Identity – Childhood Memories Alphabet – R

R is for Radio

    When I was a child, our family did not have a television. But we did have a radio and we did listen to it. Sometimes the reception was not too good. Many of the shows now listed as "Old Time Radio" bring back memories. Some of the shows that I can remember listening to include: Jack Benny, Fibber McGee & Molly, Amos & Andy, the Aldrich Family, Gene Autry, the Cisco Kid, Gunsmoke and the Shadow. These included comedies, westerns and mysteries. Also we listened to quite a few sports: baseball, football and basketball. Baseball included the Portland Beavers and the Eugene Emeralds. Football and basketball were mostly for Oregon State College Beavers.

R is for Rodeo

                                   Photo by Daniel Lloyd Blunk-Fernández on Unsplash

    I can remember attending at least three different rodeos. We went to the Crawfordsville Rodeo. Crawfordsville was about 15 miles from where we lived. I don't have a good memory of the rodeo itself except that my Dad took movies of it and I can remember looking at them and now have the DVD so I can watch a part of the rodeo. In my grade school scrapbook I found programs for 2 rodeos that we had attended in 1952. On the 4th of July we attended the Molalla Buckeroo. Molalla was about 70 miles from home. With the programs were our tickets which showed that our seats were in section A, Row 13, seats 5-8. I enjoyed reading the program which gave information about each one of the different events. For some of the timed events I kept track of the different times and wrote them in the program. We also attended the "World Championship Rodeo" held at the State Fair in Salem in 1952. Again I kept track of the times for some of the timed events and wrote them in the program.

Identity – Childhood Memories Alphabet – P & Q

P is for Paisley

    When I was fairly young my Mother bought a paisley skirt or dress for me to wear to school. I did not like it. I can't remember the style or the color, but only that it was paisley. Even if I didn't like it, I still had to wear it. We just weren't able to purchase that many clothes, so you wore what you had. What was interesting was, that after a while I changed my mind and I really did like that paisley outfit. So I guess it goes to show that we can't always trust our first impressions.

P is for Piano

    I began piano lessons when I was in the 3rd grade. Our school did not have any instrumental music lessons, so we were allowed to take time from school to attend a piano lesson. The piano teacher in town lived close enough to the school that we could walk there. If my parents would have had to drive to town each week for my piano lesson I am not sure I would have been able to take them. When I began lessons, my parents bought a new piano. It was spinet style and the brand name was Lester. I always thought that was neat since my father's first name was Lester. My father told me that he would be willing to pay for my piano lessons, but that he expected me to use this skill by playing at church. I have fulfilled his wishes. I took lessons for six years. It was fun to play for piano recitals, especially when we could do duets, trios and quartets. My skills were best at reading music, rather than memorizing. When I started high school I did not take lessons, but I did play for the choir so did continue improving my skills. Playing the piano is something that I still enjoy today.

Q is for Quiet

    Q is a difficult letter to use to find a memory. So I used the dictionary and looked at a number of Q words. Then I came up with quiet. Although it may be hard for people today to imagine it, I was rather quiet as a child. Maybe it was because there were not other children around for me to play with. I felt shy. I spent a lot of time reading. My Mother told me a story about my experience in the first grade. The teacher thought that I had been cheating and copying from someone else's work for my written work. So she moved me and I still did good written work, so I hadn't been copying, I just hardly ever would speak up in class. I have wondered since studying my family history that my grandfather's background as a Quaker may have influenced me to be more quiet.

Identity – Childhood Memories Alphabet – N & O

N is for Newport

   One of my favorite times during the summer was our trip to the coast, to Newport. We often were able to stay for almost a week. The timing depended on harvest times. It was between the harvesting of the grass seed and the grains. I remember that one year we were at the coast on my birthday. There is a picture in the old home movies of me with my cake. For a number of years we stayed at the Waves motel, which as I remember it was near the bluff that overlooked Nye Beach. We could walk down the street and then turn down the street that went to Nye Beach. Along the way were some stores, including one which sold candy that looked like rocks. We could play on the beach, digging in the sand, finding pretty rocks and shells, and if we were very brave we could wade in the ocean. It was so cold and we had to be very careful that the waves would not knock us down. We generally drove over to Yaquina Bay State Park and looked out at the ocean, along the jetty and watched if any boats were coming into the harbor. My Dad had a pair of field glasses and sometimes he would let us use them so we could see the boats more closely. Occasionally large vessels would be coming in and we thought that was exciting. Other things we did while in Newport included: going bowling at their bowling alley, skating at the skating rink, and an evening at the drive-in movies at the theater on the other side of the bridge. I really liked looking at the bridge at Newport. I thought it was so lovely. Now I know that are a number of these beautiful bridges on the Oregon coast, but since we mostly went to Newport, it was my favorite.

O is for Overalls

    I remember my Dad wearing blue denim bib overalls whenever he was working. He also wore them when he went duck hunting, fishing, deer hunting and elk hunting.

    One time that I wore bib overalls was in 1953 at the beginning of my freshman year in high school. It was Freshman initiation and I can't remember just how it was worded, but I ended up dressing as a "milk maid." I had on a bandanna, my Dad's bib overalls worn backwards, an old shirt and rubber boots. I carried a milk pail and a milking stool. Seeing this picture of me brings back this memory.

Identity – Childhood Memories Alphabet – M

M is for Mop

    I'm afraid that I didn't use a mop for its intended purpose very often. But I did take an old mop and used it like a doll. Since it was a string mop, if you turned it upside down it had hair. So then I had a friend I could talk to. Since we lived out in the country, in the summer there were no friends of my age around. Sometimes my brother who was three years younger just wasn't enough. I seemed to have a number of imaginary friends and a mop just made it more real.

M is for Mountains

    I grew up living in the Willamette Valley. Since a valley is by definition between a range of hills or mountains, mountains were always there on both sides, although some miles away. To the East were the Cascade Mountains. Although this range of mountains includes at least five peaks with an elevation of over 10,000 feet, I was able to see only one of these from our area, Mount Jefferson. The weather had to be good and I had to be in just the right position to see the tip top of this mountain.

   When I looked to the West I saw the Coast Range and its highest point, Marys Peak, at almost 4,100 feet. When we would turn off Highway 99E and head down the last two miles to our house, Marys Peak would be there almost like it was guiding the way. During the winter there would usually be some snow, like a cap on the top. And of course, many times fog or clouds would hide the top from our sight. I can remember that we took some trips up to the top of Marys Peak and if you used the field glasses you could almost see our house, or at least the area where it was.

    Two mountains that I remember that I only saw a few times were Mt. Bailey and Mt. Thielsen which are on the opposite sides of Diamond Lake. When we went fishing there and were sitting in the boat, it was so fun to look up to those mountains. They seemed so different: one was pillow like shaped and the other with a jagged top.

Identity – Childhood Memories Alphabet – K & L

K is for Kittens

Photo by The Lucky Neko on Unsplash

It was so much fun to have kittens around. Our animals lived outside and usually we had at least one dog and a couple of cats. As outside living cats, every so often there would be a batch of new kittens. Usually they were many different colors. Often they did not survive to be adults cats. There are some neat home movies that my Dad took that show kittens.

L is for Lady Bug

According to the dictionary a lady bug is a lady bird, which is a small brightly colored beetle. However we always called them lady bugs. When we would see one we would begin reciting the old saying, "Lady bug, lady bug, fly away home." I always thought they were so pretty. Here is a clip art version of one.

Identity – Childhood Memories Alphabet – I & J

I is for Icicle

    Because the weather generally was not extremely cold, we did not have lots of icicles. But when it was really cold, we could have icicles. Icicles could be beautiful. Sometimes they could get very long. Although I didn't like to be cold, I still could enjoy looking at icicles.

J is for Jelly

    I don't remember eating much jelly at our house. One year my Mom made prune conserve since we had two prune trees. She made a lot of prune conserve, so we ate it for many years. When I was about 12, I attended 4H Summer School. One of the classes I attended was how to get juice from berries in order to make jelly. It included a kit with cellulose papers (like unscented Kleenex) and a bag and a metal frame. So when I came home, I wanted to try it out and our farm had many blackberry bushes out in the woods. So I went blackberry picking and used my new kit to squeeze out enough clear juice to make a batch of blackberry jelly. It turned out fairly well, but since we didn't eat a lot of jelly, I didn't make lots of it.

Identity – Childhood Memories Alphabet – H

H is for Hair

    As I was growing up, my Mother did not cut my hair. Mostly I had two braids. So I did not fix my own hair. I'm afraid that I was envious of girls who had curly hair. Because even when my braids were undone, my hair was only wavy straight. Also I thought it would be so neat to have red hair, but mine was and still is rather a plain light brown. [This was originally written about 10 years ago.]   It was when I was 9 years old, in the 4th grade, my Mom took me to a beauty parlor and my braids were cut off and I had a permanent. Mostly after that, my Mom gave me Toni home permanents and later I gave her home permanents.

H is for Hunting    

    My Dad did a lot of hunting. I can remember knowing that he went out early on winter mornings and hunted ducks and geese. We ate both of these when he was successful. I especially liked duck when my Mother would boil the duck(s) and take the meat off the bones and then roast it with bread dressing. In the fall, he usually went deer and elk hunting in Eastern Oregon. One of our friends and neighbors had served in World War II and had met a man from Eastern Oregon who invited him to come over and hunt after the war was over. This neighbor invited my Dad to go along. This became a tradition of about 25 years. They hunted in a group and usually there was venison and elk meat to eat each year. I liked both of these types of meat. One year my Dad decided to try bow hunting and he and some friends when to southeast Oregon and hunted antelope. Antelope meat was OK, but I like the others a little better. He also tried deer hunting with a bow and arrow.

   One of the special events for my Dad was the year he was invited by a different neighbor to join a group going to British Columbia to hunt. The original person was not able to go, so my Dad was a substitute to fill out the group. This was a guided hunt and most was by horseback. He hadn't ridden a horse for many years, but survived OK. He did shoot a moose, but was able to only bring back the horns. Other people who had shot moose shared their meat. They had the meat made into frankfurters. Even a part of a moose makes a large amount of frankfurters. We called them moose wienies and before they were used up I was really becoming tired of eating them.