Grandma's Christmas Past

This is a picture of my sister, Roberta, my cousin, Jackie and myself with Santa Claus. I must have been about 5 years old here.
My Mother played the piano and she taught my sisters and I to sing together. I can remember standing around the upright piano in our living room and learning a Christmas song to sing for a church program. I think it was Jolly Old Saint Nicholas.
For Christmas one year, we got wooden toy boxes from Uncle John Miller. He was Grandma Mike’s brother who lived in Torrance, California, with his wife, Aunt Lorretta. Uncle John was a carpenter, as his father had been before him. Anyway, the toy boxes, about two and a half feet long and a foot and a half wide, had wooden wheels in the back and rollerskate wheels in the front. There was a rope to pull them with and a wooden tray that sat in the top. The cover was on hinges and had a short chain attached in one corner so that when you raised the lid it would stay standing up while you were digging around in the toy box. I wish so much that I had one of those toy boxes today. I wonder what ever happened to them.This is a picture of Uncle John, Grandma Mike and Father
Grandma Mike used to make us flannel nightgowns every year. We looked forward to that every Christmas. She also made flannel nightshirts for Father. He almost always wore a flannel nightshirt to sleep in.
Christmas or Thanksgiving were times that the whole family would gather at Grandma’s big table in the dining room for a feast. How could I ever forget Grandma’s homemade rolls. Another thing that I took for granted at the time but I now realize was such a blessing to us as kids, was who came to the celebrations. Grandma and Grandpa had both been married before and each divorced. Grandpa’s kids were all aunts and uncles to us. His grandkids were our cousins. Grandma’s first husband, Grandpa Charlie, and his wife, Grandma Gladys often were at the dinners. Later when Mother and Father had dinners at our house, both sets of Grandparents were there. We just didn’t know if there was any animosity. It never showed and it didn’t occur to me that there might be any. Grandpa Corbridge called Grandpa Charlie, Grandpa Schnable and Grandpa Charlie called Grandpa Corbridge the same thing. We thought that was pretty funny.
Of course you’ve all heard the story about the manger scene that Grandma had. Grandpa made a little riser out of plywood for her to put up her manger scene. It was always in the front, bay window and we would go over every night to see her turn on the lights and the star. She spread sand on the riser and put pieces of greenery in for trees. She got new pieces for the manger scene every year at Woolworth’s dime store. It was a highlight of Christmas for us and I’m so thankful that I was the recipient of that manger scene. I have treasured it over the years. I wish I could go to Woolworths and get new pieces for it. It has suffered greatly from little hands. Here is a picture of what it looks like today
On Christmas this year, 2008, I told this story and Robert mentioned that he remembered seeing it at Grandma Corbridges house and how excited he was when she gave it to us. Julie also remembered it. Does anyone else have fond memories of the manger scene from Grandma Corbridge? One thing I remember is Dad wanting to throw it out because it looked dirty. I was worried that he would actually throw it out so I sprayed the actual barn gold.
Just inside our back door was a big hamster cage that Father built for us. We had received hamsters for Christmas one year and we regularly had baby hamsters. We sold them to the pet store for 25 cents apiece and to our friends for the same amount. They were so cute when they were first born. They were pink and looked like a little pink finger. Mother told us over and over not to look at the new babies or the Mother would eat them. I don’t remember that happening but we came home from school everyday and looked at the babies.
I remember the magic of Christmas morning when we would creep down the hallway and in the distance we could see the glow of the Christmas lights as we made our way to the living room. One year we received the dollies that Aunt Roberta and I are holding.
Grandma and Grandpa Corbridge always came to our house on Christmas Day to see what we got and bring gifts. This is when Rob was about 5 years old. We lived on Belflower Blvd in Los Altos, California, with Grandma and Grandpa Barnes.

Christmas 2008

We had a fun family Christmas party here at our house on the 21st. Julie, Chris and Jake were in town so they were here. Maryann and Shane were in California with their family and we missed them. We started out reading the Nativity Script and singing carols, then Grandpa Claus arrived and everyone got a chance to sit on his lap or sit by him in the love seat and receive a small gift. I am posting a link to the pictures on Picassa so that you can go there and see them for yourself. I tried to get a slideshow on my blog but so far, no luck!
Christmas Pictures Link

Childhood Christmas Question?

We would love to hear about a favorite childhood Christmas or maybe a family tradition you had when you were a kid!

Newspaper Article from Cape Girardeau Missourian Newspaper

Can you guess the year this was published? I think you will get a kick out of this. According to this article, we must have been the world's wonder family. I sure come off as "Miracle Mom" in the article! On the other hand, it was great PR for the church.

Mary Blue

Missouian Food Editor

Wholesome food is one of the keys to healthy, happy children in close family ties, is the belief of Mrs. Richard Lewis, North Hills Estate who grows, preserves and prepares food for her family of 10. In this Mormon family there are five girls and three boys, ranging in age from 1 to 19 years, and a ninth child is expected this summer.

With strong religious faith, they have in reserve a year's supply of food to meet with an emergency, and eat mostly natural food, grind their own wheat for flour, can, freeze and dehydrate food for their year around use.

When Mr. Lewis, a manager at the Procter and Gamble Paper Products Co. here, was transferred from Southern California, where both he and Mrs. Lewis had grown up and spent most of their lived, it was the first time they had lived away from California, except during his military duties in the Navy when they were in the east and in Europe. It is their first experience in living away from a city and first in the Midwest. They love their new environment and their home in a lively wooded area several miles out of town.

Not many convenience foods can be found in the kitchen of Barbara Lewis. She prepares most of their foods, the making of lasagna spaghetti, crackers (all from whole wheat) with a pasta maker, grows alfalfa sprouts to be used in salads, and cans, freezes and dehydrates food from their bountiful garden, and preserves other available food for the future.

Imagine the delight of the children when they come home from school (Jackson) to the aroma of freshly baked bread. Bread is made from whole wheat flour, honey, powdered milk and other bread basics several times during the week. Because of the quantity it is made with the kneading arm of an electric mixer.

In cooking and preparing food for her family Barbara cuts corners where possible. She believes whole wheat flour is more healthful.

A food dehydrator has been a good investment, she has found, as it not only dries fruits and vegetables, but she uses it for drying bread to be used for dressing and stuffing to be served with meat and poultry.

A noodle extruder (or pasta maker) was a welcomed Christmas present this year. Even though the making of noodles and spaghetti is time consuming, it is a family project they enjoy, especially he finished products.

Major shopping is done only once each month with a tremendous amount of staples being purchased at that time. A weekly trip to the grocery will take care of most of the other needs as meat is purchased in quantity, milk obtained from a local farmer, and fruits and vegetables obtained locally when in season. They have an abundant garden.

One of the happy times with the children is the preservation of food. Last summer the 12-year-old son was delighted when he could wash and prepare cucumbers to make pickles. Every project is a family affair with the smaller children also participating.

When there was a n excess of fruit last summer, they were allowed to pick apples from a local orchard. With this fruit they made applesauce and dehydrated apples for winter's use. Pears to be canned were obtained in the same manner. Then, all summer they had fresh produce from their own garden.

Besides her own family, Barbara Lewis has 14 active girls in Brownie Troop 179 meeting at her home each Thursday afternoon. In the Youth Division of the Jackson Christmas Parade, this troop won on their float. With this money the troop is looking forward to a great day at Six Flags.

Mr. Lewis, a lay leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, is president of the young men of the church , and is district financial clerk, taking care of the bookkeeping of this area with some of the churches being in Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas.

Monday night is Family Night. This is a special time set aside for family fun, counsel and fellowship in the home. Always it is opened with prayer and then may be followed with a variety of activities with all of the family participating. There are songs, plays, games, such as "Name That Tune," and other forms of challenging events. Because genealogy is important in their religion, some portion of the evening may be devoted to it's study. Sometimes others are invited to share this happy event of "super entertainment with all participating," they commented.

Another family observance is that each child has a "special night". On about four nights each week, one child is allowed to stay up later with the parents and the child chooses the activity. Because of the age span, it can be reading, playing the piano, or playing with play dough. This special child also gets to plan the breakfast menu and sometimes the menu for the next day.

Robert Lewis, the oldest of the children , who is 19, left home only two weeks ago for a two-year period when he will do missionary work for the church. It is his life-long dream come true. During the summers and after school work he has saved money for this experience. For Christmas, he received the discussions (about a half dozen) which he is to follow, so he was familiar with them when he left for his five day stay at the mission home in Salt Lake City, Utah. Then he was assigned to Southern California. It is ironic that he would be sent right back to the area from which the family moved, when he could have been assigned to anyplace in the world.

These young men must follow stringent rules. They do not smoke or drink coffee, tea or alcohol and must be morally clean. Although they are representatives of their church, they are sustained by their families while they are on this mission. Prior to leaving, Robert visited the two nicely dressed young men who are about town on bicycles, and learned from them on a few days call what to anticipate in his work.

School children take their lunch, which often consists of every child's favorite - Peanut butter, jam or honey on whole wheat bread. then there is a crunchy snack (envied by other children) - popcorn. Fruit leather is made from summer ripe fruit prepared in the blender and then the dehydrator.

The Children take turns with household duties, including washing dishes, setting the table, vacuuming, dusting, cleaning bathrooms, with little ones assisting in picking up toys.

Hot cereal is a favorite wintertime breakfast foo, but whole wheat pancakes are a year around favorite. this is also a favorite winter dinner meal too. A simple syrup is made to be served on the pancakes.

The children like Mexican food, Oriental food, with stir-fry vegetables always popular. Apples and carrots are always available for nibbles and they have fruits and vegetables the whole year. It is possible to have good snack foo, Mrs. Lewis believes, without buying "junk foods." They are especially fond of a cottage cheese dip on baked potatoes and to dip raw vegetables and freshly sliced apples.

To maintain a healthy happy family, she says one must know what is in the food that is served to them. for this reason, she prepares her own foods and submits the following recipes.

THANKSGIVING AT OUR HOUSE

We had Thanksgiving at our house, Grandma Corbridges and at Aunt Avis and Uncle Bruce's house. I thought I would share this picture with you. It's Thanksgiving at our house on Lomina, in Los Altos, California.
That is my sister, Kathy, in the front of the picture. She is the youngest of us three girls. The next row is L. to R. - Grandma Corbridge, Aunt Billie and Uncle Ross, Aunt Loretta and Uncle John (my Father's Uncle), and Grandpa Charlie and Grandma Gladys. Back shows Father waveing over Uncle John's shoulder and Mother peeking out over Grandpa Charlie's shoulder.
The Thanksgiving picture was developed in December 1958. I had Rob 8 Dec of 1958 and I was living with Mother and Father at the time. Here are a couple of pictures that were taken closer to Christmas. 1st Grandchild for Mother and Father and my first baby! Yes, I had blond hair at the time!


Below is a 4 generation shot with Me, Father, Grandma Mike, Father's mother. It was taken on the same day.

The Girl Who Hated Eggs!

As I was growing up, I developed a hatred for eggs. Maybe it was not so much a hatred as complete disgust but I definitely didn’t like eggs in any way shape or form. Now my sister, Roberta was another story. I have to insert here that she not only liked eggs but she had a unique way of making a profit from eating eggs. Or should I say…sucking eggs? My Grandpa Charlie was a character and he would (pardon the pun in advance) egg Roberta and our cousin, Clayton Richardson, on to get them to suck eggs. He offered 50¢ to whoever could suck the most raw eggs! The way you suck an egg is to make a small hole at each end of the egg and then suck the raw egg into your mouth and swallow it. Roberta is pretty daring and she usually won. So she ate raw eggs…FOR A PRICE!



This is me with Uncle Bruce and my cousin Bruce "Brucie".

One time I was spending the night with Aunt Avis and Uncle Bruce and their family. For breakfast, Aunt Avis made fried eggs. I almost gagged when she set a plate in front of me with a beautifully cooked, sunny side up, fried egg on it. I told her that I didn’t like eggs. She said that when I was at her house, I would eat eggs and like it! I think I had already started crying, when I looked down at my plate and to my astonishment, saw that my egg was gone! I looked up in amazement and Uncle Bruce who was sitting at the table, winked at me. He had eaten my egg and I was saved!

When I was sick, I always wanted cream of tomato soup and rye bread toast to eat and I didn’t like sugar on my cereal, just plain.

Some nights Mother would make a big pot of cornmeal mush, pour it into cake pans and put it into the refrigerator to harden. Then in the morning, she would slice it and fry it. I do that occasionally for myself. We had it with butter and syrup like pancakes. It was a big treat!

Cute picture of Mother with her catch of trout!
We spent summers camping and fishing and eating the bounties of nature, like fish and berries etc. Some of my likes and dislikes have to do with wild food. I always loved trout and the way my Mother cooked it. I was so disappointed the year we went to Idaho to visit and Mother said I could do all the cooking. She was such a good cook. Father was too. Well, as I said, I love trout. The best part of the trout, to me, is the crispy tail. Mother would dip the fish in flour and seasonings and then fry it. Oh how I loved the skin, tail and fins. They were crispy and delicious. Now I will tell you about Aunt Roberta again. She likes the fish eyes! Mother always left the heads on when she fried the fish and fish eyes were a delicacy that Roberta loved and still loves to this day! She would ask everyone for their eyes and we would pop them out and give them to her. Here's one of me with MY catch of trout. Yes, I fished when I was a kid.


One thing I have to tell you about is picking huckleberries. Huckleberries are about the size of a small blueberry and you find them on bushes in the woods. This is me with a small container and a huckleberry between my fingers! You can see that I am standing in the middle of a bunch of huckleberry bushes.
You can imagine how long it takes to pick a small bucket of huckleberries! Well, Mother canned huckleberries in the summer and then we had huckleberry pancakes, huckleberry cobbler and huckleberry syrup, at home in California in the winter. We loved all these delicious things but we got tired of picking huckleberries pretty fast and there was a lot of whining and oh Mother, do we have to? Now there were times when we went out on our own to pick huckleberries, but those berries never saw the light of day. We ate as we picked! If you are going to eat as you pick though, you need to get a handful before you pop them into your mouth, more flavor. Love Huckleberries! Another thing that we always looked for when we went out for huckleberries is wild strawberries. They grow on the ground and are hard to spot but they taste fabulous! They are about the size of the end of my little finger and packed with delicious flavor.

We loved Mexican food and Mother regularly sent us to a Mexican food place, several blocks over from our house, on Pacific Ave. in Long Beach, to get freshly made tortillas. We always ate one on the way home. Ummm yum, warm, fresh tortillas! Mother got to know the people there pretty well and they taught her to make chile relenos. Being the chicken that I was about food, I never tried Mother’s chile relenos. Too bad. You can ask Aunt Roberta how they were though, she probably tried them. It was the same with wild mushrooms. I didn’t develop a taste for mushrooms until it was too late to cash in on Mother and Father’s wild mushroom hunting. They would bring home these beautiful Morell Mushrooms and cook them in butter and have a feast, mushrooms and steak! Whenever Mother made a pan of enchiladas, she always made an extra one for Grandma and Grandpa Corbridge and even when we lived miles away from them, she would take them enchiladas.


Growing up we lived next door to Grandma and Grandpa Corbridge. Grandpa Corbridge and Father would go deep sea fishing and bring back a bunch of Albacore they had caught. Mother and Grandma would can them and that is the only kind of tuna I had until I was an adult. Mother put the fish into pint jars with some oil and garlic and processed them in either a pressure cooker or a roaster. Sometimes we would just have the fish right out of the jar for a meal. Great stuff! This is out back of the apartments that Grandma and Grandpa owned across the street from where we lived on Chestnut Ave in Long Beach. You can see that the hose is running and they are cleaning fish. You have to get the guts out before you start preparing them for canning.

This is how we got our meat, no walking into a store and picking up the prepackaged stuff!
My Father went hunting every year and we always had deer meat, venison. I remember one time when Mother served us hamburger and we said, “Eww, what kind of meat is this?” It was regular beef hamburger but we were so used to the taste of venison hamburger that it seemed terrible to us!

So no, I don’t remember being forced to eat and I was always accused of being picky but looking back, I guess the only thing I really was was the girl who hated eggs!

1954

Jack is reading a book that takes place in the early 1950's. Could you tell what is was like for you in 1954?

New Question

Were you a picky eater when you were a kid? What were your favorite foods? What did you detest? Did your parents make you eat everything on your plate?

The Summer of 1948

In the summer of 1948, when I was 8 years old and my sister, Shirle, was 13 years old, our parents put us on a train, by ourselves, in Los Angeles California. We traveled coach class from Los Angeles, California, to Omaha, Nebraska. We were amazed that we were going faster than a mile a minute! This trip was a watershed experience for me, in that I was introduced to and learned to love Cream of Wheat with lots of sugar and milk on it. I remember stopping in Salt Lake City, Utah. Shirle pointed up at the Salt Lake temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and we both said what a pretty building it was.

Before we left on the trip, my Mom and Dad bought us a bag of chocolate candy bars to eat on the trip. We ate a few of them and then on the afternoon before our arrival in Omaha, since we had several bars left, we decided to eat them all before we got there. When the train pulled into Omaha, my Mom’s brother and sister-in-law, Uncle Val and Aunt Ruth met us at the station. The weather was really hot and humid and we were driven directly to their apartment in Uncle Val’s car. They had a nice car but there was no air-conditioning in cars in those days. The combination of candy bars, heat and humidity caused a terrible reaction in both Shirle and me. We commenced throwing up soon after our arrival at the apartment and managed to fill both the toilet and tub with a grim reminder of the chocolate candy bars. Uncle Val and aunt Ruth were undoubtedly grateful, after that night, that they never had children of their own. This is Uncle Val and Aunt Ruth.
The next one is one of Shirle and me with Grandma Tena, when we were younger.


While we were in Omaha, we were taken to see an old friend of my Mom’s, who used to baby-sit for us. She ran a nursing home and we called her Aunt Mary. While we were there, a boy from next door wanted to fight with me. I told him a couple of times that I didn’t want to fight but he insisted and I beat him up. After that we became friends.

After we recovered from the candy bar episode, we were driven to Onawa, Iowa, to see our grandma, Tena Jenkins. She lived in an apartment, in a house there. After Grandpa Jenkins died, Grandma Tena sold her house to Amy and James Simpson, my paternal grandparents, reserving a suite of rooms upstairs for herself. She lived there until she went to live in the Eastern Star nursing home in Boone, Iowa. This is the house that she sold to them and where my Mom, grew up.
I remember feeding a horse next door, crab apples from Grandma’s tree. I also remember finding a black comb on the ground and wanting to keep it because I never had a comb of my own before. Grandma said I couldn’t have it because it was probably full of germs. I talked her into it and she boiled the comb to sterilize it. Unfortunately, the comb melted and bent in half during the sterilizing process. This is a picture of Shirle and me with Uncle Val and Grandma Tena.

We also went to Modale, Iowa, to see Aunt LaVonnne and Uncle Newell Simpson. Uncle Newell was brother to my birth father. We recently went to see Aunt LaVonne and took pictures of that house. This is the house where we went to visit them in Modale.
The day we arrived was the first day for indoor plumbing in their home. We got to take baths in the new bathtub. When we saw this house in Iowa, on our trip to Utah, I was surprised at the size of it. It seemed much bigger when I was 8 years old.

This is the creek and the little bridge that goes over it as part of the sidewalk in front of Uncle Newell and Aunt LaVonne’s old house.
I remember the field behind and the creek as being much bigger! I also remember my cousin, James, was across the field one time and called to me. I took off running across the field and fell into an old outhouse hole! When I told Aunt LaVonne that story recently, she got a good laugh out of it. This is Aunt LaVonne now.

Rough Night at Sea!

In 1967, I was on the ship, USS Wacamaw on a Mediterranean cruise. We were assigned to duty in the Mediterranean Sea. Our responsibility was to re-fuel aircraft carriers, destroyers, and cruisers for US and Nato forces, who were also assigned to the Mediterranean. In order to get to the Mediterranean Sea from Norfolk, Virginia, where we were stationed, you had to, of course, cross the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic Ocean is famous for storms and high seas. This is a picture of me on the bridge of the Waccamaw.
The bridge is where orders are given for steering and the engineering department, that determine how fast the ship will go. My duty was as the Officer of the Deck (OOD), which meant that I had complete control and responsibility for everything that happened on the ship. The Bridge was approximately 50 feet up from the water line. (top of the ocean)
This picture shows one of the 40 foot long, liberty boats that were supposed to sit on the main deck in a cradle. (About 30 feet above the water line)
During one of the storms that we encountered in the Atlantic, a huge wave came over the side of the ship, picked up the 40 foot liberty boat, out of it’s cradle, and almost tossed it overboard. As you can see in this picture, the wave dropped the boat onto the deck just before it would have gone overboard. Since this Liberty Boat, at 40 feet, weighed over 1000 lbs, we estimated that the wave required to pick it up and move it, had to be somewhere between 55 to 75 feet tall. (A little taller than a telephone pole.) During the night that this occurred, I had been on the bridge all night. In order to get some sleep, I had to wedge myself between a bulkhead (wall) and a large pipe that ran up the bulkhead so I didn’t fall over. Needless to say it was a rough night at sea, because of the storm. Link to USS Waccamaw

Chow-Chow!

This is a picture of my sister, Shirle, and me, sitting on a wall outside the apartment in this story.
When I was about 4 or 5 years old, we lived in Omaha, Nebraska, in an apartment. It was two stories high and had a DARK basement. I was always afraid to go into that basement. It was dark and dirty because of the coal that was used to heat the building. You had to shovel coal into the furnace and it burned to give us heat. Every morning in the winter, my Mom had to go down to the basement and open a 2 foot square door in the black cast iron furnace and shovel coal into it from a pile on the floor. (The coal was piled into a coal bin that had wood on three sides and was open in the front.) To get into the basement you could go down steps from inside the apartment or you could go through the heavy double doors that lifted out from the outside.
This is me playing in the yard of the apartment.
I was outside playing in my sandbox, the big double doors to the basement were open, when a big, black, Chow dog came into our yard. I saw that dog coming and I immediately jumped up and even though I was afraid of that basement, I was more afraid of the Chow. He looked as big as a house to me. So I ran to the steps leading down into the basement, looked back, saw the big Chow coming toward me, ran into the basement, across the floor and up the stairs into the apartment. I don't even know if the Chow would have attacked me, or just wanted to lick me. The fact that he looked so huge was enough to scare me to death! That's my story of being attacked by a dog. I

School Days and more!

When I was about 4 or 5y old, we moved to a little place (I think it was in Westminister, California) , an orange ranch or farm and that was called Rancho Costa Plenty. I am inserting a picture of the first house we lived in called Rancho Costa Plenty. I remember playing out in the orange trees under the branches of the trees, that brushed the ground. We had a little hideout under those branches and we played house there. I guess Father went to church when we lived there because I remember him shaving and teaching me to recite the poem “Trees” for a 2 ½ minute talk. He always made me memorize my talks for church. I remembered the poem for a long time.
TREES
by: Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
When I heard the song that had been written from the poem, many years later, it became a favorite.

I started school when we lived at that place and I remember tracing around cardboard milk bottle caps and coloring in the resulting circles. We would do something like pyramids of circles with one on top and two next etc. Milk came in bottles then, with a cardboard disk, or cap, that fit down into the neck of the bottle and had a little tab to pull it out.

Kathy was born when we lived there and I missed a lot of school because we lived in the country and we would go to Long Beach to our doctor, Harold Hinkley. I would stay with Grandma Corbridge or one of Mother’s friends when she went to the doctor.

I guess I already had crossed eyes at that time because I remember playing dirt clods, a game where one opponent was on one side of the road and the other on the other side of the road. We pulled big clumps of grass out of the ground and used the grass as a handle to throw the dirt clod on the end, as a weapon. Pretty sophisticated stuff huh? We played that game a lot as I was growing up but there were a lot more vacant lots then. Each side had their “fort” and protected themselves the best they could and then the dirt clods started flying. One time when we were playing dirt clods, I got hit in the glasses with a rock. My glasses broke and we had to make another trip to town to see if I had glass in my eye. Here are some pictures of me with glasses.

One time when I had been to the doctor to have my eyes examined, I came home with my vision still blurry from the dialation of my eyes. Grandma Corbridge was taking care of me or I was staying at her house and I was crying because I couldn’t see anything. She got out some crayons and a coloring book and we started to color. I must have really been whining about my blurry vision because she took off her glasses so that her vision would be blurred too. We colored and when we could see what we had colored, it turned out that Grandma had colored a girl’s hair green. I never forgot that, I thought it was hilarious. I wonder now if she did it on purpose to distract me or if she just didn’t know what she was coloring. I still remember sitting in her living room coloring. She was a wonderful grandma.

The doctor who operated on me was Dr. Thornberg. I was in the 4th grade at Lafayette Elementary School. The operation must have cost a lot of money because he was supposed to be a pretty good specialist in his field. He explained to my mother, and I learned by listening that he was going to take my eyeball out of the socket and lay it on my cheek and then cut some of the muscle to tighten up the loose muscles in my eyes. I had one surgery on both eyes and a second surgery to correct my right eye. I went to St. Mary’s hospital in Long Beach, California, for the surgeries. I had patches over my eyes after the surgery.
I remember going to church after the first surgery, and realizing that I was supposed to give a talk in Sunday School. That was back when we went to Sunday School in the mornng and went back for Sacrament Meeting in the evening. I was in the Senior Sunday School,not the Jr. Sunday School. I remember my “boy friend” and “rival”, Ronald Rumfallo, guided me up to the podium and I gave a talk about Joseph Smith’s first vision, that I, naturally, knew by heart. My grandmother must have been crying with pride. I know I thought I was pretty cool. All the old ladies in the ward thought I was just wonderful for doing that. Actually, I couldn’t see the audience and I knew the talk by heart so it wasn’t as great as they thought it was. This is a picture of me with my primary class, back far right. In the middle holding a placard is Ronald Rumfallo.

Anyway, one thing I remember about the operation on my eyes is that Dr. Thornberg let me pull the stitches out myself. The end of the stitches was hanging out of the inside corner of my eye and he pulled it out with a tweezer far enough for me to get hold of it. That was pretty cool. It was also great to tell other kids about how they pulled my eyeball out and layed it on my cheek. Pretty sickening concept for grade school kids. I used the stitches, artistically displayed on a piece of gauze, for show and tell.

When we lived at Grandma and Grandpa Carter’s house, in Boise, Idaho, we went to school at Garfield Elementary School on Broadway and then East Jr. High School. In case you are wondering, let me explain something about our life growing up. Father liked to fish and hunt. We would start school in Idaho and go to school there until the hunting season was over, (time for snow) then we would go back to California. We lived in a series of rented houses there until we bought our home in Los Altos, California. We would go to school in California until fishing season opened in Idaho, when we would again pack up and leave for Idaho. We finished school in Idaho (which us kids thought was great because school there closed before school in California closed) and then we camped out all summer. We must have been the original "snow birds."

In Boise, we walked to school from Grandma and Grandpa Carter’s house. I guess it was a little over a mile and a half. We measured the distance one time when Dick and I were in Boise. There was a small irrigation ditch that ran along beside the sidewalk. It made for interesting walks to and from school. We could put things in the water and see how far they would float.

We would pin Lilacs or Lillies of the Valley, from Grandma Carter’s garden, on our coats or dresses and sniff them all day at school.

We played jacks in the basement of the Garfield Elementary school during inclement weather and came home to practice on the linoleum in Grandma and Grandpa’s kitchen. I wasn’t very good at jacks but I kept trying. We played marbles out on the playground and I wasn’t much good at that either. I was pretty good at baseball and kickball though. We also played jump rope.

When I was in 5th grade, going to school at Lafayette Elementary school and living at 1959 Chestnut Ave., next door to Grandma and Grandpa Corbridge, I decided that I didn’t want to be called Barbara anymore. I think it was because the teacher, Mr. Miller, asked if anyone had a nickname that they wanted to be called. I asked them to call me Babs .I was called Babs that whole year at Lafayette. Of course I left school early and went to Idaho so the name got sidelined in the move. I just remember that I met someone years later and they said, “Babs?!”, when they recognized me, and that I was shocked that anyone would remember that youthful name.

One thing that bothered the heck out of me was when my Father would take me to school. In those days, it wasn’t cool to wear a cowboy hat and drive a pickup in Long Beach, California. It was weird, at least to a Jr. High School girl. When he drove me to school, I would beg him to let me out around the corner. I was ashamed of the pickup and my eccentric Father. Well, he would drive right up to the front of the school and make a big to-do about letting me out. Humiliating!

I went to High School at Milliken High School, when we lived in Los Altos. I started going to Seminary over at the East Long Beach Stake Center on Ximeno Ave., across from Recreation Park. Our teacher was Raymond Lindford. He was so great! He later became my Bishop. Every day, I got up and got myself ready for Seminary and I guess someone picked me up because my parents were still snoozing away when I left for Seminary. After Seminary, I went home with Dyane Miner (Burns) and we had breakfast at her house. Her Grandma always made enough food for me but never set a place for me at the table. After we ate breakfast, we walked to school. It wasn't far from her house. Dyane was my best friend in High School and after. We eventually got an apartment together.

As usual, this is a little more than you asked for.

Old School

Did you enjoy school. Why? What was your favorite subject? Did you have good friends?

Blake Has a question For Grandpa Lewis

Why did you learn in the navy" Right is right, Left is left and you can't push a rope." What does it mean?

Being Chased by a Bull!

This is one of those, "Don't try this at home" stories!
In 1933, my father, Bob Barnes, was fifteen years old and living in Long Beach, California, with his mother and step-father, Jessie and William Michael. One evening, his Mother was cooking pork chops for dinner, when an earthquake hit. It was so strong a quake that the apartment building that they lived in shook down around them. After they had run outside, stepping over the rubble of bricks on the ground, they could see into the apartments upstairs, where the walls had fallen down. It scared him so badly that he a fifteen year old young man, slept in the bed with his parents that night.
After the quake, they had to move to North Long Beach and a different place to live. Father started going to school at Wilson High School and it was a status school. All the kids wore fancy clothes and saddle shoes and he just had blue jeans and tennis shoes. He didn’t fit in. He decided to quit school and go to Iowa, where his Dad was living. After he had saved up $10.75 and wearing his Boy Scout shirt, neckerchief and hat, he started for Iowa, hitchhiking. He ended up hopping a freight train and had quite an adventure riding the rails from Long Beach, California, to Des Moines, Iowa. This photo was taken about 1929, it shows him in his Scout uniform. You grandkids, look the places up on a map and see how far he had to travel by jumping into freight cars. He said, in his story, that he went through Barstow, California, Alamogordo, New Mexico, and some place in Texas. What other places might he have gone through to get to Des Moines, Iowa?
When he got to Buckeye, Iowa, where his sister lived, he helped out around the place as much as he could but he finally decided to get a job, working on a farm. He was hired by a dairy farmer, who knew his parents, for $10.00 a month, room and board and laundry. This picture shows Auntie Ruth, Father's sister, with their Dad, his Mother and her first child, my cousin Jack, who was killed in WWII. It was taken about 1926, in Iowa.
One of the first things the farmer asked Father to do, was go out and open the barn doors and bring the cows in. Well, he climbed over the fence and started out but there was a bull standing there in the yard and the bull started to paw the ground and snort and he suddenly took off chasing Father. Well, Father turned on a dime and high tailed it for the fence and jumped to the other side. He said he “cleared that fence by a country mile”.
The farmer came up and said, “I thought I told you to get those cows in!”
“Well”, said Father, “that bull run me off!”
The farmer said, “We’ll have to teach him a lesson!”
So they went out to the barn and the farmer got a pitch fork and gave it to Father. “Now”, said he, “you stand right here in the barn door and when that bull comes for you again and he will come again, you jab him up by the horns, with the pitch fork. Don’t you hit him in the eyes though! Then when he turns around, you jab him again in the butt!”(Would you have stood in the door while the bull was charging you?)
So Father stood in the doorway and when the bull charged him again, he took the pitchfork and jabbed him up by the horns. That bull turned and when he did, Father gave him a jab in the rear end. Well, the bull took off running and Father chased him. He gave him a jab with the pitchfork every time he took a jump. He said he never drew blood, just gave him a stick that scared him.
That bull never bothered Father again!
By the way, look at the bottom of the right side of the Boy Scout picture at the small bucket. When we were kids and when Grandpa Barnes was a kid, we put our garbage into those cans. By the end of the week or when the garbage man picked them up, they stunk to high heaven!

I always wondered when this picture was taken, it is in front of some barn doors, so I guess it COULD have been taken in Iowa when Father worked on the farm there.

Our little surprise!

Occasionally, we stayed at Grandma and Grandpa Carter’s house in Boise, Idaho. The address was 917 Sylvan St. You can see the big screened in porch, on the front of the house, in this picture, where Grandma and Grandpa slept summer and winter. Their house was located right at the end of Broadway, just before you go up on the freeway. (it was called the "Bench" at that time because the road sat up above Broadway.) There was a drive-in movie theater up there that we could walk to. We got in for about 25 cents and sat on benches near the refreshment booth. This picture shows Grandpa on the left, his sister, Aunt Blanche, in the middle, and Grandma, holding Tuppy or Stinky or whatever their dog's name was, standing on the left side of the house. You can see the screened in porch in the background. (They had several wirehaired terriers at different times.)


Since Father wanted to be in on the first of the fishing season, we would leave California and go to Idaho before school was out in California. When we got there, we would stay with Grandma and Grandpa. Mother and Father slept in the trailer and Roberta and I slept upstairs in a bedroom. I guess Kathy was with Mother and Father. The bedroom that Roberta and I shared upstairs in Grandma and Grandpa Carter’s house, was sort of spooky. There was a double bed that we shared and behind the bed was a door that led to the attic. Roberta remembers it as a scary place. I remember it as a place that I hid stuff that I didn’t want my parents to know about. Bad!

It was while we were living with Grandma and Grandpa, in 1956, Mother and Father in the trailer and us in the house, that Father came home one day from work, with something in his pocket. He let us guess what it was but we never in the world would have guessed what this surprise was. We were delighted to find that it was a tiny little, tan, chiuaua puppy!
She was an instant hit with the whole family. We named her Tina and she never barked. She was so cute. You can see her here as an adult dog. Mother and Father decided to breed her with another chiuaua when they found one that was as small as she was. She had one little black puppy that we named Nibs. Tina was fiercely protective of her offspring and one day when a large dog came up to the gate of Grandma and Grandpa’s yard, she took off running and barking with all her might. We were stunned! We bragged all over the place, about our little dog that ran off a big one with her fierce barking.
Here is a picture of Roberta and I at our place in McCall, Idaho. I'm holding Tina.

I don't remember being attacked by an animal Jack, but there is a good story in Grandpa Barnes's history about him being chased by a bull. I'll have to tell you that one sometime!

Next Question

Did you parents ever surprise you with something great? What was it or was it some place you went? Mom once surprised me ,by getting me out of school for a Star Wars movie. I thought that was awesome. Jack had a question too. Have you ever been attacked by something? A dog or anything?

Summers in Idaho

I'm choosing to tell you a little bit about what my life was like, in the summer, as a kid instead of my favorite vacation. Hope you don't mind.

Mother and Father liked to fish and hunt. We would start school in Idaho and go to school there until the hunting season was over, then we would go to California. We lived in a series of rented houses in California, until we bought our home in Los Altos, CA. We would go to school in California until fishing season opened in Idaho, when we would again pack up and leave for Idaho. We finished school in Idaho (which us kids thought was great because school there closed before school in CA closed) and then we camped out all summer.


We camped in various places and in various ways. Usually we had a tent for the kids and Mother and Father slept in a small travel trailer. Our family was big on camping and with the Carters, Mother’s family, it was a way of life. One time we went camping to the Big Smokey, in Idaho, with Grandma and Grandpa Carter, Aunt Jennie and Uncle Goldie, Jennie’s daughter, Beulah and her husband Percy Herrera, their son, Lyal, maybe our cousin Clayton Richardson, Mother and Father, Roberta, Kathy and I. We fished and played. (The picture above on the left, shows us with Grandpa Charlie on top and r to l - Mindy Boyce, Father, Kathy, Mother peeking through, Percy Herera, Aunt Jennie, gpa's sister, Uncle Goldie, her husband and ?) We dug a hole in Paradise Creek and dammed it up to make a swimming hole. That water was right off Big Smokey and cold enough to freeze anything. What it froze was us! How in the world we ever even stayed in the water long enough to dam it up, I don’t know. Pretty fun huh? We thought so. I was out fishing with Father that trip when I thought I had my line caught on a stump or something. I called Father to help me get it un-stuck and he came to my rescue for the hundredth time. Long story short, it turned out to be the biggest fish I ever caught. It was about a 2 pound trout with the most beautiful pink meat you ever saw. We called it a Dolly Varden. Don’t know if that was the true name but this is a TRUE fish story. It was also on this trip that I learned the saying, "When the trailer's a rockin', don't come a knockin"! You can figure that one out for yourself. It took me awhile.
We had a place in McCall, ID, a beautiful lot with a tent house on it. We had to be careful when it rained not to touch the sides of the tent or it would leak. We had to take our clothes away from the side of the tent so that the tent or tent house wouldn’t leak and get us or our clothes wet. We hated it when we had to sleep in a tent in the rain!
(Picture on right was taken in McCall at the camp ground. L side of table, Joel Boyce, Jackie Corbridge, cousin, Roberta, Charlie Bradshaw, cousin, Kathy. Grandma Mike and Grandma Corbridge at head of table. R side of table Barbara, Martha Boyce, German girl, Susie Boyce)
There was a little round mirror hanging on a tree where ever we went. The first thing that went up was the mirror. We had to wash in icy cold water most of the time but we had our priorities straight. We had our mirror.
One thing that is memorable in a scary way was camping out in West Yellowstone at the Madison River Campground. Mother and Father would be in the trailer and we would be in our TENT. The bear and moose would be wandering around at night and we would hear the bears raiding the trash cans . We were too afraid to call out for our parents because we didn’t want the bears to hear us. To this day, I have a mortal fear of sleeping in a tent where the bears roam!
When we were camping one year in the Madison River Camp ground, Grandma and Grandpa Corbridge, Aunt Billie and her daughters, Jeneane and Sue came and camped with us. Jeneane and Sue were so cool. They did their hair every night and they knew how to fix it in the morning. They dressed nice etc. Of course, they were older than us so everything they did was great. Being the sweet little girls that we were, we hatched a plan. We had been catching frogs on the river that day and we collected a bunch of them and that night we snuck into their tent and put frogs in Jeneane and Sue’s bed, then we waited with eager anticipation for the screams. We were not disappointed! Needless to say, we got in big trouble for that little trick. How could we be such stinkers when we were such nice girls?
That same summer, we went over to Preston, Idaho, to Grandpa Corbridges parent’s house. We called his mother, Little Grandma Corbridge. Well we walked into this small, frame, farm house and there was Grandpa laying on his stomach on a sofa. Roberta walked over to him and slapped him on the rear end and said, "Hi Grandpa!" Well, Grandpa must have come off the couch about six inches and almost started crying. He was recovering from hemorrhoid surgery, which was why he was laying on his stomach. There was a lot of scrambling around and Roberta was whisked away to the kitchen. Remember the little black wood stove that I have. Well, Little Grandma had one just like it in the kitchen only it was full size. She was still cooking on it when I was a young girl, about 11 or 12 years old. That would have been in the 1950s. This picture shows Grandpa Corbridge and his parents at their place in Preston, Idaho. One more thing I want to tell you about Little Grandma and Grandpa Corbridge’s place. That’s where I got to help kill chickens. Someone, probably Grandpa Corbridge, would chop the heads off the chickens and then let their bodies run around headless before falling to the ground. Then someone else, I think it must have been Mother or Grandma Corbridge, would dip the dead chickens into boiling water. Then everyone else pulled feathers off. It’s a stinky job because wet feathers are pretty strong smelling. I do remember though that it was Little Grandma who showed us how to get all the little pin feathers. Another never to be forgotten lesson in the life of Barbara Barnes.
On our trips to Idaho, we would take turns riding in the car with Mother, or riding in the truck with Father. The car always had the back seat packed so that it was one big bed. Mother and Father would pack it up pretty evenly and then put blankets over the whole thing and make a bed. There were the three of us girls and we always got to buy candy and comic books for the trip and we had a pretty good time. We always stopped in the desert to shoot. Father would get his gun out and let us shoot the 22 or a BB gun. He would set up cans or sticks for us to shoot at. We got to be pretty good shots. We were as good as the boys he never had. We also set up cans in the side yard at Grandma and Grandpa Carter’s house and practiced with our BB gun. When we ran out of BBs we would go to the store about a half a block away and buy them (if we had the money) Our Carter cousins, would come over and shoot with us and we always held our own with them. (Lyal and Clayton…BOYS!)
I remember one trip to Idaho, when I was riding in the truck with Father, it was night time and we were looking at the stars. Father taught me the different planet names. He used a name to help me remember them…Vem J. Sun P.
V – Venus
E – Earth
M – Mars
J – Jupiter
S – Saturn
U – Uranus
N – Neptune
P – Pluto
Now, Pluto is not even recognized as a planet, so the name, Vem J. Sun works perfectly!
Grandpa Charlie taught Father the house painting business and he took to it like a duck to water! Father specialized in oiling log cabins and that took us to resort towns for the summer. We lived where the rich people lived but we camped out. We spent the summers in Pond’s Lodge, ID, West Yellowstone, MT, McCall, ID etc. Roberta and I helped Father with painting occasionally. We hauled paint hoses around and did the gofer work. There was a spray paint compressor on the back of the pick-up truck. Father would go up to the door and ask if they wanted their logs oiled and then if they wanted it, he would look the place over and quote a price. He got lots of jobs so he must have had a good spiel.
It was when I was helping Father with painting that I learned to drive. I was 12 years old when he first started teaching me to drive. He would wait until we were on a dirt road out in the country and then stop the car and let me drive. (There was a lot of coaxing and saying, "Please let me drive Father, please!) When I was 12 or 13 years old, he told me I could move Mother’s car and I backed over a stump. I was showing off for a cute boy, but it sure backfired on me. I tore the oil pan off the bottom of the car. I felt terrible but I don’t think I got in much trouble for that one. The escapade that had me grounded for the rest of the summer, was when we "borrowed" a car and took it into town. I better tell you about Martha and Susie Boyce before I go on.
We met the Boyce family camping at the State Camp Ground in McCall, ID. Lynn Boyce had been divorced and his children were put in foster homes. We met them the first summer that Lynn and his kids were back together. Lynn was a teacher and had the summer off. They were camping at the camp ground too, I think. They ended up buying a lot there in McCall and Lynn started a cabin. He built it himself. He was a big red headed guy, very funny and fun. He built an outhouse on the back of the lot with only three sides! It faced a mountain and was humiliating to use. We always heard noises in the woods when we were there doing our thing. Anyway, he had four kids, Martha, who was my age, Susie, who was Roberta’s age, Mindy who was Kathy’s age and Joel who I think came between Susie and Mindy. We went on hikes, looked for boys, swam in the lake, looked for boys, picked huckleberries, looked for boys, played golf,

looked for boys, anything girls do we did and we always were on the look-out for cute BOYS! We tried skinny dipping in the lake at night, (NO BOYS!) made picnics, went hiking and tried to get lost (never succeeded) and we stole Lynn’s car!
One day Lynn had to go somewhere and he left the girls at home. (And this is one reason why you kids were never allowed to go to other kid’s homes when their parents weren’t there!) We were all at the cabin and we wanted to go to town. Martha had the keys to the car but I guess she didn’t know how to drive it. I said I could drive but didn’t have a license. We decided to go ahead and take the car and go to town. It must have been temporary insanity. It was Martha and I and Roberta and Susie. Well, it was a stick shift and I couldn’t get it out of first gear so we drove in first gear all the way to town. When we got to town we either discovered that we needed gas or there were some cute boys at the gas station. I managed to get into the station and I think that’s when Father caught up with us. He must have been driving by and noticed us in the gas station, he walked up to the car and jerked me out of that driver’s seat before I knew what hit me. He parked Lynn’s car and drove Martha and Susie home and then it was my turn. I know I got put on restriction for the rest of the summer but I talked to Roberta and she said that she just remembered that I REALLY got in big trouble and she didn’t. That’s probably pretty fair, I was the one driving and she was a younger sister, with Susie in the back seat.
Another thing that happened to me in that camp ground in McCall, had to do with a snake. My cousin Charles "Charley" Bradshaw, was there one time and he came up to me and put his arm around me casually. I didn’t think anything of it at the time but a few seconds later, Mother came up and pointing at my light pink sweater, she asked, "what’s that?" I looked down and went into hysterics. Real, honest to goodness hysterics! Evidently Charlie found a dead snake and he had draped it around my neck when he put his arm around me. I was scared to death of snakes before that and that just added to my fear. Pretty funny huh? Charley was really sorry…afterwards.
Water always played a big part in our summer fun. At the lake in McCall, we fished and made rafts, dove into the water and had a ball. We got to go water skiing occasionally and here is a pic of a bunch of us at McCall. We dove into the river and were successful at spearing suckers and white fish in the Madison River, in West Yellowstone, Montana. The only thing was, we used wiener roasting forks and they didn’t have barbs on them. We could never land a fish. In the morning, there would be dead fish floating on the water. Pretty bad huh? There was a pond that we went to in Hailey.

I think it was when we stayed on some land owned by Owen Simpson. He had the Warm Springs Ranch and it was near there. You can see our camp in the picture to the right. Our trailer is the one to the right and the one on the left is Jack and Edith Van Ausdelen. He was one of Father's best friends. We called them Aunt Edith and Uncle Jack. There was a cold creek behind those trees and we washed many a time in that cold water! Brrr! Anyway, the pond where we played was sort of shallow and mossy, a place to wade and we made a raft there too. We did tubing on the river in Hailey too.
When we were in McCall, Idaho, on Saturdays we went to Kriegbaums Hot Springs for our weekly bath. It was a place where there was a hot springs and Mr. Kriegbaum had discovered these pools and hollowed out a drain and made these big wooden plugs for the water to be let out. You waited your turn and then when it was your turn, if the water hadn’t completely drained out from the former occupants, you sat and waited until it did. The pools were covered with flimsy shacks and you didn’t want to take all your clothes off until you had the plug back in and the water was pretty high. Teenage girls are very sensitive about things like that. Anyway, we got our once-a-week bath at Kriegbaums the girls in one and Father in the other, and then we went to church in McCall, on Sunday with Mother. Church was held in an upper room in some wooden frame building and I just remember that the floors were weathered gray wood and there were folding chairs. There were also smoke jumpers, (BOYS!) the number depended on how many fires there were going on at the time. The other thing that I remember about church there is that I developed a love of a certain song. I loved to sing, "Before Thee Lord, I Bow My Head." I could sing the alto part and I loved the harmony. To this day, that is one of my favorites.
Oh yes, between the camp ground where we stayed and a place where we could go to swim and shop at a small store, there was…a smoke jumper’s camp! We loved to walk through the camp but it was always empty when we did. Mother must have known the schedule and only let us walk through there when the smoke jumpers were out. (Here's a picture of me standing on the dock at that swimming place Father would meet guys in town and invite some of them to our campfire at night. We loved that but mostly they just talked to Father about hunting and fishing. He’s pretty good at telling stories and we were pretty young, 12 and 14y old, but a couple times a week we had cute guys at the campfire! This required hairdos and lipstick and all the other artifices that we could think of. Roberta fell in love with one of the smoke jumpers, Gordon Livingston, though and I fell for a forestry guy, named ...are you ready for this? Woody! We were both too young but it was pretty dramatic and exciting for us.
When we were camping in McCall, Father taught us how to make figure four traps or just plain boxes with a string. We baited them and waited until chipmunks came to get the goods. We captured a bunch of chipmunks and squirrels and Father made a cage for them. Then we set off to take them home to Long Beach with us. When we got to the corner of Pacific and Pacific Coast Highway in Long Beach, we had an accident. Some of the livestock got away and we wailed, seeing our summer’s work escaping. One summer, we brought home some Bantam chickens and were shocked to wake up one morning, along with the neighbors, to one of our chickens greeting the dawn with a hoarse cock a doodle doo. One of the little Banty chickens was a little Banty rooster! Woops!
As I said before, when we stayed in McCall, ID, we spent the summer playing in the lake, hiking, looking for boys, fishing etc, etc. One thing I didn’t tell about is picking huckleberries. Huckleberries are about the size of a small blueberry and you find them on bushes in the woods. You can imagine how long it takes to pick a small bucket of huckleberries! Well, Mother canned huckleberries in the summer and then we had huckleberry pancakes, huckleberry cobbler and huckleberry syrup, at home in California in the winter. We loved all these delicious things but we got tired of picking huckleberries pretty fast and there was a lot of whining and oh Mother, do we have to? Here is a picture of Mother and I in camp.
Now, there were times when we went on our own to pick huckleberries but those berries never saw the light of day. We ate as we picked. We could usually find little, wild strawberries, the size of the end of my little finger and those we just popped into our mouth as soon as we found them.

After we moved to a house in Los Altos, California, one of the daring things that we used to do is go skinny dipping in Grandma and Grandpa Corbridges swimming pool. We never went without getting permission from them and our parents but it was pretty racy stuff. We had to make sure that we weren’t seen by Von, the single male tenant who lived in the apartment next door to the pool. Hopefully Von never knew the scandalous way we behaved. Our parents and grandparents knew though. I think on those days when we said that we didn't have ANYTHING to do, they would egg us on just to get us out of their hair. We sure didn't think of skinny dipping on our own.
There were pool parties at Grandma and Grandpa’s pool too, with all the cousins. This is me diving and Larry Hoffman, cousin, and Roberta.
We dove for these huge marbles that Grandma and Grandpa had on the bottom of the pool.
There was a barbeque built into the cabana that was just in front of the pool and there were picnic tables in the cabana. Then in the pool area, there was a room with a sliding glass door, where people could sit and eat and talk and watch the swimmers. Above, you can see Aunt Hallie, with camera, Mother, sitting, Uncle Herb, sitting and Uncle Ross standing in the pool room. There was also a bathroom and shower on the left as you walked in the door to the pool. We had a lot of fun there with our family and cousins.
Mother and Father loved to fish and sometimes that meant that we either went with them for hours of fishing, miles from anywhere, or we stayed home (camp) and waited. I remember a time that Mother and Father went fishing on the Salmon river and left us in camp. As often happened, a storm blew up and we had thunder and lightening. We were so scared! We sat in the trailer and exchanged reasons that our parents were soooo mean and didn't love us, while the storm howled around us. How could they leave us like that? Well, they got back and didn't have any sympathy. THEY THOUGHT WE SHOULD HAVE GONE WITH THEM! They didn't have a storm where they went.

Our summers were a long vacation every year. We sat in tents and shivered with fright for fear of bears and moose, played in lakes, ponds and rivers, went on hikes, tubed on the river, sat around a campfire every night, washed in icy cold water, fished, picked huckleberries, had fun, got into trouble...and when we got home...it was like heaven! We appreciated our house with running water and the HUGE mirror in the bathroom and beds to sleep on, a closet to hang our clothes in that we didn't have to worry about leaking rain getting everything wet. We thought it was GREAT and we thought it was TERRIBLE!