library, a city hall, one policeman (with car of course), a gas station, and two little stores. That's about the extent of it. It was a sleepy little town. The was no State Route 167 separating the valley into two parts back then. There was also no frontage road at that time. It came along later, no doubt put in place to parallel the freeway for business and traffic flow reasons. Before the freeway went in, all the roads that ran east and west were limited only by railroad tracks. The way a traveler went through the valley back then was either on the West Valley Highway or the East Valley Highway, which were both right at the bottom of their respective hill. That meant that anyone wanting to travel north or south in anything even closely resembling a speedy manner had to first travel to one of those two highways. With Algona being on the west side of the valley, it pretty much meant that the West Valley Highway was our speed road of choice.

There was a motorcycle hill climb directly west of our house and extending steeply up the hill from the far side of West Valley Highway. I don't know if someone actually put it in with a bulldozer or it just evolved into a formidable climbing hill from the amount of riders that churned their knobbies through it over the years. On any given evening it was not unusual to hear the unmistakable sound of a motorcycle engine laboring up the loose gravel hill. Because there was no freeway or major traffic flow, the valley was very quiet back then, and sound traveled through it unimpeded. When dad would hear some activity at the hill climb he would go out and fire up is S90 and head over to see what was going on. While I'm sure he climbed the hill plenty of times, I think he preferred to just rub elbows with fellow riders. I think his general way of doing things was, if someone was not good at riding and unable to climb the hill, he would show them "how it was done" and go at it. If the riders were experienced, he was the type to hang back and watch. I'm kind of the same way. If you can show off, go for it. If not, watch and maybe learn something.